Fun with Spelling and Grammar

[Mary Ann <macloudt@yahoo.co.uk>]

Lorien_Eve wrote:

> I've joined several Yahoo! 
> groups only to realize that the majority of the members completely 
> slaughter the language and I abruptly leave the group. I cannot 
> carry on a conversation with people who so obviously (to me, at 
> least) make these errors.

Ah, good.  Now I now that I'm not the only grammar snob around. ;)  
That's the problem with all these nifty spelling and grammar rules on 
the HP groups, see...it makes us allergic to other groups without 
such strict rules.  I'm so far gone that coming across unsnipped 
material at the bottom of an email drives me mad!

> I've been known to make typos and the 
> occasional mistake myself, by not paying full attention to what I'm 
> doing. But for people to blatantly and continously make these 
> mistakes.....well, like I said, it drives me CRAZY!! 

Same here.  On this list I tend write in an informal way, so I know 
that my grammar slips from time to time.  But if I'm writing 
something formal I take great pains to see that spelling and grammar 
are as accurate as possible.

To be honest some of my friends think I'm a complete spelling and 
grammar snob.  However, when they're writing something official and 
need it proofread, who do they run to?  Yep, me.  Talk about fair-
weather friends. ;)

However I do think that spelling and grammar are gifts.  I've always 
been good at spelling and phonics.  I can look at a sentence and know 
whether or not it's grammatically correct.  I may not know *why*, but 
I know it's wrong.  On the other hand my husband, who is intelligent 
and reads an awful lot of historical non-fiction, has been known to 
spell his own mother's name wrong.  Phonics means nothing to him.  
When writing a multi-syllable word he's been known to leave out an 
entire syllable.  This has nothing to do with intelligence, IMO.  He 
simply can't equate phonics with spelling (of course where English is 
concerned phonics and spelling often have nothing in common anyway).

I see the same thing with my two older kids.  Beth can sound out 
practically any word she comes across.  She can put the sounds 
together and make out the word.  Gareth, on the other hand, has a 
photographic memory for words but can't sound them out.  Even if I 
sound out the individual syllables for him he can't put the sounds 
together.  I'm not saying that Gareth will never be able to do this; 
I'm simply pointing out that what comes naturally to Beth is a 
struggle for Gareth.  Perhaps it's a male/female thing.  Anyone know?

Mary Ann
(who has 10 people coming over tonight and really must get on with 
housework)