The standard of grammer here in Oz- not talking about forum posts or email or anything like that where a more relaxed approach is fine, but the number of signs and notices I've seen in shops etc with blatant errors bothers me. It was pretty poor in NZ, but this takes the biscuit. Worthy of note is the one on headed government paper in my local medicare/family assistance office saying:

"Your all Stars"

and commending the staff on their excellent standard of customer service. If I awas the branch manager I'd be sending that straight back and certainly wouldn't put it up on the wall!

And then the one on the local sport recruitment signs telling children:

"It's not to late to sign up"

Do you think it matters? Have you noticed a decline when compared to the UK?

I think your average Joe Blow in both the UK and Aus are equally as backward with their grammar. However it seems that there are more average Joe Blows running businesses and creating their own marketing/signs over here in Aus. It is much more noticeable I think in Aus.

The thing that bothers me the most is in the papers, nearly all articles you will read in Aus have some sort of error (rarely grammatical errors just generally omitting the odd word like a "a" or "an"). There is clearly very little effort placed on QAing of the stuff they write

Yes, it bothers me. But it's a world-wide phenomenon, not an exclusively Australian one. My pet hate was the greengrocer's apostrophe ...

It bothers me almost as much as people who only put half the subject in their thread title! :curse: :curse: :curse:

I have noticed it more here but it definitely was very common in the UK also. There seems to be a general slide in standards for spoken & written English.

The answer to the question, btw, is that yes, it does bother me.

I was amazed when watching "SoYouThinkYouCanDance" this week (yeah I know... sorry )...

The host said: "As the competition goes on we have less dancers".

I thought that was a very strange thing to say. Surely the idea is for the show to have greater dancers as the show progresses and their are fewer higher quality performers left? NOT that the ones remaining would be lesser dancers than those who have been evicted from competition!

I can handle 'ordinary' folk not being able to use language correctly - but it bugs me when the media perpetuate poor grammar. When the News contains bad garmmar I get quite upset for some inexplicable reason!

Exactly! I'm tempted to write annonymously to the gov department responsible for the certificate on the family assistance/medicare office...

Was a story about this in the Times recently. See if I can find it. Here we go - some classics ...

C'mon, are they for real?????

I love the lights to mark "boarders".

Not sure how well they would work in the surf though.

Yea - they're on the level.

Great idea though isn't it - like runway lights for surfers...

Yes yes yes!

I really hate it. I don't have much patience at the best of times, but bad grammar in supposedly professional places really winds me up the wrong way!

I was driving in Brisbane a few months ago and the van in front of me had the business name splashed across the back and sides. Unfortunately I can't remember for the life of me what it said... all I know is that his apostrophe was in the wrong place, or he had one where it wasn't needed, or something! It was road-rage inducing! I very nearly rear ended him! :curse:

Might keep the sharks away!

Do it! It's the only language they understand!

Also it is policy over here to remove apostrophes from road signs to (quote) "avoid confusion".

I feel like getting a black marker pen and adding in the apostrophes.