Grammar Police

I am a fully paid up member of the "Grammar Police". I hate the way the English language has been bastardized by text speak. It's just an excuse for stupid people to hide behind.

Official figures suggest just 1% of British born people aged between 18-55 cannot read or write. I reckon that figure is nearer 70% if you set the bar for writing English as being able to spell correctly and add basic punctuation.

Look at half the bellends on here, you'd think they were about 6 years old the way they write. And it's exactly the same in real life. It hasn't hit Whittam International yet because I insist a written test for any new employee whether he or she is a cleaner or manager. However, bad English is rife in most organisations in the UK. Once one bad speller gets into a senior position, the disease spreads like wildfire as standards drop. How else could someone like Reebok Rebel have a job?

Does poor English bug you as much as me?

Dnt get dis thread, wot u implying?

MartinBWFC wrote:Dnt get dis thread, wot u implying?

Educated people only please.

I'm not one of them that gets all het up about a your or a you're or a must of/have.

but when i see things like the this...

hy bb js goin dwn to the shp wnt ne thin?

I seriously will block that person from my life with immediate effect.

Is grammar that important when in casual chat on a football forum? I am probably guilty to some extent to which I apologise profusely.

No it's not at all.

but if u spk lik dis, evn on a ftbil forun i wll blk u.

What annoys me is when people spell "out" like "owt". Why change it as though they're shortening the fucking word!

If you don't know the difference between your/you're then you are a thick twat.

WhiteBic wrote:Is grammar that important when in casual chat on a football forum? I am probably guilty to some extent to which I apologise profusely.

You say that as though using correct grammar is a difficult thing.

Mobile phones and texting are the main culprit, I may not be the most educated person on here but 90% of my grammar is correct (yes I am not perfect) One of the sentences I hate is 'my bad' where the hell has that come from?

Boggersbelief wrote:

WhiteBic wrote:Is grammar that important when in casual chat on a football forum? I am probably guilty to some extent to which I apologise profusely.

You say that as though using correct grammar is a difficult thing.

It isn't difficult but it is annoying how people point out the smallest thing which then causes a boring argument.

I'm a bit underwhelmed by the americanisation of our language - for example spelling bastardised with a "z".
Beginning sentences with "And" isn't great grammar either - it's been creeping into the language since J P Dunleavy started to get published, although he was largely forgiven for mutilating English grammar by having readable stories and he is after all, Irish.
Still you knew that didn't you Natasha.

wanderlust wrote:I'm a bit underwhelmed by the americanisation of our language - for example spelling bastardised with a "z".
Beginning sentences with "And" isn't great grammar either - it's been creeping into the language since J P Dunleavy started to get published, although he was largely forgiven for mutilating English grammar by having readable stories and he is after all, Irish.
Still you knew that didn't you Natasha.

I was going to spell "write" as "right" but I felt that a bit obvious.

The Grammar Police often have shitter written English than most. Just look at chipbutty.

Triumph wrote: One of the sentences I hate is 'my bad' where the hell has that come from?

It's another American saying. It's short for Am I Bad?

wanderlust wrote:I'm a bit underwhelmed by the americanisation of our language - for example spelling bastardised with a "z".
Beginning sentences with "And" isn't great grammar either - it's been creeping into the language since J P Dunleavy started to get published, although he was largely forgiven for mutilating English grammar by having readable stories and he is after all, Irish.
Still you knew that didn't you Natasha.

The Concise Oxford English Dictionary- which,at 1707 is hardly concise,allows either bastardise or bastardize. So-Nat is on solid ground with her statement.
You probably know the anecdote about Churchill being berated by fellow parliamentarian for ending a sentence with a preposition when he said,'I won't put up with this'. He agreed and rephrased it by saying,'Up with this I will not put'.
If he gets away with it, then we do too

Reebok Trotter wrote:

Triumph wrote: One of the sentences I hate is 'my bad' where the hell has that come from?

It's another American saying. It's short for Am I Bad?

My bad = My mistake

wanderlust wrote:
Beginning sentences with "And" isn't great grammar either -

Two of the finest passages in English literature begin with the word "and" and "so".

The ending of The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald 1925) -

"And then one fine morning— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

The ending of On The Road (Jack Kerouac, 1951)

“So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, and all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars'll be out, and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear? the evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all the rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty.”

These are key passages from seminal works in the canon of English prose.

It's too simplistic to dismiss sentences that begin with words which are commonly used as conjunctions as poor grammar.

Kerouac used repetition of the word 'and' to develop rhythm and flow in his prose. He also begins a sentence without a capital letter.

Strict 'rules' can be broken, and often with beautiful results. Language is a river.

Mr Robson, nice to meet you, but I fear you are too much of a pretentious twat to fit in on this site. The last pretentious twat who posted on here ended up cleaning my toilets for a living.

Natasha Whittam wrote:Mr Robson, nice to meet you, but I fear you are too much of a pretentious twat to fit in on this site. The last pretentious twat who posted on here ended up cleaning my toilets for a living.

OK, I won't post.

bryan robson wrote:

OK, I won't post.

I'm not sure how you'd have handled being the second cleverest poster on the site.