Am I the only pedantic grammar nerd?

[chrisf]

So dont I...especially, texing..............

 

[Dar]

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please dont take this the wrong way.... if I wanted anyones help I would ask as I did with the letter I needed help with..

 

[babylady4]

Miss Laurajean: To the best of my knowledge, I do NOT correct grammar/spelling on this forum; I do not correct anybody unless I am correcting my own kids, or if I am asked to check a paper or letter (like you did). It is not beneath me to ask for help with my own writing either. You can spend the next hour or so going through my posts, but I really hope you have something better to do than sit and rot at your computer wasting your afternoon doing so.

Shame on you for making such an assumption. Does improper spelling, word usage, and grammar bug me? It depends on where it is used. I do not expect everyone to be perfect at all times. The OP asked for opinions and I gave mine, you gave yours.

 

[FarmCoe]

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please dont take this the wrong way.... if I wanted anyones help I would ask as I did with the letter I needed help with..

 

[Laurajean]

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That was needlessly snotty. I didn't say or mean YOU YOURSELF criticize grammar on this forum. I suppose proper grammar would have been if "one" corrects on this forum, "one" may not realize that someone else has a disability.

And you asked the question how people are supposed to learn proper grammar if they are not corrected, so it seemed like a logical conclusion to draw that you feel they should be corrected. And no, I have no interest in sifting through your posts, my very point is that we should not bother pointing out errors. Geez, touchy.

 

[gryeyes]

In case my earlier post was not clear, I am a "grammar nerd." I don't make fun of spelling or grammar in posts except for those of my good friends who KNOW me well, and know I am only reacting to things which irk me, not to THEM, personally.

All my years working in law enforcement communications did not break me of the urge to correct mistakes. (Especially my own, when I found myself picking up some bad habits, simply because the "spoken" communique is so stylized by industry usage.) EVERYBODY knew these four things bothered me, when an officer or another dispatcher used them in a radio broadcast:

Adding "in color" after stating the color of a vehicle or other item. "It was a '72 Ford Mustang, blue in color."

Blue IS a color, thank you very much. Following the same skewed convention to the extreme, the description of that vehicle should be "Blue in color, 1972 in year, Ford in make, Mustang in model."

"VIN number." Look, VIN stands for Vehicle Identification Number. It's not Vehicle Identification Number Number. My reaction to this was almost always to emphasize "VIN" although I have been known to broadcast, "VI number."

"At this time." Oh? Was there another time to which you would be referring? Like "yesterday" or "tomorrow?" No, you mean, essentially, right about now. Well, unless you need to qualify "yesterday" or "2 hours ago," or some such thing, you don't need to mention it's at THIS time, this time right now. It's kind of a given, unless modified. So leave that little catch-phrase out of your transmission, please.


"Negative warrants." Negative? Don't you mean, "No warrants?" (Or any other noun, such as "subjects" when reporting how many people or other items are present upon your arrival at an incident scene. "Negative subjects present." "Negative casings in the road.") As a number reference, "negative" is less than zero. True, on the radio, "negative" often MEANS "no" as "Affirmative" means "yes." But not in counting.) There are NO subjects present, no casings in the road, and no warrants on file for your subject.

Yup, I'm one of those grammar nerds, with a specialty in police jargon.

 

[SourRoses]

May I just say.... That as someone who is perhaps too conscious of the way things are written, most all of the writing on this forum that is done by adults doesen't bother me in the least. There are diffeences between American English, Canadian English, British English, and Australian English, ect. The differences are understandable and desirable to most everyone. I like hearing people from different places speak, and seeing them write.. all the cute or interesting words

There's also a difference when it comes to a person with learning disabilities. Though as I said before, I have never seen something from an adult written on this forum that bothered me or made me think they have trouble, even.

Typos happen, people in a rush happen, not feeling like googling a word happens, and this is a more relaxed setting where I feel perfectly comfortable writing my thoughts as they happen and putting in lots of

Smiley faces

and breaking up my thoughts with ................. periods.......... instead of proper punctuation.

However.... what should not happen is that so many children these days, and younger adults, are not held to much of a standard at all among their peers and elders. They are not speaking or writing in any formally recognized language, and instead make everything up as they go along... which changes every year, of course

It's so popular now, that it overlaps into important areas like the workplace and the home where children are brought up or visited... so how are *they* then going to know the difference? I think that this current culture is having a very detrimental affect on children who might otherwise have shown a gift for language... because what you hear and see does become what you speak and write. So if it becomes a *crime* to correct others.... How are those children that could do much better with just a little more effort, ever going to know that effort would be appreciated by others?

Teachers and parents can not hold the entire weight of childrens desire to learn well and practice what they have learned.
I grew up being corrected often enough by other adults outside the home, even on message boards where my mother also participated, that if someone corrects me, I could say "Thank you!", store that information, and move on to write better another day.

The only time I have personally corrected writing unsolicited.. have been occasions where words were spelled in such a way, in a certain context, that the meaning of the writing was interchangable and thoroughly confusing.

So, to sum up... I don't think this subject *ought* to be taken hurtfully... although it does come up often and there are the same individuals upset by it each time... I think some measure of understanding towards them would go a long way in assuaging any harm that may have come from the past. Such as the truth, that I (hopeful editor someday) have never seen anything from an adult on this board written so badly that I thought anything more than the same typos and hurriedness that I'm also guilty of was at fault. - Hows that for a run-on sentence?

 

[welasharon]

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That made me smile! Did some of them do it just to egg you on? I bet they did! LOL

 

[Laurajean]

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My dad owns a car dealership and I used to work in it. Every time he would say "Get the VIN Number...." I would say "Okay, I'll get the Vehicle Identification Number Number".

 

[upcdayz]

A friend of mine, who is pushing 50 years old, and knows better, habitually uses the "word" tooken, as in "We had our pictures tooken today." She also pronounces birthday as birfday. Under most circumstances I don't correct anyone's made-up words or pronunciation, but in this case, she is a friend of mine, so I will remind her of the proper uses of the words she trying to say.

As a side note, she has been passed over for promotions at work primarily based on her poor grammar. Sometimes it does matter.