A view from the other side......

here

Thanks, Butty. Have you noticed how people who have a rant against the language police nearly always avoid errors in their own prose and speech?

I suspect editing was spot on with that article!

Like it Butty !!

I'm afraid I will always be a pedant....

This is genuinely copied and pasted from an email i received yesterday. How many spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors can one small email contain?

Dear Customer,

We are rally sorry for all inconvenience ,
As problem has been shorted out.
Please now you can redeem your voucher with success.
please accept apology

Thanks

Thank & Regards,
Jenny
Customer Services

God! I thought someone had died!

#fromtheotherside...........

And they had decided that Pedants' Corner on GN was the ideal forum to contact those of us not, quite, in the spirit world yet. Yes, I can see the logic in that JO

Oh, who reads the heading, Kali? (Apart from you, obviously )

Not O. 0.

Obviously

Nice one J0

Does the 07 mean you're licences to kill?

She's got a funny idea about Creole. I don't see how anyone can justify management speak and I would add politician speak to that too. They are both designed to baffle and confuse and create a sense of superiority in the speaker.

I appreciate that there are lots of x Teachers on GN and I very much appreciate that they have a love for word and rightly so, but IMHO I think sometimes xTeachers on GN do forget that we do not all have that flair with words or give it the same importance.

IMHO I feel that-- some-- x Teachers never loose their Authoritarian manner, like a bobby never being off the job.

I am quite open minded about my thoughts however and do very much believe that Teachers are important people. I still very much remember the Teacher that was very kind to us pupils, she encoraged us loads and I will never forget her as she was like a second Mother to us all.

I do think there is a lot of pseudo intellectual snobbery re spelling and grammar and the link is poking a bit of fun at those people who enjoy pointing out others mistakes!

I am an ex teacher but also a poor speller..always had to check /use a dictionary. Sorry if I come across as bossy sometimes... old habits are hard to lose!

However I am not a pedant..I believe communication is the most important thing, especially on informal forum such as this.

I do think if it is a formal situation then correct spelling/grammar is more important especially if it is part of a business communication/ application for a job where writing is part of the work. In such circumstances being able to use a dictionary or spelling & grammar check is the best skill!

OK I will stick my head above the parapet and reply as an ex teacher.
1) I don't think I do have or have ever exercised an "authoritarian manner" outside the appropriate context i.e. the classroom.
2) being a teacher or not has nothing to do with love for language or appreciating the importance of accurate language
3)I am glad you have happy memories of one of your teachers and that you believe they are important people - so do I along with doctors, nurses, bus and train drivers, social workers, carers, shop assistants, lawyers, cooks, bottlewashers and people such as my own mother who did not go out to work.
4)Having a flair with language is not even necessarily anything to do with formal education - look at some of the great poets without any formal education like Clare or Burns. And for the opposite listen to "management speak" or some of those dreadful public figures like politicians who think that long windedness = godliness and why use one word if a long convoluted sentence will do!
5) Finally, an argument against pedants is often to say that language is constantly changing and developing and should not be "set in stone" but inaccurate language use can also obscure meaning and even lead to serious consequences - like the paediatrician2 or 3 years ago who was hounded out by a mob who thought the word meant paedophile.
This is not meant in any sort of aggressive or even assertive way, but
IMHO language is important -precisely because it is our means of comunication. And nobody should be made to feel they can't voice an opinion without the need to apologise for their profession.

This is called 'Pedants' Corner' after all. Isn't complaining about misused language like complaining about bad parking or the state of the country? It's entertaining and harmless. By the way, there was an archive programme last night on the great freeze of 1963 which I and my DH remember very well. But the most striking aspect of it was how well all the presenters spoke! I don't mean because they used the kind of RP which sounds very affected now - even Her Maj doesn't sound like that any more. It was the fact that they spoke in proper sentences, no malapropisms or strange mixed metaphors. Such a pleasant change.

Gracesmum
I could not agree more!
I do think however, that posters should not be critisised on the thread on which they are posting, unless its an obvious typo.
Other common errors can be raised under the pedants thread!

I have to admit to a couple of idiosyncratic foibles:-
1 A hatred of split infinitives
2 a phobia of ending sentences with a preposition!

Having said all that.

Me grammar ain't all as perfect as it should be!

Love for language is not confined to teaching. I'm not an ex-teacher. I loathed school but loved language, stories, spelling and grammar, learning new words, TV quizzes, writing and games like crosswords and scrabble. Some people carry on learning new skills like DIY and crafts, and when they discuss the ins and outs of jobs they are doing, my eyes glaze over, but I read avidly discussions about use of language. I know some people don't express themselves articulately about language, or spell very word correctly, but I usually know what they mean. That's fine - I don't have the vocabulary to talk about the workings of my car or central heating system, which puts me at a disadvantage. It's six of one and half a dozen of the other.

gracesmum, thanks. An authoritative answer but definitely not authoritarian.