Perfect for pedants' corner

I think you can be as "brev" (sic) as you like, but still no excuse for bad manners!

Plus the varying font thing, damned sloppy if you ask me. (I know you didn't but thought I'd say it anyway!)

Sometimes Phoenix brevity is used to indicate importance (or lack of it)

There are times when it matters, and times when it doesn't.

There are also times when it perhaps shouldn't matter but the person reading it thinks it does.

So, for things like covering letters for employment applications, where there is more at stake than getting your point across so that it is understood, it's as well to be able to get it right.

Yesterday I sent my CV and a covering email to an employment agency. I said that I would very much appreciate it if they could confirm receipt.

The reply came (from a Director) with a different font in the text to that used in his footer. I reproduce the reply verbatim:

"Received and forwarded to one of our consultants, who will contact you if they have a position to discuss with you."

No Dear Phoenix, no thank you for submitting your CV, no nuffink!

Ana oh heck, I missed off 'day'. So it's even No, never a pedant - all about the bigger picture. Jo yes, I do think things evolve, we're the product of education in the 50/60s - it would be amazing if children were still being taught exactly what we were 50-60 years later- something would be very wrong. I learnt so much at school which I've never utilised - rarely do I refer back to my Domestic Science and needlework skills! Learning to touch type would have been far more useful.

My only comment on the subject of stu is

Dont you think the English language is a bit like a stuffed shirt , <ducks...... its ok I am off to bed> but it could do with updating

I think I agree with you Sel. I want my grandkids to learn to express themselves clearly, but I don't think there is any need for the technical stuff behind it. I could never understand it anyway. I can clearly remember the point in school when I realised English grammar was not going to be comprehensible to me.

See - you are a pedant at heart! I did that on purpose to entrap you...

Ana I have just noticed you missed off a ? It must have been trying

Ana Hmmmmm. I was mystified.

(Not very elegantly put, but I've had a trying day...)
No offence, Sel.

Well, you might as well say "What's the point of Pedants' Corner" Sel!
It's for pedants - so that's what!

gracesmum I appreciate it's what you write that matters but, actually communication is what matters. It evolves. The rules of English Grammar, at this level, matter not a jot in the wider world. I have many emails from people for whom English is not their first language - as long as I can understand the meaning that's fine, I don't 'mark' them.

For many people speed is of the essence - my style of writing has changed beyond recognition - from the days of learning the 'correct' salutations and endings' in a typed letter to the emails of today.

I would personally hate children to go through the English Grammar torture I went through and would much prefer they learnt a love of reading.

I did score highly but my point is, so what?

Sorry - this was in answer to Sel's comment - bit of a time lag here!

Whether or not you write it by hand is not the point though is it? it's what you write and whether using Times New Roman on an an iPad or "joined up writing" with a quill pen if it's right it's right and if it's wrong, it's not!

It's just a rubbish article. It starts off talking about testing year 6 children (11 year olds?) and then goes on to say "Take our quiz for students, teachers and grammar fans".

Who is it supposed to be aimed at?

Don't think it's passive, Bags, but I agree that the subordinate clause is conditional, for which English uses a residual subjunctive. Brain now hurting, off to bed. In a minute.

Crikey, how old are we? My Mum would have loved this My progress in life has never suffered from a lack of knowledge of the deepest, darkest recesses of the rules of English grammar. In the US, some forty States no longer teach pupils how to write but they teach keyboard skills. If you think about it, when did you last write anything by hand?

This seems archaic. Teach kids to read but not this.

Oh, phoenix you fiery creature!

NellieMoser Lol

Ditto

11 . I've never heard of a gerund either and didn't know how to tell the 'active' one. Got careless for the preposition - but I knew it really. I'll try it again tomorrow by which time I'll have forgotten the questions.

I feel [smug], but then I'm a sad soul.

Bags absent is a fairly grumpy old woman most of the time, but not invariably.

Lilygran , as evry fule nose, Ethics is a county in the South Eatht