Grammar

That is interesting, Elderly Person. Besides average and median
there is also mode (I think) which I have forgotten.

Median and average can be illustrated by an example.

Suppose please that five people work at a shop.

Two work on the counter, one also works on the counter but also orders some of the stock, one deputises for the manager when the manager is away, one is the manager.

Put their salaries in order from low to high.

£16000, £16000, £18000, £24000, £40000

The average salary is found by adding them up and dividing by how many there are.

So that is £114000 in total and there are 5 of them, so divide the £114000 by 5, giving £22800 as the average salary.

The median salary is the salary that has an equal number of salaries lower and above it.

So as there are 5 salaries, the median salary is the one that has 2 salaries below it and 2 salaries above it.

So for that example, the median salary is £18000.

I know we were taught all these things in school; some things will stay with us always. Unfortunately we all learn differently and I often find some people that are brilliant at math/mechanics are terrible at spelling/grammar. I think it is hard not to judge. I used to scoff at a certain manager that would leave terrible errors in his emails; I was surprised the company HQ didn't send him for English upgrade lessons. But he was very intelligent in a different way.

I have issues with certain spellings, some mentioned above. All the words with double consonants...thank goodness for spell-check or I would get necessary and occasionally wrong every time.

While I try to be careful, I am not a pedant. Some things jump out at me, but common usage makes certain things seem normal. It's a bit of an eye-opener reading this thread; makes me a bit nervous!

I don't think I am too bad for my spelling/grammar, but don't ask me to define the different between median and average in a range of numbers, or figure out the hypotenuse of a triangle.

I think the singular possessive apostrophe evolved from e.g. 'Monday his child is fair of face' . That's to say the possessive apostrophe denotes a missing word or letter.

I tend not to sweat the small stuff but every time I see something grammatically questionable I give thanks to my Mum for an excellent and elongated education. Many people are not that fortunate.

In some cases an apostrophe is correct. Some examples:
"Monday's child is fair of face,"
"Tuesday's meeting has been cancelled"
But it is not correct when simply listing the days of the week - even if they are plural eg "On Mondays we do the washing"

Return back - grrrr!

My new phone which is not yet fully trained yet, sends some very interesting messages.

The easy way to distinguish between practice and practise is to note that the word ice is a noun. And the spelling as practice denotes its use as a noun.

Chardy, I was taught James', that was in a Glasgow school.

I also taught James' in my own school, which was the school policy.

So it could be a regional thing. I enjoy finding out about the origins of language.?

Marydoll I was educated in south (but I don't remember ever being taught that), that incident happened in the East Midlands.

(My personal favourite is Princess's or better maybe Princesses')

Advice & advise sound different so its easier to remember. Practice & practise sound the same but follow the same rules.

That’s the one I couldn’t remember Grannynannywanny!

What about defiantly writing and saying definately instead of definitely?

Affect/effect is another I see a lot.
The effects of the pandemic are affecting a lot of people badly.

And quite a lot of people write ‘discrete’ when they mean ‘discreet’, evidently not realising that it means something quite different.

Practice is the noun: He went to piano practice.
Practise is the verb: I must practise my scales.

Advice is the noun: Please take my advice.
Advise is the verb: I would advise you to take my advice!

I was always taught that if you have two cots you need two mattresses (that is two cs and two ms.
Also for ‘necessary’ (often wrongly spelled) We were told it is necessary for a shirt to have one collar but two sleeves.
When I was teaching I often saw misspellings of course. The ones that most annoyed me were rigid/ridged, accept/except, and others I have momentarily forgotten! These are not picked up by spell check of course.

My bugbear is accommodation, or rather the correct spelling.
At school, I was kept behind to write it 100 times - I missed my bus (no phone in those days) and it was after 5pm before I was home - my Mum was worried I’d had an accident,

I’m still ridiculous OTT over the spelling and once corrected it on several cards offering late availability holidays in a local travel shop! My daughters were mortified!!
It still grates on me to this day, especially when I heard on a radio programme that 7 out of 10 people get it wrong - so whether I get it right or not seems immaterial. WTF??

I believe James' and James's are both considered grammatically correct nowadays. I suppose it depends on how you were taught to write it at school.

I would be curious to find out if it depends on which part of the country you are from. ?

I was writing a school report for James and used "James's". I had the report returned to re-write. I declined, suggesting that if it was that important to them, they could re-write it.

Did you once live in H......

Yes I do that with French as well Fennel rearrange the sentence.

Good idea Welbeck.
Re-arrange the sentence. I used to (!) do that a lot when I was trying to speak french.

Fennel

I wrote something in a letter the other day which didn't look quite right, but I couldn't think of another way of putting it. Here it is:
"Did you used to live in H-----?
What do you think?

used you to live in nw london ?

is i think the correct form. but it sounds clunky now.
how about find another phrase, did you ever live in..., or have i misremembered/ thought i once saw you there/ or was it hornsey ?
it's often easier to re-arrange the sentence if you are not sure.
by the way, before anyone starts, i may be an admirer of k d lang; or then again i may just be a follower of welbeckian style.
toodle-pip.

I think it's quite amusing to find the mistakes, but I am becoming increasingly aware that typos and finger slips, not to mention occasional spelling mistakes are creeping into my writing. I blame technology. It has made me a little more sympathetic. And the Geordie accent and phrases I was supposed to wipe out when I first started teaching have now become quite fashionable. It does of course (as I used to teach) reflect in your writing.
So I'm gannin to get me bait an yousll all ave te de without me.

I wrote something in a letter the other day which didn't look quite right, but I couldn't think of another way of putting it. Here it is:
"Did you used to live in H-----?
What do you think?

Good on ya, Marydoll