That I was an excellant speller. No lie. I was mortified.

that is funny. Sounds like something I would do.

why should there, their or they're matter other than conveying a reasonable level of literacy.

Grammar: the difference between knowing your shit and knowing you're shit.

(Disclaimer: stolen from a recent DU post by DUer IDon'tRememberWho.)

or should it be grate one? No wonder English is supposedly so hard to learn. Especially these days when a handwritten note is so rare, sadly enough. Not to mention reading or actually righting a note or a letter. Or should that be "write?" One of the casualties of the intertubes.

well , there and their have two totally different meanings , for one . They may sound alike , but in context just denominate different things .

A beautifully crafted sentence is a work of art. Apart from pure inspiration, like other art its maker needs command of his tools - in this case, words. No excuse for sloppy work.

Even casual communication needs clarity. It allows a certain leeway both in spelling and grammar, but it still needs to be correct. They're ain't there or even their.

Read the works of great writers like Upton Sinclair and you'll hear the pages fairly sing.

Years ago the father of a friend happened to be both an attorney and a fine linguist who broke a supposedly tight contract on the basis of a misplaced modifier. For years I haven't known whether to cackle or puke at the growing ignorance of proper grammar, especially by those in the public eye. "At five years of age, his father sent him to boarding school." In this case the writer's actually saying that a 5-year-old father sent 'him' to boarding school. Ludicrous to say the least. Often rules follow the real estate mantra of location, location, location.

These days I suspect there are more than a few legal contracts in existence which could be endangered by the ignorance of their framers, since schools don't teach sentence diagramming anymore. It's the ONLY way to learn decent grammar, and it isn't hard. If you say you can't learn it, you're (not your) flat out mistaken.

In other words, denigrating knowledge and craft indicates a lazy mind.

That said, I personally have a love affair with mixed metaphors. But I use them for amusement, not where they don't belong.

on which the applicant claimed to have excellent proffreading skills.

The Social Security Administration has spelled my name incorrectly for 23 years. I drew it to their attention 22 years ago, still waiting for the fix.

brought to my attention the fact that my name was spelled incorrectly on my social security card

Bookkeeping first told me told me that they couldn't pay me until I got it corrected

There was no way that was going to work.

They paid me, but the whole time I worked there

My check always had the incorrect spelling on it.


They cashed just like the real thing!

I got tired of reporting it every paycheck and finally quit. Bank took it fine though.

heheh

are full of wonderful stories like the job applicant's.

You think SS is bad? My parents gave me the middle name of my father (his first) except with the feminine spelling. So the state birth certificate officials must've decided my parents didn't know how to spell, because one of the officials 'corrected' the error 68 years ago when issuing the certificate. If you think repeated efforts and enough money to pave China have ever got my birth certificate corrected, you're barking up the wrong tree. State workers express deepest sympathy and promise faithfully that they'll send me a corrected document if I send them the money, and it always comes back the same damned way.

After 68 years I've given up the fight. Maybe St. Francis can straighten it out with St. Peter when the time comes.

ayes, I's, eyes, ice?

and this nickname seems to suggest, "Yes (aye), I'm Irish".

Well, I didn't say it was a good pun.

Who be ye?

doc, doug, dawg 44.

Also Irish. Wolf hound.

my response.

Timdog is a nickname I picked up. And when helping to build a friends house, his father always would call me doc or doug or dawg. To all my nephews and nieces I am known as "Uncle Dog". As I am also Irish (partially) (I think my liver is) I decided to add wolf hound. I do like to turn a phrase occasionally, but not as well as once. Usually the good phrase comes to mind after having posted, as in "I wish I had said that". The mind is dulled with pain medications and so works at a slower pace than my fingers. So, do not forget to give a fellow Irishman a brake, or is it break.

I received a resume where an applicant had as a first line:

"Career Goal - To obtain employment as a librarian in a pubic library setting"

Except for that - spot on!

it means and that it's spelled correctly.

Because of the tone of your other post, may I ask whether you mean to write "call" or "all"???

Just trying to help, brother mine.

Know'm say'n?

Okay, I know one has to have a certain number of posts to be able to PM another member so it doesn't work for everyone. But, if I see something egregious I PM the other member and point it out privately.

I believe that is the better way to do it. Public shaming just pisses people off.

people's failings in that department or babbling about how lousy teachers are.

i take sadistic pleasure in finding mistakes in those people's posts and pointing them out publicly.

I'm only human too.

"is presenting him/herself as a writing expert" or "is presently him/herself a writing expert"? Note the absence of the word 'as' in the latter selection.

Because you presented the matter in a grievously unbearable manner. The second alternative I offered wouldn't really fly either, since writing experts tend to retain their craft once learned.

Unfortunately you've met your long-lost evil twin sister in the grammar Nazi department. I don't usually indulge unless with someone whose hubris is showing. Your last sentence gives me leave to do so in this instance, I believe.

At your service.

how stupid teachers, students, or anyone else is?

no, i didn't.

sorry you were offended by my partly tongue-in-cheek post.

.... as too far over the top to be acceptable. And most people who overstep usually retreat to a false claim of 'just kidding'. Learn modulation if you really don't seek to offend.

One last thing: you can't apologize for someone else's feelings. I own mine and you own yours. "Sorry you were offended" is just a cop out. What you need do is apologize for your own behavior that caused the offense - if indeed there's any sincerity to your apology.

you're bent out of shape because i said i'd happily correct the grammar of someone who sets himself up as grammar monitor or makes blanket denunciations of teachers.

wow, how evil of me.

Sheesh

Although 'GAND-HI' is totally non-intuitive.
GHAN-DI just looks like it sounds right.

I see so many grammatical, punctuation and spelling errors that I could scream, but I ignore them as I do not want to be called a grammar Nazi.

rife with misspelled and/or misused words, I'm gong to hurt somebody.

Keep me out of jail and a writer at work, go back to work.

and reads it the way I think it should read and misses left out words until I see it posted?

BTW, I see two errors in the posts above mine but I don't know if people will see the humor in me pointing them out.

It takes a time delay to see what you wrote rather than what you think you wrote.

A large percentage of my posts have been edited.

I know why they do it but I hate the red edit sentence.

I probably should though.

But it doesn't always do me any good once the blinders are on.

will appreciate the humor because we all make mistaks.

Sometimes the more we proofread our own work, the less we really see what's in there. That's why on important documents, a fresh set of eyes is critical. But I don't think most of what we write online amounts to an 'important' document. Don't know about you, but I can't afford to pay anyone to do that for me. So world, watch out!

Maid, nanny, gardener, butler, chauffeur and proofreader.

Sorry, I don't make the connection in regard to my post 41, to which your post 47 refers. Please explain; thank you.

It was meant as light hearted humor.

Just mystified. Maybe it's because I skipped my afternoon nap. Not making the connection between the two posts so I'd have a chance of understanding the humor. And I hate to miss out.

At times I end up with a real mess that I have to untangle.

when I see there, their, or they're, or its or it's, I assume it's wrong, even when it is right.
Edit because I got it wrong on the first try.

Just kidding. It's right the way it is.

No? kthxbai. (I lerned all my grammerz from lolcats.)

There is only one law of language--Lambert's Law of Language. "Language is for communicating with. If your language conveyed the meaning you wanted to convey, then it worked. Otherwise, you screwed up. All other so-called rules of grammar, punctuation, spelling, and usage are merely suggestions, which you may ignore whenever it suits you."

BTW, I'm Lambert. If you object to my law of language, I will cheerfully beat the snot out of you.

Yez u can haz Grammer.

Well played.

... and paying careful attention salute you. Sir, yes sir! Give 'em hell, Harry! I don't care what your real name is, I just love Harry Truman.

Ignore the building blocks of communication and you've opened Pandora's box. Ignore them rules at your own peril. Like teasing, you can only go so far before it becomes bullying. Otherwise in some life you're likely to meet up with a classically schooled opposing lawyer in court who will clean your clock for you.

She works in the publications dept of a large organization, writing and editing the work of others. She also teaches writing classes part time and grades papers for another friend that teaches writing classes. Every time I send her an email I am totally paranoid that I have written some grammatically incorrect mess. I check my spelling and punctuation before I hit send, but I do have in the back of my mind that I have made some egregious mistake, and she is thinking 'OMG that is this???' (In reality, I know she's not like that, but I still feel like I'm sending the message off to be graded.)

I also, learned Latin, Spanish and German, none as hard to spell in as English. Also, in my lifetime spellings of certain words have changed. Then there's the Brits and Canadians who spell a lot of English words differently than Americans.

I think there's a book called What Not to Do When You're Overseas or something like that. It deals with just such dilemmas. One of my favorites is the difference between the US definition of 'knocked up' and the Brits' meaning. Offer to knock a girl up in the States and you might run into trouble.

Another favorite, though I don't remember whether either of these is in the book, concerns the fine points of gesturing for table service in a public establishment. It's not exactly elegant anywhere. But in certain countries the world depends on which way your hand faces. Americans tend to gesture palm outward. Do that it certain places and you'll go home in an ambulance if at all.

The most beautiful thing about Latin is that learning it once, even early in life, even poorly, and then forgetting most of what little you did know will still help you in other languages. For instance mi espanol is muy malo. Really. For years I used to say 'muy brato' or something like that, can't remember for sure as usual. But whatever I said it meant my Spanish was very cheap. Everybody would always laugh so hard but it took me years to find out why.

Because of the little Latin I absorbed and retained subconsciously, I can read Spanish and some other languages enough to figure out most of what it means. It's kinda fun to try. Sadly, like most people, I tend to remember the cuss words best.

I've been trying to paste something on here for you w/o any luck. Stay tuned.

Even though non-native speakers often have better grammar than Americans do. I hope they don't yank my Grammar Nazi card for this.

I used to frequent a writer's message board and totally accepted the fact I was going to be critiqued about everything and every sentence I wrote ripped apart. However, on this message board, I think you can let a few faux pas slide. A lot of people post in a rush and the typos, colloquialisms and bad grammar do arise. I would rather not be a grammar Nazi for the most part unless it's so bad you have to say something.

Get a life is all I can say to them.

Or a callout.

Not sure...

but it looks like it will survive.

It's just a friendly little neighborhood rumble.

I made up that middle part.

So: niece, belief, receive.

Just kidding. Thanks for the information. I didnt know that.

Nieces are nice.

Trust me on that one

Then I have to go check even though I'm pretty sure it's correct.

Get it right! Jeez!

This is the main reason I hate the month of February.