The importance of half-decent grammar?

B

Bolero

At the Start
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Nov 19, 2012
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Here is a headline prompt on Microsoft Windows10 "News Desk" this morning:

"WEDNESDAY BRIEF: May backs US on Syria and Barça's exit." :)

(Doubt if Trump himself even knows Barcelona has a football team, let alone a round-ball one?).

("Half-decent sentence construction" would be a better title, I guess?)
 
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Half-decent grammar and spelling have been in serious decline for a generation with no sign of a reversal in the trend.

I was reading my brother's copy of Timeform's Horses to Follow the other day. Timeform was at one point the last bastion in the sporting world of sound grammar. Some of the paragraphs in this year's edition read as though written by a primary school kid.

Old Phil must be spinning in his proverbial.
 
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Desert Orchid said:
Half-decent grammar and spelling have been in serious decline for a generation with no sign of a reversal in the trend.

I was reading my brother's copy of Timeform's Horses to Follow the other day. Timeform was at one point the last bastion in the sporting world of sound grammar. Some of the paragraphs in this year's edition read as though written by a primary school kid.

Old Phil must be spinning in his proverbial.
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Yes indeed, certainly agree with you. Looking back at some of my very old Timeform annuals and the grammar was always immaculate; Phil Bull insisted on this from all of his writers.
 
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I have several younger folk in my company studying for various academic advancements through work sponsorship, mostly to MSc or MBA level. I am often roped in as guest editor and proof reader for dissertations and major papers. I am continuously disappointed by the standard of English I observe. Thoughts seem to be constructed in a maximum of 140 characters.

These are brilliant people but the English language sometimes seems to be a new thing to them.
 
In my last couple of years in the job I found myself approaching the head teacher and suggesting to her that anyone releasing an important document, including people in the English Department whose line manager was also my own line manager, should run it past me for proof-reading, so appalled was I with what was appearing in print and digitally and which parents and local businesses could access.

She agreed I could make the necessary amendments but felt it would be diplomatically awkward to implement. I told her I didn't care about that, that it was more important to uphold standards and again she agreed but never did anything about it.

Eventually, I suppose I felt an element of relief when I retired that I would no longer have to cringe any time I read an item for parents and local councillors to read.
 
This is actually something I've really struggled with myself. The horse racing forums have helped me to improve in leaps and bounds. However, having read some of posts on here it strikes me that there are quite a few people who write a lot more eloquently than myself. It's something I aspire to but I've found it difficult to improve any further. I still struggle somewhat with basic punctuation and often try to re-read what I've written to amend where I think I've made mistakes but I'm never sure if it's any better than when I started. It's frustrating when you can't translate your thoughts into words and even more so if it feels as though I've written something that others can barely make head nor tail of.

I wish i had the time to do some sort of educational course even at GCSE level as I'd left/been thrown out of school before that point.
 
That's very honest of you, Danny.

I think the approach you take is the right one, read what you have written and see if it makes sense to you.

The standards of grammar have slipped badly with that bastion of "spoken English" leading the dip in standards. I think the use of autocues has contributed to the problem.
 
Danny said:
This is actually something I've really struggled with myself. The horse racing forums have helped me to improve in leaps and bounds. However, having read some of posts on here it strikes me that there are quite a few people who write a lot more eloquently than myself. It's something I aspire to but I've found it difficult to improve any further. I still struggle somewhat with basic punctuation and often try to re-read what I've written to amend where I think I've made mistakes but I'm never sure if it's any better than when I started. It's frustrating when you can't translate your thoughts into words and even more so if it feels as though I've written something that others can barely make head nor tail of.

I wish i had the time to do some sort of educational course even at GCSE level as I'd left/been thrown out of school before that point.
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Your standard is a good deal better than you think, Danny.
 
A very honest post, Danny. However, I think you are doing damn well; nothing wrong at all with your post. The main problem one has with attempting to write something in, again, 'half-decent' English is being too pedantic. It is always a struggle trying not to be a pedant, and overly-fussy? I would hate a professor of linguistics examining my efforts; his 'red ink' remarks would make me want to go and jump in a pit and hide!

Digressing 100%, and referring to the Harry Kane controversy on 'was it my goal or not' against Stoke recently, found this particular comment amusing after the FA finally awarded the goal to Kane instead of the guy who took the free kick:

"National League club Gateshead FC: "Our second goal at Tranmere Rovers last night has now been awarded to Harry Kane.""

:)
 
Danny said:
This is actually something I've really struggled with myself. The horse racing forums have helped me to improve in leaps and bounds. However, having read some of posts on here it strikes me that there are quite a few people who write a lot more eloquently than myself. It's something I aspire to but I've found it difficult to improve any further. I still struggle somewhat with basic punctuation and often try to re-read what I've written to amend where I think I've made mistakes but I'm never sure if it's any better than when I started. It's frustrating when you can't translate your thoughts into words and even more so if it feels as though I've written something that others can barely make head nor tail of.

I wish i had the time to do some sort of educational course even at GCSE level as I'd left/been thrown out of school before that point.
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Danny -you come across as a top man.
 
LUKE said:
Danny -you come across as a top man.
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Opinions vary :lol:. I think you missed out the word 'Heavy' in between top and man :lol:

Appreciate the kind words fellas.

The only thing I'm ever grateful to my ex Mrs for was introducing me the world of computers. She was a beast of a girl and I know a lot of men would refer to their ex partners in such a manner but I **** you not when I say the police once sent the riot van to arrest her :lol:. I remember the day she sat me down and tried to explain what the world wide web was. I genuinely thought she was winding me up. My only experiences of computers or that sort of thing was playing Frogger on the Atari as a kid and at School in I.T lessons. They basically just gave up and allowed me to draw pictures of cocks and boobs on something called paint box to keep me quiet (not very good pictures at that).

It was shortly after that I found a horse racing forum. I wanted to get involved but when I tried to type a response it took me an age to find each letter on the keyboard I'd often be heard chuntering things along the lines of "Where's that bloody 'M', there's no 'M' for christs sake!". So when I typed there was little chance of me searching for anything fancy like a full stop :lol:.

There was this girl on the forum went under the name of Ali Gupter she used to give me some right abuse and quite often referred to me as a retard. The one time I tried to write a response to her but by the time I'd wrote it out she'd made another 3-4 sharp remarks, gone off line and in truth probably had her dinner and hit the sack for the night :lol:. Its not to dissimilar to me trying to text the daughter back these days, my phone bleeps constantly with things like Dad ? Well then ? Can I ? Dad are you f*cking dead ? whilst I try to get my fat thumbs in order.

Oh well, I'm sure I'll get the hang of it eventually.
 
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Danny said:
.I wish i had the time to do some sort of educational course even at GCSE level as I'd left/been thrown out of school before that point.
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I wasn't too happy at secondary school myself in the 1990's. Thankfully, I found other ways to express creativity through music, although I did have a fantastic teacher for history I have to admit. I was getting A* in every assignment/essay, where in other subjects I was an E/F student.

I always wonder why then, when picking up my grades in the summer of 2001, I was only given a C for history, when based on coursework and assignments, I was actually the best in my year, straight A*s'.

I never challenged the grade at the time, but I do suspect I was marked down deliberately in History, because I was underperforming in every other subject, (which if true) seems slightly corrupt on behalf of the examiners.

Anyways, what you on about, Danny, lad? Your writing is fine.
 
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My grammar is awful and the only ''A'' level I got was English language the thing is i'm just too lazy to correct things spellings paragraohs etc,really irritates me the grammar police, does it really matter infact it gets to the point where I do it deliberately if someone trys to pull me up on it as I really couldn't care less..My partner has a degree in maths and archaeology and she's even worse,her handwriting and grammar is like a 2yr olds,it's the last thing in the world [people should worry about more to life than worrying about what people think about your handwriting and grammar..
 
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It all depends on the context, though, gigilo.

On a forum like this it's easy to make allowances (no patronising intended) but where accuracy of communication is important then grammar and spelling are crucial.

My own view is that if I'm in a position to write correctly and accurately then I'm morally bound to do so, as a way of doing my bit to set a positive example.

If that pisses people off, it's something I have to live with. I can curse and swear with the best of them but tend only to do so for (usually comic) effect. Same with poor grammar and spelling.

On Sundays I read aloud in church. I often wonder if the people I chat to outside after the service wonder why I talk like Rab C Nesbitt in general conversation yet from the lectern I sound like a TV documentary narrator.
 
That's fair comment Giggs. I wouldn't knock anybody else for it, its just simply something I try and improve upon myself as I found writing distracts me from the madness and if I do something, I like to try and do it well.

In the great scheme of things though as you say there are a lot more important things in life.
 
Gigs, I would agree that on a forum such as this content is more important than correct spelling and punctuation but sometimes what is written can be ambiguous or perhaps misunderstood. I think your posts would be much improved if you proof-read them. This is only my opinion, of course.

Not suggesting that your form analysis and tipping would improve, I wouldn’t dare.

Must say I’m rather surprised that certain keys on your keyboard haven’t waved the white flag.:whistle:
 
Am not referring to anyone on here,but there's nothing worse than seeing these pompous twats like you see on betfair pulling up someone who obviously isn't great with the written word and presuming they have some intellectual superiority over them,you usually find ot;'s the same people doing it over and over again right wankers..
Think also you could easily put off somone posting that might not have had a great eductation, but could be brilliant around a certain topic,then you get these types putting them off really gets my back up especially when you see the person is intimidated then won't post..
 
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Colin Phillips said:
Gigs, I would agree that on a forum such as this content is more important than correct spelling and punctuation but sometimes what is written can be ambiguous or perhaps misunderstood. I think your posts would be much improved if you proof-read them. This is only my opinion, of course.

Not suggesting that your form analysis and tipping would improve, I wouldn’t dare.

Must say I’m rather surprised that certain keys on your keyboard haven’t waved the white flag.:whistle:
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I agree but usually I rush writing them out and when I reread them at a later date I can see it looks a mish mash,like I said got an A levelin English language the strange thing is as I've got older I've just seemed to care less and less about correcting things,probably something to do with just what I do for a living and rushing everything,because when I do form and price up i'm much more methodical and thorough..
 
gigilo said:
I agree but usually I rush writing them out and when I reread them at a later date I can see it looks a mish mash,like I said got an A levelin English language the strange thing is as I've got older I've just seemed to care less and less about correcting things,probably something to do with just what I do for a living and rushing everything,because when I do form and price up i'm much more methodical and thorough.Those keys are there to irritate the trolls they are always there as shown lately,so will always be renewable...
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Gigilo, Colin Phillips is quite here, writing as correctly as one can surely helps in not being misunderstood. To cause a senseless argument because of a poorly written comment is just not on for me. However, your remark that there are more important things in life is absolutely correct. It's just that to be clear when making a statement or case helps a hell of a lot in preventing senseless bust-ups on a forum, surely? Btw, your A-level in English language is certainly better than what I achieved, as far as I can remember! I won't talk about horseracing form analysis, seems I'm pretty mediocre at that too! :(
 
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I was mainly referring to people who go out of their way to pull people up on what they have written just to feel superior,in all probability they are the ones who are inferior,i agreed with colin about my write ups but as I said they are just form related and most of the time I don't really want to write anything so just get on here as quick as possible and push something out..
 
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