Topic: Grammar/Spelling Pedants

Grammar and Spelling Pedants are a stain on language. Of course we should in general strive for clarity of thought when we converse online and this is something that these pedants claim to be doing. But the vast majority of the time when they feel the need to squeal out their pedantic whine everyone knows full well what the speaker intended

A quick example, brought vs bought. English is a language with very few consistent rules and there are few rules less rigid than how you change the tense of words. Fly becomes flown, cry becomes cried, ring becomes rang and wring becomes wrung. So it shouldn't surprise that people frequently confuse the relatively similar sounding and similar meaning past-tense versions of buy and bring. Pedants will leap on this if you get it wrong. But to what end? It's easy to pick what the writer meant from the context, if it wasn't the pedant wouldn't be able to point it out. Sure if someone says "I brought Mario Kart" the meaning is technically ambiguous but, functionally, the meaning almost surely the same. They HAVE Mario Kart

The other common one, their/there/they're. Frankly English is broken for having words like this that are that common, have entirely different meanings and sound exactly the same. But again, when someone gets these wrong it's usually very obvious what they intended. People can read context, unless what your saying is super broken there going to know exactly what word ewe intended

Getting to the meat of my disagreement with the SS of English. What does picking on someone's language actually achieve? At the absolute best the person you're correcting "learns something" but even then the usual effect is that you just infantilise the other person. It's always punching down which is rarely constructive. Often it's a deliberate tactic to try and derail the conversation, why argue against the person's point when I can just dismiss them for being "uneducated"? And we know full well it's never about clarity of thought. Do we think Andre 3000 isn't a great wordsmith because he occasionally said "Axe" instead of "Ask"? I mean, I'm sure some would but I would argue that says a lot more about their prejudice than Andre 3000's intellect

If you ever see me doing this call me out on it because it's not on. I'm sure I've done it before. I do however have one exception to all of the above, people who say "could care less". Picking on grammatical and spelling mistakes? But "could care less" is logically the entire opposite of what you intend. Just don't, please America

I speaketh thy Queen's language called the good ol' Englands you welcome.

English being the kind of language that it is makes me feel like I could do a pretty good job learning another language if I’m able to get the crazy spellings like you mentioned down. English kinda annoys be every now and again but it’s my first language so what am I gonna do 🤷‍♀️

This thread definitely isn't calling me out
Not at all

not at all

your

Sometimes grammar errors actually confuse the reader so trying to clarify can occasionally
be legitimate, even if the root cause is English being stupid.

But I agree in most cases correcting grammar is really just a form of trolling. Or sometimes it is someone with OCD who doesn't mean harm but also is not adding anything constructive to the conversation.

I'm not sure if this grammar rant is related to this website in particular, but given how many countries people come from who post here, it is extra silly to worry about grammar — if you approximately understand what the other person is saying, good enough. And if you don't, honestly most topics aren't actually important enough to bother poking at people's English or grammar for.

@FishyS
Wasn't on this site but I have seen it here occasionally. I made a post on Reddit where I typed brought instead of bought which is what prompted this. Not the first time I've seen it over there, it's super common, but first time I've been the target

I've never really liked it but being the target of it for a change really changed my perspective on just how big a d**k move it is

English is not my first language, so I appreciate being corrected when I use it wrong. I will concede that sometimes people can transform a potential learning moment into plain old shaming though.

Still it seems you wrote this thread feeling very offended, I hope you’re feeling better now.

I was thinking while reading this that I agree but 'could care less' still annoys me, then saw that you said exactly the same thing - I'm glad we're on the same page about that one

I used to get inordinately peeved by the proliferation of 'could of' instead of 'could have' online, but then I got over myself and realised that the whole point of language is its(') fluidity. As long as people understand what's being communicated then you're languaging just fine no matter what the scholars say.

I agree with the sentiment but I do find people who have loads of grammar and spelling mistakes are often the ones who didn’t think/proof read what they are posting which explains why are they talking a load of rubbish anyway.

I do have a pet hate when talking about music and people instantly abbreviate/acronym band names without stating the full band name at least once so I’m trying to figure who they are talking about. It’s easy enough when it’s like RATM (Rage Against The Machine) or BMTH (Bring Me The Horizon) as they are big acts but someone like MFATGG (Me First & The Gimme Gimmes) who are smaller so they are not the first band that comes to mind is a pain in the bum.

I also think folk are taking being checked too hard. Like think about when you’re a teenager and you’re about to go up in da club or wherever so you dress like your favourite rock star/rapper/wacky YouTube personality to be cool however your mate takes a look at you and goes “No way bruv”, as you’re not able to realise what a boob you’re making of yourself so there’s a need for a quick check. Once @gcunit corrected me on the usage of a word so whilst yes I do hate them with all my heart for having the audacity to question me, I’ve also not used that word wrong since. So thank you SS Spelling & Grammar Nazi Chief General @gcunit for helping me!

The Nazi joke made more sense before the OP was edited.

@skywake It can be super annoying when it's done just to troll and not actually constructive

Please can I just remind you to try and keep our Community Rules in mind when posting here. I've had to tweak your original post as it was slightly inappropriate for the site.

Thanks for your understanding and as @Eel said, I also hope you're feeling ok now ❤️

@jump
I suspect the editing was probably more due to my excessive use of half censored expletives rather than me linking a mid 1900s european political movement to language pedants. Not entirely sure why that section was edited, it's the one accepted usage of that word outside of crusty daytime tv documentaries. But there is some comedy in over censoring speech so I for one like the edit

@jump You've got me reeling... sweating... I need reminding on the context. I would not have expected to have been cited as a grammar nazi in a thread like this, cos like... that is not me bruh, like... litrally.

I'm generally someone who very much enjoys the way that language evolves, and the internet has been great for enabling almost a second, informal, system of language that operates in parallel to the formality of pre-internet language systems. As we now get to hang out in such diverse groups of people, you've not really got much choice (unless you are literally a stinking racist nazi) but to tolerate varying use of language if you're going to spend much time on the internet. I don't know how old any of you are, what your native language is, your level of educational attainment, whether you've got any cerebral impairments etc. but what I do know is that I need you tell me how to get past that boss in Return Of The Mutant Cabbage Kart Racers HD - Director's Cut, so whatever language barriers may or may not exist between us, just ****ing tell me now! They're about to do that thing with their internal appendage to Isabelle again, and she's only got one heart left!

If I do ever point out little mistakes, it is normally good-natured ribbing on my part, I just like to deliberately not use smilies sometimes to test the other person's sense of humour. Or the mistake has significantly changed the meaning of what they were saying and they should damn-well up their game!

Skywake's example of bought/brought... I'm kinda iffy about that. If I've bought a copy of Mario Kart, it does not mean I've brought it with me so we can play it at your house. So while I understand people's frustrations about getting picked up on seemingly little things, clarity is an important component of social interaction, and when clarity is lacking, that's potentially much more frustrating and impactful than being pulled up on a typo is. If I'm waiting desperately to play Mario Kart, should I not clarify whether you mean bought or brought for fear of upsetting you, or should I just check so that, if you have only bought it but not brought it, you can go back inside your house and get the game before driving half an hour to my house? I don't give a stuff whether you've bought, rented or stolen it, just make sure that when you get to my house you've brought it with you, FFS!

@skywake hmm, I’m seeing a pattern. The last time one of my posts were edited by a mod it was when I was talking about the movie Look Who’s Back, a German comedy about Hitler who suddenly comes back to life in the present, and I said the actor captures Hitler being likeable and also a bad name which wasn’t a swear word yet it was edited…

@gcunit Don’t worry about it, I had used moot in the wrong context and you corrected me in a banter sort of way, like I said as you highlighted that to me I now use it all proper good like now innit. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to call you a Nazi though!

On your point of the evolution of language, I’m been in social groups of just black people and just Asian people before and simply from spending so much time with people I’ve picked up certain words they use to add to my own vocabulary unconsciously. I didn’t even realise that until one day having a cheeky lunch time pint and I used the word “lit” to describe drinking and one of the girls pointed it out to me.

@jump I have a couple of colleagues at work, both with more experience than me in the current team as I'm fairly new, but I repeatedly hear them making the same mistakes with a couple of words, so they clearly just don't understand the word that they're using - e.g. one of them keeps talking about the onerous being on our customers, when they obviously mean onus. I haven't said anything, because it's one of those where the intention is clear, and people seem more sensitive in the workplace, but they've used it enough times to make me think they'd actually appreciate realising so that they can avoid the minor embarrassment of making the mistake at work again.

@gcunit what you need to do is tell them on a post it note and leave it in their work area to find. Maybe get someone you know to write it out so they can’t trace it back to you by your handwriting.

@gcunit
To be fair the Mario Kart example was the most ambiguous example I could think of. But even then while there could be confusion the scope is limited. As the listener there is only really confusion if it's bought and not here or, in very limited cases, brought and not owned

I'd also add that the post that sparked my rant was when I used the word brought in regards to home ownership. i.e. "people who have brought a house recently". I suspect there wasn't much risk of confusion of meaning in that context

The only time it bothers me is when the correction is due to a different regional version of a language. Color vs Colour for example; when it is usually obvious that the person you are correcting isn’t from the same region/nation . It is also part of the “let’s be rude to all Americans” thing that some people do as well.

In general I would rather be corrected but I edit my posts a lot so I will usually catch it before someone else does. My thing is people assume that they are easily understood even when their spelling is horrible and that isn’t often the case. And that isn’t a knock on people learning a language but everyone processes and internalizes language differently so I would rather be closer to accuracy than not when speaking. Especially in this day and age where you have instant access to a dictionary.

Got to love ze grammar police.

They're poking their nose into business here, there, everywhere.