(slightly OT) My latest internet pet hate

This is so far off the radar for TV Forum, but what the heck. Here is one of those stories you won't be interested in unless you were actually there, or one you think has been exaggerated for comic effect:

I did English Language and Literature at A2 Level. In my first year, I had a Sierra Leonean teacher who struggled to speak English. The very first thing he did on the very first day was tell us we could get the marking guidelines from the Edexcel website - and the address he wrote on the board was xcel.com. Things more or less stayed the same for the following year.

In the second year, he was replaced by a new, freshly out of university teacher who could speak English perfectly well but could not spell to save his life. We kept a list of his daily spelling mistakes (I would post it if I knew where the hell it was). They were not forgiveable mistakes either; I'm talking "there" for "their" or "untill" for "until". Keep in mind this is A level (in a grammar school), and he taught younger years, too. And with no element of humour, he had absolutely no problem in telling us he relied on the spellchecker.

So. Anyway. Idents. I love em.

I think the 'would/could of' mistake is less to do with bad teaching, and more to do with writing how we speak. What's being grasped for is not 'would have' but rather the contracted form 'would've'. As that's pronounced the same as 'would of', its easy to see where it stems...

... that's not to say there's not an awful lot of other mistakes, but as I've likely made at least 6 in this post (like in the use of ...'s and brackets), I never comment on them.

hear hear, I agree as I have a simlar job (classroom assistant) and see how stressful teaching can be when you have a class of 8 years olds who you can't teach subtraction to because they haven't grasped addition yet. I praise the children who spot my mistakes as it teaches them that nobody is perfect.

If one is going to be awfully grandiose, then at least one should use dashes correctly. One does get terribly annoyed when one sees people using dashes to open and close parenthetic information: "It is- I agree- incredibly,..." . One should use brackets; hence their proper name, parenthesis. Indeed, using commas in such a situation is perfectly acceptable, if circumstances dictate.

However, even if one puts in brackets where one has suggested, that full paragraph is still cumbersome-- and should be re-written. Of course I recognise that it is partly facetious

Not to mention a nice new government department to co-ordinate making it illegal to criticise those with the "unfortunate affliction".

Firstly, this is probably the most stupid thing I going to say but I was very surprised I was not on that list

Second of all, this is thread about bad spelling or mis-spelling words?


Thirdly this just proves that English it self has been dumb down for the many years, you just have to look at “that I’ll teach them” to prove English was about words, verbs, instead of case study and pointless other crap to make you your grade,

I wish I had a 1950/ 60’s English lesson, although with, dyslexic, it doesn’t help the fact, but of course it probably doesn’t help when there don’t even teach you how English works anymore!


Why can I just imagine a bunch of parent chasing you for this?

One becomes amused when one witnesses people writing in overcomplicated sentences so as to prove some kind of point, even though usually they is as bad as everyone else and should have written all normal.

The fact is this: English is a complicated thing and nobody will EVER use it perfectly. Particularly on a forum, you don't NEED to follow each and every small rule. The problem is when people are so sub-standard they are virtually illiterate, not whether to use a bracket in place of a dash.

I agree.

Correct, DAS. I echo the sentiments of those contributors who have said spelling and grammar do not matter on this forum unless they make the post incomprehensible. As far as I am concerned, so long as I can understand what has been said in a post, I am happy. I see no need whatsoever to go around picking up people on minor mistakes. And let's not forget: internet users are anonymous. How do you know whether a member's mother tongue is a language other than English? They might be trying bloody hard to contribute to the forum in a complicated language only to have their post picked apart.

[quote="itsrobert"][quote="DAS"][quote="Roger Mellie"]

Unfortunately many of us do not agree that "would of" and "could of" are minor errors but in fact are highly irritating. Still it does help you to make a judgement over the validity of the posting. If posters can't get basics like "could have" correct it does suggest that their comments aren't really worth taking time to read, or to take particularly seriously.

I would have thought that people making such crass errors might be grateful to others trying to help them with their poor command of their language.

I find errors like that quite useful though since they save me time as I move on to the next posting without wasting time reading semi-literate comment.

So by all means let posters use whatever level of English they can muster. Equally don't be surprised if those of us bothered to attempt to use the language clearly aren't impressed by errors that suggest laziness or stupidity. It's perhaps a question of respect and it is very hard to show respect in return.

Are you having a laugh?

So you are basically saying that if somebody can't write with 100% perfect grammar and spelling then what they say is not worth reading? That is undoubtedly the most obnoxious and frankly pathetic comment i've read in a long time!

There are countless people in this world who are dyslexic and perhaps even totally illiterate who are respected and listened to a hell of a lot more than i dare say you are!

Some examples:

Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Whopi Goldberg, Walt Disney, Alexander Graham Bell, Leonardo DeVinci, Thomas Alva Edison, General Patton, Woodrow Wilson,Henry Ford, Hans Christian Anderson, Pablo Picasso, Michael Faraday.

And that's just some. I'd have a hell of a lot more interest in what they had to say than you quite frankly! Or any person who believes what you believe.

[quote="rmc"][quote="itsrobert"][quote="DAS"]

Well personally speaking, I am in the habit of reading my posts once I've posted and edit them if, for example, I cocked up the quotes.

The point I am making is this: yes, it is irritating and yes, I also find it irritating. But please keep in mind this is not an English language test and, by its nature, a forum is conversational in its style. That is why people use all sorts of colloquialisms and shortcuts and you cannot expect a 100% perfectly formulated essay.

And this forum has a pretty excellent standard of English when compared to plenty of others.