Punctuation and spelling.

I'm not talking typos here, I'm as guilty of those as the next person.
It's mainly in the adverts on local Facebook pages. I've lost count of the 'draws' that are for sale, but what has really got me going are the amount of 2, 3, or 4 'birth' tents/MH's/caravans that are for sale. Now I don't know about anyone else, but I wouldn't be wanting to buy anything in which there had been multiple births..
Obviously spellcheck doesn't correct this type of mistake, it calls for a basic understanding of English, which is sadly lacking.

As for punctuation, the record of written lines in adverts I have seen with no punctuation whatsoever stands at twelve. Making no sense to me at all.
I'm not being sexist here, but the fact is the vast majority of these adverts are placed by females.
Al

I suspect part of the problem stems from the use of social media where, it seems, the use of punctuation is frowned on. Not to mention the odd spelling of words and acronyms that we are all supposed to understand

Al  ,  is this the female that just gave berth to twins? Not on facebook so I suppose this is a blessing.

I do take the point in the context of previous posts but punctuation is something to treat carefully.

Punctuation is intended to aid understanding and the same sequence of words can mean entirely different things if punctuated differently.

If for time immemorial you wish your words to always have the same meaning to any reader then omit punctuation and choose words and their order very precisely.

Askit wrote:I suspect part of the problem stems from the use of social media where, it seems, the use of punctuation is frowned on. Not to mention the odd spelling of words and acronyms that we are all supposed to understand

I have seen lots of acronyms on this site, which I have had to google to find the meaning.

I have never found a spell check when posting on there either.  hence I pick words I can spell
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Richard

Al, I once used birth instead of berth regarding our arrival by ferry in France. By time I spotted what I had done, it was too late to edit my mistake. It does sometimes happen I'm afraid. That was on this forum.

I do find that many people now use "there" for "their" and "should of" instead of "should have"  I wonder sometimes what do they think they are saying.

Not being sexist Al ? I think you are a brave man. If  I were you, I would now duck, once Quilter reads your comment, she will give you both barrels.

Oh dear, I've already had single barrels on other topics from Quilter, who I may add, is always very precise..
I know we all make the odd mistake, which looks glaring especially when it's too late to correct it. But the birth in question is usually in the advert heading, then repeated several times in the text, so obviously the writer is unaware.
As Tony has pointed out, it's social media in general, phone speak I think it's called. So long as the gist of the message has been put across, accuracy can take a hike.
Al.

Peter Brown wrote:... Punctuation is intended to aid understanding and the same sequence of words can mean entirely different things if punctuated differently...

Let's eat Grandma

Let's eat, Grandma

-- Commas Save Lives!!!

bikeralw wrote:Oh dear, I've already had single barrels on other topics from Quilter, who I may add, is always very precise..

ME ??? Apologies if you had. I honestly can't remember and I don't make a habit of criticising the grammar in forum posts. 

( Draw and births alway make me cringe but I wouldn't dream of correcting them or commenting. )

I wouldn't dream of criticising grammar on this forum. My comment is directed at private adverts on social media, which seem to be of a very low standard.
I personally wouldn't buy anything from someone who advertised it in a slapdash way.
Al.

It's so easy to make mistakes when using a smart phone "keyboard". Particularly when combined with the adaptive text feature, which can garble any sentence. I used to work as a copy editor; sloppy writing with bad punctuation used to annoy me, but I've given up worrying nowadays.

Eats Shoots and Leaves  by Lynne Truss. Essential reading!  Unless you were brought up in the 1950s on First Aid in English by Angus Mciver.

Cymro

First in English for me Cymro, which I still have. Used it with the children also.

My father used to spell things as they sounded. West Yorkshire spelling was amazing not helped by no punctuation for a whole page. He was quite well educated but he said it was quicker to write like that. 
When he wrote me a letter during my time in the army it took days to figure out what he meant. The girls in the office for his business used to dread typing up his notes.

Welsh is phonetic, so I found English bizarre!  Hence the need for First Aid. 
Cymro

Cymro wrote:Eats Shoots and Leaves  by Lynne Truss. Essential reading!  Unless you were brought up in the 1950s on First Aid in English by Angus Mciver.

Cymro

Eats Shoots and leaves, reminds me of the Panda joke
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Richard

I thought it was a John Wayne joke.

I find gramer punkchewashion and spelin on this foorum generalee veere good. 

(That was an effort navigating round autocorrect)

Once I was writing a paper for my departmental director and passed it to her to be signed off. As someone who thought their use of grammar, spelling and punctuation was good, imagine my embarrassment when I the paper was returned and my mixing up grassroots with grassroutes was pointed out.

I did a report to our MD once. I issued the pre correction draft rather than the correct version. Easily done....once anyway!!

In my teaching days we had to submit our end of term pupil reports to the HOD for SPaG  [ spelling punctuation and grammar]  testing before sending them. He was worse than anyone on the staff at written English and we used to joke that they came back with more mistakes than they were sent with. 

Then we went to a horrible ( American)  system where, instead of hand writing a proper report, you pulled out numbered phrases from a computer databank and the program strung them together and printed them. That wasn't even a gamma version of the software and the stringing together process brought some real laughs.

Bobskate wrote:I find gramer punkchewashion and spelin on this foorum generalee veere good. 

(That was an effort navigating round autocorrect)

50% correct there, a pass!
This reminds me of an experience my niece had when she was out of work. The Job Centre gave her an application form in order to sit an aptitude test. She filled it in and left it with them. Weeks went by, she got a job on her own merit. Then through the post came a pass certificate for the test!
It turned out just filling in the application form earned the minimum pass mark...
Al.

steamdrivenandy wrote:I thought it was a John Wayne joke.

I've got one of those.

A chap called his local radio station to take part in their quiz.

The DJ asked him, "which actor was nicknamed The Duke"?

The chap was struggling for an answer so asked for a clue, normal practice on the show.

"The hell I will" the DJ drawled in reply

The chap replied, "you rotten miserable sod, you help everyone else"