Are you a grammar pedant? This might be why

Re:Are you a grammar pedant? This might be why by Udik on Sunday April 10, 2016 @12:51PM (#11466987)

I agree with you. I am seriously annoyed by the kind of mistakes you've listed, and it has nothing to do with the message being understandable or not. Instead, it means to me that the writer (often a native English speaker) has never bothered to master even the most basic rules of his own language, which in turn suggests a pretty poor education, at least as far as reading and writing skills go. Also, since he has never noticed his mistakes, he's either poorly literate, or displays a remarkable lack of curiosity and observation abilities.

On the other hand, I'm Italian. I came to understand, after a few years living in an English speaking country, that the emphasis Italians put on writing correctly (as well as on many other things - e.g. eating well, dressing decently, avoiding public drunkenness) has no correspondence in the English speaking world.

Did I annoy you enough? :)

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Re:Are you a grammar pedant? This might be why by mwhite on Sunday April 10, 2016 @03:14PM (#11467676)

English-speaking countries are not all alike. The level of non-English speaking immigration to a country (which happens in all English-speaking countries, but to a much greater degree in some than others) has a large impact on the ability to maintain high standards for the language.

As I'm sure you know, English spelling is also much less phonetically obvious than Italian (and I would not be surprised to learn that English is slightly grammatically more complicated than Italian, although frankly, as far as I'm concerned, any language with grammatical gender wins for difficulty), so emphasizing correct writing might be slightly harder.

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Re:Are you a grammar pedant? This might be why by Udik on Sunday April 10, 2016 @03:39PM (#11467781)

I don't think it's a matter of immigration, I am living in a country with a relatively recent immigration and a lot of natives are making horrendous mistakes (usual suspects: "there" for "their", "who's" for "whose", "definatly" for "definitely", etc.).

You second point is absolutely correct: English spelling is a nightmare especially if you don't have any alternative phonetic system in which to represent it. My Italian wiring makes "there" and "their" two completely different words (they would be pronounced differently if read phonetically in Italian: "ther-a" and "the-eer") - English speakers don't have the luxury of a discriminating phonetical representation. By the way, this whole thread is about "grammar pedants" - but in fact we're just talking about spelling. The construction of the sentences is very rarely wrong.

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