A pedant on Facebook - moi?

RosiesMaw

I'm giving up eating chocolate for a month.

Sorry, bad punctuation.

I'm giving up. Eating chocolate for a month.

😆🤣😂

I'm giving up eating chocolate for a month.

Sorry, bad punctuation.

I'm giving up. Eating chocolate for a month.

unbelievable Juliet27 and from the BBC.

I was watching an episode of Bargain Hunt recently where valuable antique playing cards were shown. Wording on one of them was ‘No gain’s without pain’s’. How did that ever get past checks?

Yes, I silently cringe at poor grammar too. Can I get…I should of…

It’s like nails running down a blackboard. I had strict teachers at school who would correct your grammar in every lesson, along with spellings, so that is an irritation too, when I receive letters or see phrases on social media with poor grammar and spellings. None of us are perfect and I doubt I would tell someone. It’s just irritating.

Oh yes icanhandthe back. My DH always leaves off the ‘ly’. It drives me to distraction.

What has happened to adverbs?

They are what make me shout at the tv. I spend most of the evening shouting, "It's got LY on the end!"

Chester draws is one and gotten is my other pet hate!

ferry23 - I’m afraid one if my pet hates is the use of ‘So’ at the beginning of a sentence! 😂
Here’s another one (is it just me who finds this annoying?) - ‘living my best life’. You’ve only got one life, so how can you have a best one? 🤔 Perhaps if you’re a bigamist!?
What has happened to adverbs? ‘Live happy’ instead of ‘live happily’. 🤔

I absolutely hate “me and my friends” instead of “my friends and I”. And haitch rather than aitch. Grrrrrrr

Well, since gransnet has a fair percentage of people who were teachers, with children who also teach....

Did they fail their pupils?

Thx Ferry, agreed, and with just about everyone else. You missed the "different" between totally and subjects -- or perhaps "separate"?

F'book is indeed a nightmare, I'd heard that the education system largely failed in English - perhaps other subjects too - from about 40 years ago onwards, but the degree of that failure is always depressing to see.

Would of, could of, might of (even with the occasional ov in place of the of) all pop up on a regular basis, I think some mobile phones have been programmed to auto-correct to them? Plural's regularly draw an apostrophe (when asked "banana's WHAT" the perpetrators have no answer), and their, they're & there are pretty much the same to some folk?

People in this village with quite good jobs have some appalling English, spelling, grammer, the work's . . . .

Verbally the "very unique" is indeed irritating, and to listen to teenage girls saying something like (!) "she was like, and I was like, and her mum was like . . ." gets me to the point of reaching for a baseball bat that I sadly don't possess for such occasions.

Once in a while I get asked if I watch Eastenders, and I tend to say that no, I avoid it since working in London and hearing real life people apparently programmed to say "Orrite, woss apnin, yeah, innit?" for much of the day.

Midell

'One of the only.' If there is actually only one then it is the 'only one'. If there is more than one then it might be one of only two (or ten or however many). It isn't possible to be one of the only. Hear this even on the BeeB

I would say "one of the only ..." as a synonym of "One of the few ...".

It may not please the everyone, but language is first and foremost a spoken thing, and grammar 'rules' as we know them are an artificial afterthought, an artificial attempt to impose 'rules' on something that has always evolved, and continues to evolve, naturally. Apart from anything else, that is why we have so many irregular verbs - when scholars decided to try to rationalise our language, it was way too late to 'correct' the many irregularities that they encountered.

Grammar is not immutable. It has to be revised from time to time to keep up with current usage. Honestly, how many of you would ask "to whom am I speaking?" rather than "Who am I speaking to?"

That said, I can be as pedantic as the next person when it suits me. 😁

Amalegra

I, like many people here, enjoy grammar! I am sad to see its decline. I am lucky to have studied both English and Latin grammar which I loved and found sublimely rigorous! I blame the evil of predictive text for much of the dreadful spelling and expression we see so often on social media. The lack of proper checking before pressing that send button is caused by haste, perhaps, but also by laziness! Perhaps I too am something of a pedant these days!

Absolutely Amalegra. It's much easier to read what you expect to read when it's typewritten rather than handwritten.

Along with trigonometry, playing the recorder and algebra, I struggled at school to see how Latin would be relevant to my adult life. But those three years of Latin - dreaded at the time - were three of the most valuable of my entire education!

I, like many people here, enjoy grammar! I am sad to see its decline. I am lucky to have studied both English and Latin grammar which I loved and found sublimely rigorous! I blame the evil of predictive text for much of the dreadful spelling and expression we see so often on social media. The lack of proper checking before pressing that send button is caused by haste, perhaps, but also by laziness! Perhaps I too am something of a pedant these days!

So I've got two applicants for a job that doesn't require high levels of spelling and grammar. There is nothing to separate them in terms of personal presentation, experience, personality et al. I have to refer back to their applications - to me, the one who has paid attention to spelling and basic grammar demonstrates attention to detail. It shows me they have checked through their application or even asked someone else to do so (that's fine, shows they are keen to get the job). They are showing that they can communicate competently and clearly.

If they haven't checked their spelling and grammar it tells me they weren't particularly motivated to get the job, and if they couldn't be bothered to spend a few minutes checking, then that would tell me they may not bother to do the job properly.

I wouldn't submit an application form with coffee stains on it, neither would I write a letter on the back of an envelope.

A little effort can make a huge difference.

'One of the only.' If there is actually only one then it is the 'only one'. If there is more than one then it might be one of only two (or ten or however many). It isn't possible to be one of the only. Hear this even on the BeeB

Misuse of elder and eldest is something up with which I will not put.

I have the problem that a lot of the gramatical and spelling mistakes I see are on the family (in Laws) Whats App group. Its easy to make spelling mistakes when typing quicly then not checking but appalling grammar not so easy to forgive. I never correct it as it's more than my life is worth.

Your wrong

I have often wondered how much blame "Countdown" has for "could of" and "would of" and similar coming into the English language? When Richard Whiteley and Carol Vorderman were presenting the programme, there was a lot of repartee between them when they deliberately used "could of" or "would of" and so on as mockery. Maybe not everyone realised what they were doing!

Incidentally, in the early days of word processors, I knew a school secretary who added the word "teh" to the school's processor's dictionary. Unfortunately, no-one knew how to remove it...... (No, she wasn't dyslexic, just not concentrating!)

You are quite wrong. Dyslexia affects the written word too.

A friend of mine used to sent any letters sent by her kids schools with any spelling errors or grammar mistakes highlighted in red

English Language & Lit here too.

I don't know what the local schools around (or should be 'round') here teach. The spellings on FB are cringe-worthy.

Seemingly no, it was not got. Gotten?