AIBU in thinking emails from a company should be spelled correctly?

I understand that some folk are just not good at spelling in the same way that some are not good at maths. When I was much younger and worked as a secretary we had typewriters, not computers. I typed a long letter for a very clever academic. He returned it to me with the word 'accommodation' scored out and he had rewritten it with only one 'c'. I had to re-type the whole letter, even though my original was correct. But a huge bugbear of mine is how many people are unable to use appropriate spellings of their/there, too/to, etc. And lack of or misuse of apostrophies and commas. A lot of them are my generation, and people who I know are not dyslexic and who had good education. I've worked for managers who dont seem to know what a comma is, and it can sometimes make things difficult to read or understand. These are simple things to learn and we were taught them at school.

I'm trying to fill in a questionnaire from a pension company - it asks for my preferred email address, plus an 'alternate' address.

In the US, alternate is used as alternative but here it has, or used to have, a different meaning!

As an ex teacher of children with learning difficulties ( the bottom sets in a mainstream Secondary school) I sometimes made mistakes when writing on the board - my brain working faster than my hands!

However, I would welcome someone pointing out my mistakes and rewarded children with merits if they spotted any - and admitted it! In fact, sometimes I would deliberately make a mistake and ask them to correct it.

With all the new computer equipment in classrooms ie smart boards, there really is no excuse as most work is now typed out so teachers should use spellcheck.

I was born in 1956 in Manchester at a time when it led the way in "progressive" education and was never taught joined up writing or grammar so I'm afraid my handwriting is rather childlike and I struggle with apostrophes! My parents did not agree with the Comprhensive system when Manchester introduced it ( earlier than most Local Authorities) so I went to a very small Church of England High School where I was taught to be a "young lady" and not much else! So I still do not eat in the street but have no understanding of physics!

35 years ago during a meal with primary teachers in attendance I mentioned I'd received a letter from a solicitor's office. Not only did it contain spelling mistakes but also wrong calculations. Most of the teachers commented "oh but you'd know what they were meaning". Never forgotten that. It therefore doesn't matter the standard as long as you get the gist of the writing. Seems to apply even more nowadays.

Spelling tests-I remember them, so does my daughter and so do my grandchildren but the teacher told my daughter there were three sorts of spellers- those who don’t/ can’t learn them for a test, those who can get 10/10 in a test but not remember to use them in their work and those lucky ones who could do both. Her expectation was that children in her class would be in the 3rd group unless there was a good reason why not. My daughter always checks any notes sent into school VERY carefully!

Maybe you don't get annoyed with wrong spelling, Lin54... ;-)

Dash In A Rush, Run Hard Or Else Accident

I never forgot how to spell this after learning the above !

One of my hates is bad spelling and I always have to resist the urge to email back and point out the error!
A few years ago, some bright spark in the education department decided that spelling didn't matter - other things, such as finding out how many paper clips it would take to reach the moon and just putting down words phonically was ok.
Now it's swung round the other way completely and they use terminology in "humanities" that I swear that only someone locked in a box for a month and told to make them up could come up with! But will they actually be able to string letters together correctly I wonder?
I bet we can all remember the spelling tests we had to endure that have just been reintroduced in some schools!

My OH just caught me in tears of laughter at these posts. But it’s seriously worrying. Rosina - how can someone teach if they won’t spell correctly and then, typically, go on the offensive when are caught out? I think spelling is something you just can or can’t do. I’ve worked with some brilliant minds who couldn’t spell. It never seems an indicator of intelligence. But, if you read a job application, an advertisement, anything by someone you’ve never met, most of us tend to make the judgement that the writer is not the sharpest tool in the box? It’s not hard to check what we write is correct and I think quite sloppy and disrespectful not to make the effort. However, we live increasingly in an age when no one bothers about much if it means they have to up their game and give something 100%, so good grammar, spelling and speech will undoubtedly be amongst the casualties.

I was marking quiz answers recently and was shocked at the number of spelling mistakes. The participants were not youngsters and were all apparently well educated. One team managed to make 8 spelling mistakes in 10 questions! Dyslexia? However there is no excuse on emails as spellchecker works most of the time.

Although irritating, I think there are much more important things in life to get annoyed about!

A gentle and non aggresive friend noticed two errors in a list of spellings that her son had brought home from school - he was ten. She ticked him off for copying them incorrectly, and the next day he came home and said that was how they had been written on the whiteboard. Friend called in the classroom after school to quietly point this out to the teacher and was met with hostility, and told 'Perfectionists have a hard time in this life'. To say she was incredulous would not begin to describe it, and when she asked what the point was in teaching the wrong spellings, she was asked to leave.

Swimming timetable - not spelling - but!!!
12.30pm - 04.00pm - aaaargh there’s no such time. Just watch - it’ll become the normal way we see timetables very soon!

I am much less annoyed by poor spelling after having two very dyslexic children.

AGAA4 - the KS2 English tests taken by all Y6s (aged 10 or 11) in state schools is ridiculously old-fashioned. I had a very traditional education in English decades ago, and there are things they're expected to know that I'd never heard of.

There is no excuse for spelling mistakes online, when there are wavy red lines to warn you of errors and green ones for punctuation and grammar.
Some people simply can't be bothered.

Not that they should, but "there" and "stationary" !

Grrenfinch that is !!!!

You are quite right Auntieflo just as I was perturbed to read that students should provide there own stationary in my granddaughter's school information booklet.

Looking at the items for sale on local village Facebook pages, I really despair.

Yes, there are the usual "chest of draws" posts, (once even "Chester draws")

Recently have seen

"warn once"

"Dose anyone have"

"Trailor for sale"

Sorry, perhaps should be in Pedants Corner!

That's shocking AGAA4. It just seems they don't understand the practical use of numbers and letters in the real world. We bought six cups of tea from a stall at a fete some years ago. The girl couldn't add up the cost of six cups of tea and she was supposed to be running the tea stall. I think they were 40p each or something. We were astonished. I think I would have written down the cost of 6 cups, 7 cups, 8 cups etc. if I couldn't work it out, so I could just look at the total on a piece of paper to save looking stupid.

It is sad to realise that the standard of English being taught is not good enough. When I worked in a library many years ago a young woman came to be my assistant. She had an A level in English. I asked her if she would shelve some books in A - Z order. She wanted me to check that she had got it right ,which I thought a bit odd. When I checked not one was correct. She never improved and I ended up doing it all myself.

Auntieflo if you did not know better that could easily have been a scam. It shows the company, in my opinion, in poor light.

Considering we have had free education for the last 100 years it seems people have not taken advantage of that. We also have spelling and grammar checks for those who have not mastered those skills. But it seems the more you give people the less they can be bothered to take advantage of what's available.

I hate poor spellings. Reporters can't spell either or the BBC. They certainly don't know the difference between words such as licence and license. A smattering of Latin teaching at school could help sort out poor spelling as you really have to understand grammar to get a handle on it.

I remember my Latin teacher instilling me that 'ice' is a noun and 'is' a verb so that applies to words with those endings. Also, mnemonics like ' big elephants can't always use small entrances' helps to remember how to spell because.