Any other grammar/spelling ***?

ummm..Personal Champ..I find that smiley in your last post just plain WRONG...lol

Shame on you Mark! *FAPS!* The smiley is bowing and praying, not doing that...thing! xD!!
 
By the way, I just noticed I joined this forum a day after you did!

I'm not usually bothered much by spelling errors or typos.  What's important to me is that I understand what the poster is saying.  What does drive me NUTS is no punctuation.  If I have to stop and try to figure out where one sentence ends and the next one begins, I just don't bother to read it.
 
Joyce

thanks, DPU, for namaste, because i had NO idea what it meant and had to look it up.
 
i have learned something today, so that makes it a good day![sm=dance.gif]

thanks, DPU, for namaste, because i had NO idea what it meant and had to look it up.

i have learned something today, so that makes it a good day

 
It has a cool meaning doesn't it Sara? I had to look it up yesterday too .. including how the heck to pronounce it..lol! []

if i could only get the old "ball and chain" to greet me that way, everything would be just perfect!

ORIGINAL: pollypuzu

One member of the group, the one who complimented my grammar abilities, was trying to spell the word viscous. Her first attempt was fiscus. What is a fiscus? Is it a weird ficus. Then we told her the word was spelled with a v. So, she came up with viscus. I knew that was still wrong. I knew it was viscous, or viscuous, but I couldn't decide which. However, I then determined that we did not actually need to use that word, and got called the activity she was writing about by a different name. That is what I call creative problem solving.

Sounds like she was the victim of the "Whole Language " approach to spelling they used to teach in school about 10-15 years ago. Me, I prefer phonics to teach spelling....

Actually, no, she wasn't, as she is a bit too old. I however was a product of that, or rather, they taught it when I was in school. I didn't do it. I am lucky in that I tend to remember the way words are spelled pretty easily. I usually only needed to see a word once or twice to get the spelling down. We'd do the spelling pretest on Monday, and if I had anything wrong, once I corrected it, I could never look at the words again until Friday, and i'd spell every one correctly.

I tend to be fanatical about grammar, spelling, and punctuation in formal writing such as business letters and publications. I'm much more relaxed on a forum or in email - about my own writing and about how others write. 
As a teacher, it amazes me how few university students know the difference between "then" and "than"  - I would have to say that is my pet peeve.
I am also amazed at the number of spelling and punctuation errors I see on professionally painted signs and billboards! [sm=eek.gif]

What the heck is whole language!?

I honestly have no idea how I was taught...I'm just kind of...good with words.

describes a literacy instructional philosophy which emphasizes that children should focus on meaning and moderates skill instruction. It can be contrasted with [linkhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonics]phonics[/link]-based methods of teaching reading and writing which emphasize instruction for reading and spelling[linkhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_language#_note-0][1][/link]. It has drawn criticism by those who advocate "[linkhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_basics]back to basics[/link]" [linkhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedagogy]pedagogy[/link] [linkhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_language#_note-1][2][/link].

...from Wikipedia

In other words you completely sound out the word and spell it as it sounds, without following conventional spelling rules.  i.e. fon rather than phone, thereby focusing on the meaning of the word phone rather than how to properly spell it. 

Second, whole language is said to be "literature-based" because students are expected to learn these words by "reading" them as teachers read stories aloud. After they have thus "read" them enough times they will recognize them and be able to read themselves. This sounds much more compassionate than the drill and repetition necessary to intensive phonics instruction. Drill and repetition, after all is boring and would inhibit proper emotional growth of children. Furthermore, learning to read while being exposed to more interesting stories will give young students a greater appreciation for great literature. Unfortunately, both points are based on faulty reasoning. And, like Outcome-Based Education, experimenting with new concepts upon an entire nation of children without any verifiable proof of a concept's effectiveness has proven a grave mistake for millions of children in several generations. Illiteracy has been growing for at least four decades, and yet whole language continues to be used.

www.halcyon.org/wholelan.html
 
There is nothing wrong with teaching  reading using sight word recognition and guided reading  as whole  language does.  It's  the spelling issues that bug me. 

ORIGINAL: DumDog

ORIGINAL: dlg81

I only have one issue that annoys me:  when people use "their" as a possesive pronoun for a singular noun.  I'll use a line I heard in one of my favorite movies for example: "No parent should have to bury their child."  The possesive pronoun should have been his or her, but I guess it was easier to use their.  It drives me crazy.

lol thats right up there with double negatives.
gotta love living in the south. i am not never gonna live nowhere else again.[]

Hey, get it right!  It should be "I AIN'T never gonna live nowhere else again" ROFLLLL

I AM  grammar Nazi.  I do not correct people on forums unless I can't figure out what they are saying. I edit things at work and NOTHING infuriates me more than to receive a letter from DSs' school and find all sorts of grammar and/or punctuation errors in it.  I made my sister mad a few weeks ago when I corrected her pronounciation.  She yelled, "You should have been an English teacher!".

That being said, my typing sucks. Since January 31 (when I broke my finger) I have been unable to use my left pinky finger. When  it heals, it still will only have about thirty percent function, so my typing is compromised. However, I proofread my posts and catch MOST of the errors (not all, especially at 2 a.m.!).

My big gripe is apostrophes! The ones listed below are actual signs within a few miles of my house.  I HATE this sort of thing:

"Mens tuxedo's"--TWO errors in two words!

How about this one from a local car dealership:

"America's best car's"

This one came from our city employee newsletter:

Its'--WTH is THIS???

This one came from a worksheet from a meeting on Friday:

"inpatient" for "impatient"--BIG difference in meaning!

I could go on and on for hours about this. DH says I need a gallon of White Out to carry so I can correct BIG signs! LOL

Lorib, maybe it's an Oregon thing, but in the Salem area, I often see examples of signs with grammatical and/or spelling errors, too.  In fact, when I was looking for a job when we moved here years ago, I regularly checked the Help Wanted ads in the Statesman Journal (this was before internet access in the average household - no Monster.com!).  I found errors in that newspaper so often that I considered sending them a "portfolio" of articles I'd clipped from the paper, complete with grammar and spelling corrections clearly marked.  I figured I could attach a cover letter saying, "You apparently need a new copy editor.  Enclosed is my resume . . . "
 
A couple weeks ago we received a promotional brochure at work from a local temporary labor agency.  I found over a half-dozen obvious errors in it, both grammatical and spelling errors.  Now, why would I want to hire a temporary employee from a company that doesn't even proofread the marketing materials it sends to potential clients?  If their own staff lacks that skill, I probably wouldn't want one of their temps in my office!
 
I admit that I may not spend as much time reading posts that lack punctuation or are ENTIRELY IN CAPS (the former are hard to read and the latter feels like shouting to me).  That being said, I think forums are like conversation - everyone has their own style.  Even if I notice something that really bugs me, I wouldn't feel compelled to correct the poster.  I feel a bit more comfortable reading a post that is intelligently written, but I try not to judge anyone based on my own obsession with grammar! []
 
P.S. - Now I have to read this a dozen times before I hit "OK" -- I'd feel like an idiot if I had errors in my own post about this topic! [&:]

my personal favorite inappropriate apostrohpe:
 
cd's
 
meaning, of course, more than one CD.  this is literally EVERYWHERE...
 
and another favorite misspelling on a sign:
 
lobestor
 
meaning "lobster", and this was in MAINE.[&o]

I just saw one in response to a blog post that really gets me sence for the word sense. Sorry, but this is not a case of the tricky c deciding to sound like an s.