[QUOTE=jmc1971,Jan 26 2005, 06:07 PM] I agree to some extent. However, if I'm interviewing someone to work in my office, grammar counts. Grammar skills do matter in the formal, working world.

When I'm dealing with someone for whom English is a second language, none of the above applies. More power to anyone who can get by in two languages.

 

becoz i was born in new zealand i am expected to have good english skills. however, i do find myself stuck in alot ( @VoIPA) of gramatical problems. becoz i am bi/trilingual, i always speak cantonese, the country spoken kind. my mother is ill educated and i learnt from her...so my cantonese sux....the commonly used cantonese i also know of sux too, i learnt that from watching too much TVB...lol
but anywayz, usually when i make mistakes i sometimes confuse the structures of chinese sentences with english....makes me sound like a dumb ass too. a chinese chick with a kiwi accent and yet dumb as a tree trunk...hehe

i guess u cant really blame the ppl for making these mistakes, in all cases we learn from interacting with ppl, and it usually depends on where aboutz u were brought up also... media, a wide-spread brain washing thingy magiggy... plays a huge roll in this aswell... they dont always use well spoken english.
changes r constantly happening, i mean who here speaks 1800's english??? in sentences "I shall" has become "I will"....

for all i know, there is plenty of changes to come so i guess there is no point about questioning this matter... and just learn to accept ppl, i guess to me communication is enough...i dont care about mistakes, as long as i understand them....ok enough of my blabbering!!!

 

Saying it incorrectly can completely change the meaning:

"I love you more than her" means something very different from "I love you more than she".

A student in an English class complained to his professor because he got a poor grade on his essay. The student had frequently omitted the "-ly" ending from adverbs, and was marked down for these errors in grammar. The student argued that the "-ly" ending was superfluous and that, as long as his meaning was clear, a minor grammatical error shouldn't matter.

The professor pointed at a very attractive coed walking across campus. "You really believe that it makes no difference to look at her sternly, as opposed to looking at her stern?"

 

a bit off topic but,

i dont get why so many of you make such big deals out of spelling/grammar errors on forums.... its the frickin internet.

these are posts, not essays.

im use to typing this way (w/o a care for grammar/spelling) online or when im chattin because it is faster and im sure a lot of others are.

stop being so anal and just read.... if you can understand it, its all good.

 

 

I agree with you about the posts. I am way too lazy to check spelling.

My wife's entire family is blue collar. They all speak in some twisted redneck twang (I am never very excited about taking our kids there due to this). Somehow she went to college and has always avoided their language..... She was smart enough to not follow her parents and sisters. She would never be sucessful writing mortgages with horrible grammar. It would be nice to see our plant workers do the same. Instead they bitch endlessly about their pay, etc....

 

People think in language, therefore the quality of your thought is only as good as the quality of your language. Think about it.

Secondly, writing correctly will make you seem intelligent in the same way that writing incorrectly will make you seem unintelligent. Of course, a simple written paragraph isn't always indicative of one's intelligence, but it may seem so.

I try to write correctly, but I make mistakes, no one is perfect.

 

Who spelled it wrong?? That is how you spell grammar.

People are lazy. That may be the answer. I suppose the same goes for people having poor manners.

 

 

And to think, I thought bad grammar mainly rested in the South.