Page 1 of There, Their and They`re - oh! And sometimes your and you`re

c`mon.. we all speak English don`t we? Perhaps we need a grammer-bot?

i know this will be an unpopular topic, but its just a pet hate of mine.

well said Haggis... your a credit to you`re nation
(anyone spot my deliberate mistake, also a pet hate of mine)

Two capitols in th middle of a name and non at the start of the other. Tut tut.

Why is dyslecsia (?) so hard to spell?

All the best,

The 42%er.

and "the" and "none" are also tough ones ;-)

I didn`t realise there had to be a certain level of English education to post on this forum? It annoys me that people complain about simple grammatical mistakes like this, it turns away people from posting because of the fear of a backlash. My brother is dyslexic and although he copes well he obviously finds it hard sometimes, and so posting on here and getting slaughtered for not spelling words correctly or making grammar errors would really knock his confidence.

Not everybody was educated at a top school and an A* student you know.

Bad spelling and grammar are also a pet hate of mine, but I would never go as far as to bring it up on a forum such as this. I am lucky enough to not have any learning difficulties and I find spelling quite easy. You cannot pass judgement on someone`s English skills without knowing if they have learning difficulties, if English is their first lanuage and what type of education they have had,

I agree with Ben, let`s not put people off posting here.

Nick

I can understand your point, Ben, but some posts are so difficult to read, as there is not a jot of punctuation, just a stream of text. I sometimes feel I need to paste the text into notepad, and add some line breaks or something, just so I can work out what is being said.
My pet hate is "greengrocer`s disease" - adding an apostrophe for plurals - as in "three book`s for a pound". You see this applied incorrectly in places where they should know better.

It`s not a matter of being educated to A level standard - just reading books (and no, I don`t mean "the classics", I just mean well edited BOOKS) will subconciously improve your spelling, grammar etc. I was never taught "grammar" at school - I have just picked it up from being exposed to the English Language through books, etc.

While I understand the comment re dyslexia, and am as guilty as the next of typos etc, I don`t think it`s unreasonable to comment on the state of grammar on the web in general. If this is the only written English people get exposed to, then what hope have we got?

Let`s face it, this is a single post discussing the issue, it`s not as if the grammar police flame every post with a mistake, is it?

Glad to have it up for discussion.

I`m not sure "their" and "they`re" is the sort of mistake those who suffer from dyslexia make (having taught for several years). I think many of the spelling / grammatical errors can be put down to typos, which we all make and are quite easy to spot. Fairly basic errors they may be but some people have problems with words. Mind you, just because your spelling isn`t particularly good doesn`t mean there`s no point in at least trying to get it write......oh bugger!!!!
*EDIT* got there just before me Rich :-)

This item was edited on Thursday, 10th April 2003, 12:19

Apologies Ben, I didn`t mean to cause offense to you or anyone else out there. I think Haggis` point was that people in general, and especially on forums like this, seem to fore-go any knowledge of the English language as they furiously type the first thing that comes into their heads (myself included). To be honest, the grammar, punctuation and spelling used on this particular forum is the proper Queen`s English when compared to some of the indecipherable tat on sites like Aintitcoolnews...

I`ve said it before and I`ll say it again - the death of any language won`t be because of bad teaching practices, it`ll be because of poor day-to-day use, i.e.; the Internet / mobile phone texting. (I`m lucky because I`m Irish and everyone knows the Irish speak and write the best English) ;-)

Thank you..

I don`t mean to personally attack anyone in particular.. and I understand typos and learning difficulties more than anyone (I work for a newspaper and I have taught students with learning difficulties).. It just seems to be a lack of understanding of the basic principles of English language... or just pure laziness!!!.. If we all just ignore it.. how long before we end up just like the USA?.. Spelling words in our own little way because it's easier? Or inventing ridiculous names for our children.?.. Oh s*** that`s already happened!!!..

we`re doomed... doomed I tells ya