Does nobody give a toss about good English anymore?

[ntl customer]

In recent times, I've seen an increasing number of signs, menus and leaflets with glaring spelling and grammar errors on them, however small.

Text speak and poor grammar/spelling seem to prevail on forums dominated by younger audiences.

Students no longer get marked down for poor usage of the English language in their coursework and exams - and from some of the examples of sample exam questions I've been given as a student that have been written by others, English usage is going down the pan too - some with more mistakes than you can shake a stick at. I think there is something wrong here when people cannot even get the basics right and yet still achieve a high grade.

Employers moan about the fact that people have a poor grasp of basic literacy and numeracy, and that some have to provide remedial classes to sort it out.

Today, I received another email from a certain online store attempting to persuade me into purchasing their latest and greatest product. However, it was riddled with English mistakes. I've emailed in the past them to point out that they should take more care over the usage of their English before sending them out, but the comments seem to have fallen on deaf ears - each mail out I get from them contains at least one English error of some kind! Do they not realise that poor English usage makes their company sound unprofessional and distinctly amateurish?



Personally, I use good, proper English in pretty much all situations. OK, so I am not perfect and occasionally have the odd slip up ok the keyboard or type mangled sentences, but I always try my hardest to ensure that it is readable and that there are no glaring errors, as detailed above. I might drop the odd capital when using MSN or sending a text, but I always ensure that I punctuate and make it readable.

I loathe text speak with a passion, and I don't know about you, but I think if we are to go on as we are and let standards of English drop and text speak become more accepted, we will be left with a lot of illiterate people in the workplace who frequently make mistakes with punctuation, spelling and grammar.

So, do you think good English has any relevance in today's society? Does anyone really give a toss anymore?

Is it old-fashioned to be picky about poor English?

Has it now become acceptable to use poor English in external and internal communications?

Are literacy standards declining? And are people becoming lazy and expecting the "computer to correct it for them", even though the computer often makes the most stupid of corrections if you let it go on auto pilot (i.e. hit the change all button in Word continuously?).

Does anyone here work with people who exhibit poor English? Does it p!ss you off to have to correct their mistakes before submitting a document to your boss, or sending the final items to print or onto clients? Do you receive lots of material in the post with examples of poor English usage?

I think it's time that the government shifted focus from league tables and which school is performing the best in terms of its exams etc onto the basics. And begin to bring back some form of discounting of marks for poorly English usage in exams and coursework.

[scoob]

I understand your point, it's well put, but you must recognise the other side of this.

It's all well and good for people to continue to moan about this, and get cheap thrills out of it. Just yesterday the BBC's site had another one of these Eats, Shoots and Leaves posts. The truth is a high number of people out there participating on the internet have dyslexia. A high number of them will be more intelligent than you or I. You can't tell. Moaning like this alienates them further.

It makes me sad to see when people on forums are shot down in otherwise good posts by pedantry.

I do draw the line at all caps!

[grandmaster]

I h8 txt speak.

I had an arguement with a lad on a forum about this.
I told him he was taking the pee out of dyslexic people by continuing to type the way he talked.
Now, i am not perfect when it comes to english and spelling, but i do try and make an effort.

The posts were deleted by mods otherwise i would have provided the links.
(Most Haunted forums are *Very* over moderated!)

His posts were in the style of..

dis is the way dat da boyee typed because he was reely widdit.

My god, I thought Ali G had joined the forums.

The more teens that learn text speak the more and more we will see it become the norm.

[Russ]

Personally I think the two worst errors in grammar are the use of an apostrophe every time with an "s" - how difficult is it?

The other worst one is people saying "should/would/could of" instead of "should/would/could have".

[Angua]

I am another anti text speak person. Poor spelling and miss typed letters I have no problem with, as scoob pointed out there are may people with dyslexia who have varying degrees of difficulty who make themselves clearly understood. The ability to make yourself understood without ambiguity is what seems to be dissapearing with the increase in text speak.

[bonzoe]

Far too much use of "give a toss" and "going down the pan" in my opinion

[Kliro]

I think about 3% of the exam is English and grammar, I don't like text speak, but don't think we have to produce perfect English on forums, they are informal you know.

What about dyslexic people, I know a lot who are extremely clever, yet if as you seem to want, the exams were more based on grammar skills, then they would lose out.

Grammar has its uses in some situations, but poses no value in a lot of others.

[Ramrod]

Originally Posted by Russ D

Personally I think the two worst errors in grammar are the use of an apostrophe every time with an "s" - how difficult is it?

Very!-If, like me, you've never been taught how to use them

[Maggy J]

Originally Posted by scoob

I understand your point, it's well put, but you must recognise the other side of this.

It's all well and good for people to continue to moan about this, and get cheap thrills out of it. Just yesterday the BBC's site had another one of these Eats, Shoots and Leaves posts. The truth is a high number of people out there participating on the internet have dyslexia. A high number of them will be more intelligent than you or I. You can't tell. Moaning like this alienates them further.

It makes me sad to see when people on forums are shot down in otherwise good posts by pedantry.

I do draw the line at all caps!

Just because people have dyslexia is no excuse to allow standards to drop.That's just dropping to the lowest common denominator.As an educator I should be striving to improve standards without allowing creativity to be denied.However poor spelling and grammar make communication impossible and unless these are addressed we will cease to communicate efficiently.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by scoob

I understand your point, it's well put, but you must recognise the other side of this.

It's all well and good for people to continue to moan about this, and get cheap thrills out of it. Just yesterday the BBC's site had another one of these Eats, Shoots and Leaves posts. The truth is a high number of people out there participating on the internet have dyslexia. A high number of them will be more intelligent than you or I. You can't tell. Moaning like this alienates them further.

It makes me sad to see when people on forums are shot down in otherwise good posts by pedantry.

I do draw the line at all caps!

While my own grammer and even spelling is not perfect on the forum, and I don't generally criticise others for it (unless I genuinly can't understand what a poster means due to bad spelling, or lack of punctuation), I do find it irritating that people use text speak on forums.

I also find it irritating that people don't use good grammar and spelling on things like Signs and leaflets.

Sorry, but while dyslexia is a good excuse for personal posts on things like forums, it is *not* (IMO) a good excuse for literature and signs produced by companies. While the original writer may be dyslexic, surely any thing a company produces that may be seen by a member of the public should be proof read?

Having said that, the Uni where I work has signs that say "Any student caught smoking will have their accounts disabled and escorted off the premises", which I took to mean that the accounts would be disabled and escorted from the premises. BTW, it actually means that the student will have their account disabled and *be* escorted off the premises.

[altis]

Originally Posted by Ramrod

Very!-If, like me, you've never been taught how to use them

May I suggest that you start here:

http://www.apostrophe.fsnet.co.uk/

[littld]

I think it's like well a bit over the top to complain like when people like drop the old use of the language keep up man i mean who needs punctuation anyways and theres no point in pausing in a sentence when you can go on and on and anyway who cares if its not spelt right you get the message right wait while i paws for breth and whatever you have like too much free time when your like saying we dont rite proppa or summink...

[Bex]

two of my friends sat in the pub telling me off the other day, because they find it annoying that I do not text in text speak but use proper sentences. I tried to explain the reason it takes so long for me to reply to their texts is because it takes me ages to actually understand what they are writing.

my little brother received a letter from one of the teachers at his school the other day, he has been off for a little while and she was sending him his coursework. i read through the letter and was shocked at her terrible spelling and lack of grammar, and this from someone who is a teach

[Halcyon]

I don't enjoy reading text talk on forums or in written documents.
I also don't like people deforming the english language.
I saw an example of this on a sign just the other day. Instead of the words "Car wash", it was spelt "Kar Wash", the wrong spelling.

The saying "I didn't do nothing wrong", is crazy too. So you actually DID do something wrong.
Equally bad are people who say "We was in the park", when it should be "We were in the park".

I think we should be taught about grammar and how it is important to make sure we don't get lazy and stray away from proper english.
Technology has not helped and I think it's time to warn kid's that text talk is for texting, and nothing else.

at this point I have no other option than suggesting alternatives for the thread title

how about 'doesn't anyone care about correct English, anymore' ?