Whatever happened to grammar and spelling?

I used to get so irritated by misplaced apostrophes and fed up with students who obviously failed to read or understand my carefully devised study guides, that my ultimate message to them was: 'if in doubt, leave it out.' I think George Bernard Shaw would have agreed with this.

I also think that it is nothing new. You must remember from teaching, Lilygran, how illiterate letters from parents could be. I started teaching in the early seventies so those parents must have been at school in the fifties and sixties.

Well, greengrocers are greengrocers. So long as they are communicating what's important to them, they won't be too bothered about the grammatical correctness or otherwise of apostrophes. I sympathise. Yes, it would be nice if they could get it right, but it doesn't really matter except to pedants on apostrophe spotting exercises.

Likewise with the seemingly casual 'Soz'. Maybe that's all that person hears. Surely if they mean they are sorry and that message is conveyed, the actual expression of sorrow doesn't count.

I do think it's just grumpy to complain about these things all the time. It's fine on here of course, just for the hell of it, but I do think it's worth frequently reminding oneself about what actually matters: greengrocers don't actually need a high standard of grammar to do their jobs and a soz is as good as a sorry if the apology is real. It's easy to tell.

Wrongly or badly written letters from "utility service providers" [yuck! emoticon] are annoying too, but apart from the pleasure of picking holes in their grammar and diction, does it really matter? I don't think one can reasonably expect someone doing a badly paid, boring office job to do more than repeat the gobbledegook and jargon they hear all day.

I'm not talking about formal exercises but about how people speak and write when they aren't doing it for a test. The grocers' apostrophe has taken over and, for example, 'Soz' is fine for 'Sorry' with a friend but not, it seems to me, if you are a shop assistant to a customer you have failed to serve efficiently. We regularly get business letters that are almost incomprehensible because of strange verb forms and 'sentences' wandering everywhere but to a conclusion. I'm pretty good at understanding accents and dialects as I taught English and ESOL for many years but I find I'm defeated by some interviewees on television. I could offer lots more examples but I might sound like a crabby old woman.

Can't agree about European countries, either Lilygran. The standard of written French I see in some of the children who come to me for English coaching is often quite dreadful. I sometimes end up teaching them French spelling / grammar as well.
I would also be genuinely interested in the evidence for your comment about, "The desirability of adapting the way you speak and write to the context is not getting through. If it is taught". I have seen hundreds of children's English books where it is quite clear that they understand writing for different audiences and in different genres and have also observed hundreds of lessons where it is being taught, and taught well. Are you talking about a particular age group? It just doesn't match what I have seen in lessons.

Not on forums like this though. It's important for formal writing to be correct, but not informal.

But there is still good writing being done in British English, lily, so it must be "getting through". The fact that not everyone can write well is nothing new. It is a highly refined skill and I think it's unreasonable to expect most people to be able to do it. That said, I agree that bad writing is annoying.

To go back to my previous rant on this thread, MiceElf while I agree completely with what you say about regional variations in usage and although I accept English language is taught in schools, the idea of a standard form seems to be a problem. The desirability of adapting the way you speak and write to the context is not getting through. If it is taught. It doesn't seem to cause a problem in other European countries and I think it must be because as usual it is seen as a class issue here.

Just caught up with this thread. I would tend to disagree with 'I was sat down' as being ungrammatical. It is a regional variation of standard English, just as the response 'Did he not?' is typically northern instead of the southern 'Didn't he?'

In the same way Londoners regularly use 'He done it' for 'He did it'. It grates on northern ears, but a perfectly usual regional usage. In the west country 'I were going' is often heard. It isn't standard English but is a regular regional variation and universally understood.

Provided those who use these variations can employ the standard usage in formal and written communications, it really doesn't matter and adds to the variety and interest of the English language.

Good morning Mamie. I am happy not to have to think about differential calculus ever again! But I don't think it is part of your life the way that reading and writing are.

And for all the nitpickers, here is the notice on the fridge where I work:

Students fridge
Please label your foodstuff
if you wish to avoid disposal

Happy Friday everyone

Funny how we get all these threads about spelling and grammar, but not many about "Whatever happened to differential calculus?", isn't it?

I'm a grammar, spelling and punctuation pedant and make no apology! Errors just jump off the page at me and assault my senses. I admit to erasing or obliterating erroneous apostrophes whenever possible!
Although spelling and punctuation were emphasised when I was at school, grammar was, bizarrely, overlooked, and I have never formally been able to tell my adverb from my pronoun.
I have however always been an avid reader, and perhaps I developed an eye for correct usage because of this.
My daughters, aged between 24 and 32, all write and spell beautifully, and I think my input during their school years was probably a contributory factor. I was never aware of poor marking by their teachers, but then again their homework did not often contain errors as they would always ask me for guidance when unsure!
When it comes to texting, I find that the youngsters in my life very quickly revert to 'proper' English after exchanging just a couple of texts with me. I always write in full, and, interestingly, they respond in kind very quickly!

I have been very irritated lately by reference to "Topless photos of Kate" surely it should be "photos of Kate topless". Kate was topless not the photos. There are many similar incidences, unfortunately quite often on the BBc news, which I always rephrase to myself.

I found it worked the other way round for me, Anno - in other words, the grammar I learned in Latin and French helped me to understand the finer points of English grammar.

At school, I found that my good grounding in grammar in primary school stood me in good stead when I came to learn Latin and French and, later, Greek. My younger son, a victim of 70s and 80s education, decided to catch up on Spanish at University but discovered that he didn't understand the grammatical terms used. I had to send him the study guide I compiled for my mature students. On the other hand, my granddaughter, now 20, attended a primary school that paid great attention to grammar and punctuation. Despite being dyslexic, she does know what to do with apostrophes.

Grossman's accent is mid-Atlantic, but the Boston accent is very like his. I would say Boston and New York accents are are as different and distinct as Edinburgh and Glasgow. Boston is the Jean Brodie equivalent!

One thing that puzzles me - how can you use the Internet if you can't spell? If I don't know a name and make a stab at it, Google gives me what it thinks is right and an alternative but if I didn't have some inkling I would waste a lot of time. Also, how do you know if spell checker is right? Just been glancing through a booklet 'The Liza Doolittle Syndrome' by Michael Wallerstein (don't bother) and a lot of the mistakes he complains about are actually caused by spell checker and grammar checker. As long as its actually a word, spell checker will let you write any old rubbish!

Nobody else speak like Lloyd Grossman. He must have been born and brought up in the middle of the Atlantic, halfway between Britain and America!

Does anybody else in Boston speak like Lloyd Grossman?

Which bit of America? My American sister-in-law and my American nieces and nephew don't talk like that.

I don't follow the 'thuh' thing! Churchill certainly had very good speech writers.

@Marigiold : "My pet hate is 'thuh' before words beginning with a vowel - it's an awful Americanism which has nothing to do with 'textspeak'. For example;- Thuh Earth, thuh East, thuh arm, thuh ice, etc."

Just as bad, to my ear, is pronouncing it 'thee' before a consonent - one of John Cleese's habits, I remember!

@Greatnan : Churchill said 'This is the sort of English up with which I will not put' - he was on your side, ridiculing it. His use of the language was superb.

I send texts but I don't use textspeak. It feels silly at my age!
Agree, netty about 'lend' as in "Can I lend a fiver?" And 'borrow' as in "Can you borrow me a fiver?"....

I think we are all singing from the same hymn sheet! Except I don't want or need to use textspeak. I don't send texts.

Not many of us getting pished Bags, but it's a start. As long as we don't drop our aitches and leave our modifiers dangling.....