Literacy

[Wildfisher]

Well I'm  no Lord Byron, but I am dismayed by the lack of basic literacy I come across from time to time. I'm not talking about using a comma where a semicolon would be more appropriate, nothing that complicated or esoteric, more the lack of basic language skills I so often see and hear.

Today Mr Google led me to a blog article written by a person who writes, from time to time, for a well known fishing magazine and who shall remain nameless.

"I could have went fishing today"

I read no further than that and was left  wondering  about the work magazine editors must have converting the copy they receive  into something grammatically acceptable. Perhaps this is one reason why some of them don't get paid very much.

[diogg]

Agree entirely.  There seems to be a view that it doesn't matter.  I think it does.  Please, please don't start me on the subject of apostrophes.  My grammar pedantry was consoled by a friend who said 'There, their, they're, now....'

Some of the writing on the BBC website beggars belief.

[corsican dave]

spelling! "course" fishing, "mackeral" & "pollock; to name just a couple that really piss me off, especially if I see them in fishing publications or posted by fishermen. when I see these on web-sites offering goods or services I just presume that their attitude to customer care must be broadly similar to the care and attention they apply to their communication. although try typing "barbel" without having added it manually to your dictionary.....

plurals with apostrophes. sometimes with and without in the same piece of writing

latin names of organisms with both parts capitalised; this is just far too frequent. I suspect a lot of times writers just bung in the latin name to try & make themselves look clever; achieving exactly the opposite as a result.

just in case you were wondering, I don't use capitals when posting out of sheer (not "shear"  :roll:)idleness. but at least I do it knowingly.... :lol:

[Wildfisher]

Standards have certainly slipped since I was at school too Liam.  Anyone can make a mistake, but the error I found yesterday in that blog was  primary school level grammar. Had I produced work like that  when I was 9 years old  I'd have had my knuckles rapped.

[corsican dave]

No this isn't on. You can't criticise others for not making the effort when you don't. Slaped rist four u

i'm not expecting Fred to pay me tho'..... :lol:

[Wildfisher]

i'm not expecting Fred to pay me tho'..... :lol:

And you won't be disappointed.   :lol:

[Harpo]

You sho'ld xpct this to get worser as autocorrect generation increases
Many don't now difference between your you're we're where and were

[Tyro]

Writing as a recently retired secondary school teacher I can assure you that many of my younger colleagues could not spell so there was no chance of them picking up howlers the pupils may have written. I am assured that the current situation with recently qualified primary school teachers is even worse so the situation can only deteriorate.
Don't get me started on grammar as the situation is even worse. Of course some people say it does not matter but to give one example it is why the learning of foreign languages is collapsing in our schools. How can you learn the grammar of say French when you do not even know what a noun is!
All errors my computer's fault :-))

Len
"You can aye tell a teacher but ye canny tell them very much".

[Inchlaggan]

When working, part of my job was the recruitment of qualified staff- nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and social workers. Some of the spelling and grammar in the applications was atrocious and I did not put those forward for interview. The point was made to me that many of the errors could be down to the fact that English was not the first language of the applicant. For reasons of the charity's anti-discrimination policy, the name, place of birth and the like was erased from the forms that I saw, so I could not guess whether this was the case. I still argued that a lack of basic English remained an impediment to purposeful employment. It was made clear that if a decent grasp of English was a requirement of employment the NHS would lose 20% of staff overnight.

[Laxdale]

Ah. Pollock, which is "American" for coalfish.
Unlike Pollack which is English for lythe. 
There is an amusing tale about the local fisheries officer who put together the scorecards for a sea angling competition. He was unaware that what he called a Pollock was in fact a Pollack. Much hilarity all round.....