OMG I'm slow .... had to read that three times stressing different syllables before I got it!

i never had a gramma or a grampa

I agree and can't understand why it's almost impossible to get a teaching job in Canada. Perhaps they ought to consider applications from the UK!

I worked with students studying for a radiography degree in England and here in Ontario I am at college with students of a similar age. I wouldnt say that either group was better at grammar. They both seem equally bad.

The college I am at has a compulsory "Communications" course for all students, covering grammar, spelling, how to write an essay or research paper. They have put this course on as most students dont know the basics and have never been taught any English grammar. They confuse spoken English and written English and so write as they speak. I think thats what most of us do in this forum, hence all the errors.

I think language should evolve and change and people shouldnt be overly criticised for "errors" - as long as it makes sense. LIfe is too short to worry about the merits of the Oxford comma.

When I was working at a big downtown law firm, I always wondered if the secretary who said "I should have went shopping at lunch time" would write a letter for the lawyer that said something like "You should have went and got your mortgage approved first" or some such. Or perhaps I should say "You should of went and got your mortgage approved first!!"

I guess they hear people say "You should've" and they think that is "should of".

If they speak like that, do they know when they are writing a business letter that it's incorrect?? And if they do - then why do they speak like that?

They speak like that because that's their accent, their dialect. I think its best not to get snobby about how people speak, its just different, not inferior. It also begs the question of why is it "wrong" to write as you speak? If the meaning is clear, why does it have to be anything else?

My thoughts are that it is important to be able to distinguish between writing as we speak and knowing how to write in correct English - circumstance specific. Knowing the difference between "saying" something here on BE and a Resume Cover letter for instance, is rather important to my thinking. Innit?

Rob.

Its only important when people judge you badly for using using colloquial English.

Hmm, I'm guessing you've never learned a foreign language "on the street", as it were?

If you had, you'd know that in spoken communication, body language/facial expression/context plays a huge role in comprehension.

None of this (well, except perhaps context, but in a different sense), is available when writing.

But the fact of life is that happens all too often and with good reason.

The standards of written English at this sub-forum are in, my view, reasonably high. That tells me posters do indeed take the care and the time to compose their texts. Sure, one will find the odd spelling error and grammatical mistake but not enough to detract from the message. In most instances I do not need to re-read what someone has posted as it is clear on first reading.

But just imagine if posters here used colloquial English. The forum would suffer as many here, and I include myself, wouldn’t bother to spend time trying to figure out what is being said or meant.

On the other hand if I am engaged in a conversation and parts are not clear then I can always interject and ask questions. So can the other party.

As a reader at this forum I can't do this.

English in the written form has to be different from the spoken word.

No, no "foreign language" but as a deafened person I rely on lip reading to know whats being said. Since being in Canada I have, and still am, learning to lipread in Canadian, different accent, different mouth shapes, different phrases to anticipate. I know only too well how much a part body language plays in communication, believe me without words you only get the mood you dont get the content. I use writing to communicate as I cant use a telephone, I need closed captions to watch TV/DVDs and my conversations are restricted to one person at a time. So, as you can see, the clearly expressed written word is important to me.

What I am wondering is though do we put too much emphasis on correct grammar and spelling?? If the meaning is clear then does an error matter? Is judging someone on their grammar when they are applying for a job wrong if the job doesnt entail writing??

I am one of those who winces at spelling errors and odd sentence constructions and I dont think I should. I'm putting the argument forward, I dont know if I agree with it. Its something I wonder about, in the same way I try not to be snobby and inwardly snear at someone who reads the Sun.

Erm, no it doesn't. It might raise the question, but "begging the question" means sonething else entirely and is one of my pet bugbears since the phrase is more often misused than given its proper meaning.

To beg the question is an error of formal logic, in which the conclusion of an argument is implied in the premise; in other words, an argument proves nothing because it begins by taking for granted what it was supposed to prove*. Wikipedia helpfully gives a simple example:

"Mayor Johnson is the most successful mayor we've ever had, because he's the best mayor ever."

NB this isn't meant to be a go at you personally, Batty, I just thought I'd offer a public service announcement...

* Interestingly (or not...) this principle is used extensively in microelectronics, specifically in the "flip-flop" that is at the heart of digital memory storage. Two inverting gates are connected such that the output of each is the input of the other. If the input of the first is 1, its output is 0, so the input of the second is 0 and its output is 1, thus maintaining a steady state until some external influence changes the input of the first gate. This is why good electronics and computing courses have a fair amount of formal structured logic content - the applications may be new, but the principles are Aristotelian and date from the fourth century BC.

now if you had written that in colloquial english i might have understood it

Capitalisation and punctuation is the difference between "helping your uncle Jack, off a horse" and "helping your uncle jack off a horse".

excellent example ... hopefully that will convince those who do not see the importance of a well placed comma.