Sunday 26 May 2013

Bad Grammer Hurt's My Eye's

Lily is my dog, and she dogs every day in May.  In fact, she dogs every day, full stop.  I am not a dog, therefore I cannnot dog, but I can Blog Every Day In May.

Day 26, Sunday: Something you read online. Leave a link and discuss, if you'd like.

As you should know by now, I love grammar (and spelling and punctuation).  Not just any grammar (and spelling and punctuation), but correct grammar (and spelling and punctuation).  If it's not correct, it has no place in my ears and eyes.  

I know I'm not perfect, but I have a grasp of the basics.  I mean, I am English so I should know how to use my mother tongue, right?!  I often want to throw my computer out of the window when I see facebook statuses made up of a jumbled mixture of letters and numbers.  Once I've deciphered the code, I tend to be disappointed with the content as it's normally about what someone has eaten for dinner.  And then there are those sentences which contain absolutely no punctuation so you dont know when one bit starts and another bit ends i have no idea how people can write like that without taking a mental breath im finding it so difficult to write this and its only a couple of lines long there is no way i could go through my whole life without a few commas full stops and semicolons in my pocket for emergencies.  Don't even get me started on your/you're and their/there/they're ...

*phew*

My friends know how much this bothers me, and will often send me articles about the subject.  A few weeks ago I noticed this article being shared on facebook.

Apostrophe now: Bad grammar and the people who hate it


Schools are bringing in new grammar tests for children, but there are people who say that this isn't necessary as the children are too young.  I don't think children are too young to learn anything, and grammar is such a huge part of education.  If you can't communicate, how do you expect to get anywhere in life?

I know language has changed over the years, and we aren't bound by such strict rules as our parents and grandparents were, but we do have to draw the line somewhere.  Some things are right and some things are wrong, and if children can be taught and corrected, then I'm behind it one hundred percent.  My parents would have been so embarrassed and ashamed if I'd written with such a lack of respect for the English language as so many young people nowadays do.

http://weheartit.com/entry/48018762?pgx=NewNav (However, I would have used an Oxford comma here, but that's just me)

The article also makes note of people who use internet dating sites, and that bad grammar is a turn off.  I am part of the internet dating generation and I have read some unbelievably badly written profiles.  If you can't construct a sentence, I'm afraid I won't give you the time of day.  Call me harsh, but if you can't take grammar seriously, I can't trust you to take anything else seriously.  

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lpb5nuIziG1qih3i1o1_500.png

It took me a long while to understand that two negatives equalled a positive, but my dad ensured that he drummed the rule into me, and whenever I said, "I haven't done nothing," he would correct me and tell me why I was wrong.  Parents don't, and some even can't, correct their children because they don't know the rules themselves.  Bring these tests into schools.  Teach the children how to communicate.  Encourage them to be eloquent.  Show them the wonders of language and how they can use it to create something beautiful.

http://imvioletta.tumblr.com/post/18494907220/when-did-proper-use-of-grammar-become-an

I'll just sit here and wait for someone to come along and correct my grammar ...

7 comments:

  1. A woman after my own heart! I wrote a post sort of like this for Y during A-Z. It was all about how poor grammar makes my eyes and ears bleed! Attractive trait? Indeed!

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    1. Hahaha! I loved your Y post. If more people post things about grammar, then more people have got to learn how to use it properly, right?!

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  2. LOL, well...I'll admit, I came here because your hurt's and eye's hurt my eyes and I was tempted to bust in as the Grammar Police explaining how wrong they were.

    How much bad grammar bothers me depends on where I see it and how well I know the person who wrote it. I'm less forgiving when I see errors made by writers, agents, and others in the literary field. I'm much more forgiving if bad grammar is written by someone who has a learning disability, if English isn't their first language, and if a person is a student still learning about things like eye's and eyes.

    Having never visited a dating site (other than a spoof site where every person on there wrote poorly on purpose), I never gave it much thought before, but I probably would also be turned off by someone who couldn't construct a decent sentence--that is, unless he was drop dead gorgeous with a body-building body and was very, very rich...well...the poor grammar might be forgiven in that case. ;)

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    1. Sorry, it hurt my fingers to put those apostrophes in there, but I needed to do it for effect.

      I agree with forgiving it in certain circumstances, but I do get angry when I see mistakes in newspapers and other publications. The text has to pass many eyes before it gets published, and still they don't pick up on the mistakes.

      I've never been in that position, but I don't know if I could forgive the hot body builder guy, no matter how good looking he was!

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  3. Love it, and totally agree with you! If I, who has English as a "third" language, is capable of using correct spelling and grammer (most of the time), I expect the same of native speakers.

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    1. Exactly. It does worry me when natives have no concept of their own language.

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  4. Bad grammar is one of my pet hates, I can't stand it. Facebook and the internet is one of the worst places for it!

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