Does grammar matter to you?

"Spell it write" is so much more betterer.

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Note: Because I think this was meant tongue-in-cheek (which by the way is not "tongue AND cheek!") I'll answer in the same spirit, intending no disrespect.

Ah, but then this fails fluency, because pronoun and antecedent are not parallel. If the subject ("one") is singular, then its corresponding pronoun must also be singular. Thus "they are fluent" is incorrect because the construction has switched from singular to plural.

In addition, if I am not mistaken, one should not pair "one" with third-person pronouns such as "his" or "her" even though they are singular. One should rather pair "one" with "one's." One does one's best, of course, but one must realize, if one followed every rule, one would probably puke one's guts up before one has finished writing.

It does, and it doesn't. Maybe it's more the spelling that bothers me, but it's the really basic stuff like "to/too", "your/you're" etc. I used to drive myself nuts when I'd post on a message board or write something, worried that I'd split an infinitive or ended a sentence with a preposition. Now I don't care. I just want to communicate, not win the Nobel Prize. Mostly I laugh things off. Because of hip-hop, I see some people spell "ludicrous" as "ludacris". LOL. And I have a friend that is smart as the dickens, but he has this habit of putting apostrophes in the wrong place, such as "did'nt". I just look at it as a quirk of his.

What's weird is that people go nutty over spelling and grammar, but, when you think about it, our innumeracy is more troubling. I read some study that reported that a fair amount of college graduates don't have the math skills to pick the better value between two brands of peanut butter at the supermarket. That's some scary stuff.

^^On the Ludacris thing: Before the Tim Allen Christmas movies came out, I think more people knew that it's Santa Claus, not Clause. The -e on the end was a pun on the language of contracts. Now people think the person is actually called Santa Clause. This does bug me, because it's basically ignorant. And because if told otherwise, people will not believe it or think it matters. I think that's the part that really gets me about these things.

You are right about the mathlessness (not a word, but it works) being scary too.

I do that apostrophe thing; it's just a typo. I touch-type, and pretty fast at times, so that's why I fudge it, sometimes.

I don't worry too much about it unless is so terrible of grammar I cannot understand any of it. But if someone uses their for there or stupid little errors like that I really don't care I do that all the time by accident...now if I was writing a college paper or something that was going to be published I'd probably go back and fix all the little errors I've made...but just don't see the point for a non-formal public internet forum so long as I didn't type something totally unreadable. Also though I assume especially on this site a lot of times people posting are going through a lot and so their focus might not be so much on proper grammar...they are just going to want to let it out and find some support not have someone nit-picking at their grammar.

I'm an English teacher, so yes, grammar matters to me, but not so much on social media/PC, etc. particularly. I'm as guilty as anyone of typing quickly, not proofreading, and hitting submit. Sometimes I notice my error and fix it right away, and sometimes not. That's okay. This isn't formal writing and we aren't getting a grade. We all do those things.

I do cringe when I see writing completely devoid of punctuation, rampant with so many spelling and grammar errors that it takes several readings to figure out what the heck a poster is trying to say. That is either complete carelessness or near illiteracy; either way I cringe. I'm not one to criticize others openly about it though. That's just not kind.

My one pet peeve is people who write posts in text-speak. Keep that craziness on the phone as far as I'm concerned. Consider the media you are on and your audience. At least attempt to write out your words, use a capital letter at the beginning of your sentences, and some form of punctuation at the end when you post to threads. Otherwise it is almost completely unintelligible.

Before I say anything, I have fat thumbs. Fat thumbs excuses alot of misspelings that occur in text. I cannot forgive LOL, TTYL, YOLO, or anyother crap. I am tired of hashtag this and that and hate Robin Thicke's falsetto. The English language has evolved for centuries to be more expressive and now because we have lazy , fat thumbs, and even poorer attention spans, we have no command over it. Mabey Im just OLD!!

I'm glad you brought that up. I often argue, Why is it rude to correct someone's English and spelling, but not their math? I don't mean we should all go around correcting everyone's every mistake, but why the difference? Yes, you could argue that math mistakes are more likely to affect people negatively, but English can get you, too.

I was average at math in school, just barely. Sadly, I've recently realized, I have forgotten most of the stuff I knew beyond adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. I still know a little here and there about fractions and decimals, but I really never use it much, so much of it has gone by the wayside. I bought a For Dummies book set on basic math and Algebra, but being realistic, who knows if I'll ever get around to reading and practicing again. I have so many books to teach me things, and what's frustrating is, I read some of them, but then never get to use that knowledge, and forget, as if I never read the books at all. It's like it's a waste of time, except that I feel reading and learning are good exercise for your brain.

What about lack of basic geography? I mean people who can't locate the Pacific Ocean on a world map, think Europe is a country rather than a continent, don't realize that New England and New Mexico are part of the United States, etc. I'd like to blame it on the education system and say it's not their fault they aren't being taught these things. But on the other hand, if the teacher explained it while the student was busy texting friends and didn't listen, that isn't the system's fault.

Hmm...I'm not above using the split infinitive (such as
boldly in to boldly go), and I
use slow and quick as adverbs as well as adjectives
(e.g. butcher him and cook him slow!). On the other hand, I do
observe the differences between they're (they are) and their
(belonging to them), it's (it is) and its (belonging to it),
and so on.

How do I manage all of these without sounding like a pedant
(in polite language) or a grammar Nazi (in more common usage)?
Perhaps you can answer that.

I would like to add that I hope my English improves after I read the Chicago Manual of Style and The Associated Press Stylebook 2013. I bought them to refresh my knowledge and to see what's changed since I was in school. I may read them straight through, or flip through them as needed, or a little reading on my own and a lot of using them for research.

Absolutely. You can't go around murdering the English language the way retailers and salesmen do by altering the spelling of words just so it will catch your eye or look cool/interesting, etc. I bet in some strict Countries like Russia this is forbidden. But in the USA it is far too rampant, imo.

because in Putin's Russia, the grammar butchers you!

I have a huge problem with grammar mistakes. Oddly enough, though, it is only certain ones. There/they're/their is distracting to me, and to/two/too trips me up as well. Improper usage of the perfect conditional (he/she would have <rest of sentence>) drives me crazy.

"I wish I would've done better in school." "I wish he wouldn't have died." No. You wish you had done better in school. You wish he hadn't died.

It also drives me nuts -- and I will correct people in the middle of talking -- when people use regular past tense where they should be using the past participle.

Interestingly, the above two issues didn't bother me until I took Spanish.

The two things that bother me currently in writing nowadays are:

* "would of, could of, and should of" instead of "would've, could've, and should've"
* using apostrophes to indicate plural (but not possessive or contraction)

My English teacher last year once saw a sign that said "USED BIKE'S FOR SALE", and was annoyed enough to go up to the store owners to correct their mistake.

But, as I stated, they're annoyances. Some of them are really distracting to me, but all-in-all, they're annoying. It's especially annoying when ESOLs have better grammar and spelling than native English speakers.

So earlier in the thread, I talked about misused phrases like "doggy-dog world." It turns out there's a name for that kind of thing. It's called an eggcorn. I don't know why, but my guess is that it comes from somebody mishearing the word "acorn," and calling it an eggcorn. "Mondegreen" is another word for the same thing, but it's used primarily for misheard lyrics in a song or poem now, with "eggcorn" being the word for conversation.

This looks like a fun site. The Eggcorn Database

Yes. It does.

Sears or jcpenny is a big eggcorner of the "mio" (maillot") ie one piece strapless womens bathing suit. Drives me nuts!!

I like this: Muphry's Law. That's not a typo. It's the principle that any criticism of someone else's grammar or spelling is also going to contain an error in grammar or spelling.

I see it all the time. "It's dog eat dog, you moran. People sure don't know there grammer."

I'm guilty of using LOL and TTYL when I am chatting, and I use some acronyms on message boards. The hashtag thing, though, drives me nuts, too. There was an e-book that I downloaded onto my Kindle and I deleted it because the author used that hashtag crap. My fiance told me about a speech that a faculty member gave at the school where he works, and apparently that speech was full of hashtags. I get that people use it on Twitter, but why in a publication or in a speech? Makes no sense to me.

Wow, eggcorn! I had that word swimming in the recesses of my brain somewhere. Some people call them "bunkerisms", after Archie Bunker on All In The Family. My sister had a textbook, and there was a page about that specific topic. I had an ex who, because of the way he spoke, reminded me of Archie Bunker. If he was describing someone who was drunk, he would say that they were "obliviated", or he would say "supposably". There were many more, but I can't think of them right now.

I agree with all your comments. I also have trouble connecting with someone who doesn't take the time to spell out their comments, but instead uses text lingo.

I'm very fortunate that I can understand even ill written posts. I guess it has to do with my talent for languages and logic.

I have no problem with "Internet shorthand," in many, if not most, cases. LOL and TTYL are fine with me, unless I'm writing professionally (unless a character is writing or speaking those terms). And I have very limited texting capabilities on my cellphone, so it's a lot easier to type "u" instead of "you." I don't have a keyboard on my phone that has a key for each letter. To type "y," I have to hit the #9 key three times, followed by the #6 key three times for "o," and then the #8 key twice for "u." Imagine when I have a long word to type!

When presenting myself in a professional manner, however, I always try to be at my best with my spelling and grammar. However, as I posted last, I'm a bit rusty, and trying to improve that.

I agree with notthisagain about hashtags. I barely understand them on Twitter; don't go putting them in everything else, too! I know they're about topics, and can help people find other posts on that topic, but I get all confused when they put them just anywhere in the post. Alas, I'm wandering off-topic.

I watch The View, I'm ashamed to admit, and Sherri Shepherd drives me nuts with some of the words she makes up. Recently, several times she used the word "agreeance." That is not really a word. It has been "continuously reinvented and recycled," according to Dictionary.com (Merriam-Webster.com doesn't even list it). The word she should have used is "agreement." This is one small reason I consider her not very bright.

I'm on-board with the idea of agreeance, even if it looks a little strange and isn't "correct". Bit of creativity couldn't hurt, now and again. :P I really don't think someone's overall intelligence should be judged merely by someone's ability--or lack thereof--to speak, type, or write perfectly.

I'm in "agreement" with your first paragraph. I remember those phones! >.< Horrible things to type on. My phone has a touch-pad and it still annoys me. I like to feel the buttons and feel the click.