Trivial bugbears

[Lencoboy]

Exactly... but I guess it's comes down to poTAYto/poTAHto thing. Life is too short to let trivial things, whatever they are to you, ruin your day is all.

Positive thoughts

Obviously not such a big deal now some 30 years on, but a person working in education, particularly with impressionable kids, should ultimately know better when it comes to spelling, though in fairness, that 'know-it-all' classroom assistant was still fairly youngish at the time, and might very well had been a student-in-training, either on work experience from college or even training to be a teacher herself.

[ankietyjoe]

Yes-Lencoboy is on the spectrum.

Gotcha

[Pamplemousse]

Obviously not such a big deal now some 30 years on, but a person working in education, particularly with impressionable kids, should ultimately know better when it comes to spelling, though in fairness, that 'know-it-all' classroom assistant was still fairly youngish at the time, and might very well had been a student-in-training, either on work experience from college or even training to be a teacher herself.

Either way, she should still have known how to spell "potato". I once proof-read a manager's letter of complaint to a manufacturer and corrected it for him because if I were to receive a letter of complaint full of spelling, punctuation and grammar mistakes I simply wouldn't take it seriously.

What really gets me is the number of signwriters out there who either cannot spell, cannot punctuate or both - and the people employing them seem to know no better either, and pay good money for this.

Worse still, complaining about such things in shops to be brushed off with "no-one cares". There's a very cocky little shop manager round here like that and only my nature prevents me from dragging him over the counter and giving him a righteous slap. In my teens I wouldn't have hesitated to do so.

[Fishmanpa]

Obviously not such a big deal now some 30 years on, but a person working in education, particularly with impressionable kids, should ultimately know better when it comes to spelling, though in fairness, that 'know-it-all' classroom assistant was still fairly youngish at the time, and might very well had been a student-in-training, either on work experience from college or even training to be a teacher herself.

I have to admit, spelling and grammar is something I do take notice of, especially on social media and news sites. Someone will be calling a person or party affiliation stupid and the spelling, grammar and punctuation are non-existent That said, I get more a chuckle out of it and by no means does it annoy me.

Positive thoughts

[Lencoboy]

I have to admit, spelling and grammar is something I do take notice of, especially on social media and news sites. Someone will be calling a person or party affiliation stupid and the spelling, grammar and punctuation are non-existent That said, I get more a chuckle out of it and by no means does it annoy me.

Positive thoughts

Obviously speaks volumes about their general levels of intelligence then!

'Txt spk' seemed to be all the rage during the very late 90s and much of the 2000s, and really used to do my nut in, especially as many school teachers back then seemed to have a more cavalier and indifferent 'oh let's just leave them to it' kind of attitude, but thankfully we don't seem to see so much of it nowadays!

[Pamplemousse]

I have to admit, spelling and grammar is something I do take notice of, especially on social media and news sites. Someone will be calling a person or party affiliation stupid and the spelling, grammar and punctuation are non-existent That said, I get more a chuckle out of it and by no means does it annoy me.

Positive thoughts

For me, the humour in such things comes from British people claiming to be "patriots" for whatever reason (Twitter's a good place to see this, especially when the user name is surrounded by Union flags and St. George crosses): the irony for me and the cause of much mirth is that the more patriotic they claim to be , the worse their grasp is of the language of the country they love tends to be

[Lencoboy]

Either way, she should still have known how to spell "potato". I once proof-read a manager's letter of complaint to a manufacturer and corrected it for him because if I were to receive a letter of complaint full of spelling, punctuation and grammar mistakes I simply wouldn't take it seriously.

What really gets me is the number of signwriters out there who either cannot spell, cannot punctuate or both - and the people employing them seem to know no better either, and pay good money for this.

Worse still, complaining about such things in shops to be brushed off with "no-one cares". There's a very cocky little shop manager round here like that and only my nature prevents me from dragging him over the counter and giving him a righteous slap. In my teens I wouldn't have hesitated to do so.

What really does my head in is when shopkeepers/workers constantly complain about rude and disrespectful customers, but often at the same time have the nerve to treat us customers with contempt, even when we haven't had a pop at them first!

A while back some dozy pillock had defaced the exterior of a local shop not far from where we live, and when I alerted the woman behind the till she replied with something like 'well so what, that's the way of the world today, so get over it, sir', as if she simply couldn't care less, and she gave me dirty looks as if to say 'just get lost, I don't want customers telling us how to run our store'!

Makes my blood boil, especially as it smacks of double standards and of course, giving in to those losers who tagged said shop front!

After all, acts of vandalism against shops are a form of abuse, but strangely the staff and management of that store didn't seem in the slightest bit bothered!

[WiredIncorrectly]

Spelling and grammar are a big deal for me too. I'm a writer and I'm not that good both. Good proof readers are rare. In casual settings like NPM it's not important, but reading a poorly written document is like listening to nails down a blackboard.

[Anglo]

Another one for me is that I got used into a mammoth disagreement with a classroom assistant at school back in the early 90s who always spelt 'potato', 'tomato', etc with an 'e' on the end, and when I told her it was incorrect she said 'how dare you!' and got extremely arsy with me over it!

My top set English teacher took offence when I politely pointed out that she'd spelt something wrong on the whiteboard. I purposely pointed it out in a way that wouldn't embarrass her or act like I knew more but she still didn't like it. She even told me to grab a dictionary to check for myself and made me out to be a cheeky little sod. Half the class said "she's the teacher, she knows" and half the class agreed with me. I told her I didn't need to check the dictionary and she checked herself and found she was wrong. I don't remember her apologising for trying to embarrass me in front of the class. It's funny the little things we remember isn't it?

[Anglo]

Either way, she should still have known how to spell "potato". I once proof-read a manager's letter of complaint to a manufacturer and corrected it for him because if I were to receive a letter of complaint full of spelling, punctuation and grammar mistakes I simply wouldn't take it seriously.

What really gets me is the number of signwriters out there who either cannot spell, cannot punctuate or both - and the people employing them seem to know no better either, and pay good money for this.

Worse still, complaining about such things in shops to be brushed off with "no-one cares". There's a very cocky little shop manager round here like that and only my nature prevents me from dragging him over the counter and giving him a righteous slap. In my teens I wouldn't have hesitated to do so.

If you haven't already, you might really enjoy Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss. Regarding your signwriters grind, the companies that actually make the signs DO know how to spell but will charge a fee for "spell checking" a lot of the time. If you pay them to write "Toilet's" on a sign and don't pay the fee, they'll print Toilet's knowing full well that apostrophe doesn't belong. That might explain it for you. :P