Spelling

[tonicha]

Ossie

[Workingman]

Having travelled and worked widely spelling no longer bothers me, but management-speak and wrong use does.

'Should of' instead of 'should have' drives me nuts. And I cannot bear 'different to' ... it's 'different from'! But the absolute worse has to be upto (up to) when a number is unknown; what is wrong with 'nearly' or 'about'?

Oops, did I just start sentences with conjunctions? Mr Donnelley (Eng Lang 1) would have had me flogged.

Grabs bunch of Willow twigs and starts thrashing...

[TheOstrich]

Having travelled and worked widely spelling no longer bothers me, but management-speak and wrong use does.

My absolute bugbear is Branson-speak on Virgin Trains.

I do not arrive "into" Birmingham International Station, I arrive "at" it.

I jump "into" a bath, or a large vat of pickles.

One day, I shall invade the train manager's compartment and grab the tannoy ....

[Kaz]

[Osc]

I'm just a tad pedantic about spelling and grammar in newspapers and books plus Words with Friends uses American spelling which is very annoying when you know you have spelled it correctly Proof readers do not seem to exist any more - yesterday on the DM (yeah I know, honestly I only read to sneer ) the word "Anglophole" was used, which is not even a word. Mr Osc is a terrible speller though, and gets me to check his FB posts, texts and emails if I am around.

[Diflower]

I've always been a good speller, but there's the odd word I have to stop and think about.
Like you Osc the errors jump out and put me off
Bb is brilliant at the Times crossword and knows the right word but has to check the spelling a lot. And however many times I explain that ie is pronounced ee and ei is pronounced I, he still doesn't know which is which
I've got a lot more tolerant with people, as opposed to publications, as I've learned it's one of those things some people just can't do
Not with those glaring grammar monsters though

[Kaz]

Osc, the WWF American spellings annoy me too!

[Suff]

Mrs S hosted a PTA meeting in a teachers classroom and one of the parents was gobsmacked to note two incredibly basic spelling mistakes on the wall as part of project work done by the kids. When challenged Mrs S had to admit it was almost certainly put up by the teacher.

How will our children ever learn to spell when our younger teachers came out of school unable to spell. Oh I'm sure they have some fantastic skills in imagining some incredible story and wonderful creative artistic and drama skills. Pity they won't be able to pass them on.

My total Hate, especially in a British English book is the word Gotten. I can't get over it, always want to change it to the correct phrase which it represents and simply can't "accept" it.

I'm very tolerant, however of other nationals who speak English as a second or even third language. Many English speakers are constantly correcting the fine points when they can't even speak 20% of the other persons language. So I've learned to tolerate a lot.

Ossie there are worse things in life. I used to blank out the French announcements for trains because I could not keep up with what they are saying. As my French got better I realised that I'm better off tuning most of it out anyway and watching the screens.

Announcement from Poitiers.

"The train, departing from Bordeaux, number five thousand five hundred and twenty two, going to Paris, stopping at St Pierre des Corps and Massy TGV, will enter the station at platform 2"....

By the time they're half way through the announcement the train is there. However it is excruciatingly "correct" in every detail. Now imagine a train that has 10 stops......

Whilst slapdash use of language is irritating, excruciating correctness is way to the other extreme. Especially when you are struggling with the language. Now imagine the train is 10 minutes late, or the train is delayed by 30 minutes due to signalling problems. They can't run a service which leaves every 60 seconds, 3 trains would have left before they'd finished telling you one was late...