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My horrible spelling and grammar. Any other young guys?

bmikkalson

Hot Rolled
Joined
Jan 20, 2010
Location
St, Paul MN
I get blasted for grammar a lot. Any other young guys thirty or less feel they missed out in school?
I was never taught curisive in school. Public school k-12
Graduated,and went on to earn three college degrees. One in auto body, one in machine tool, and a four year in criminal justice studies.

My grandma and dad both have perfect grammar and penman ship.
Spell check has destroyed any actual thought of spelling from memory.
Curious as to what others think young and old.
 
You have more education than a lot of people. I suggest that you start reading books. One of my favorite authors is Tom Clancy.
 
Rons is right. Reading for pleasure is a good way to brush up your spelling and punctuation.

Regards Tyrone.

Agreed - most of my (misspent) youth I was a sci-fi reader, after thousands of books you start to get a sense of "real world" (if I can use that phrase for SF writing) sentence structure. I never paid a lot of attention in grade school to "structural" English, I was much more interested in science and history. But when you read a butt-load of (mostly) well written stories it sort of seeps in, and you start to recognize when a sentence is badly configured.

I've never read any of the Harry Potter books, but I have heard that they've had a great impact on kids who never read much - suddenly they were engaged, and wanted to find out what happened next. I don't have a strong opinion on the quality of the stories, but if they encourage kids to read books that's terrific.

Now I spend most of my reading time online, either on forums like this or for auto racing. The porcelain reading room has actual magazines, but they're almost identical in content.
 
The fact that you are aware of the problem is a great advantage. Reading (books) will help develop the skill, and, contrary to what you have said, spell checkers can help you to spell correctly.


Typing correctly is another skill! - for yearsI would type computor <backspace,backspace>er because, even though I know how to spell computer and I know why it is 'er' , the 'fingers' would reach for the 'o' . (tiny tablet keyboards don't help!)

Learning to read what one has written BEFORE sending , is another useful skill to aquire! (one that still alludes me).

Bill

P.S poor english is everywhere; this piece of nonsense can be seen on the back of Stannah stair lift vans (picture to follow)

'… helping keep homes and businesses running more smoothly'.
 

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You have more education than a lot of people. I suggest that you start reading books. One of my favorite authors is Tom Clancy.

My Father got me hooked on Isaac Asimov and Douglas Adams.

Highly recommended. I've noticed very few of my peers will take the time to sit and read. It shows.
 
Not much to add to what has been said here. I'm 28, my parents encouraged me to read lots and I still read voraciously, in print and online. It's helped my writing skills tremendously- in a way that is internalized and feels very natural, like an instinct.

Don't just read what you can buy in the supermarket. Sites like Goodreads.com and even Amazon reviews/recommendations are great to discover new things, especially if you don't have a lot of bookworm friends.
 
Spelling and grammar are to communication what paint and trim are to architecture. Communication is the greater goal.

There are probably as many definitions for good speech and writing as there are people discussing the topic.

I suggest people who wish to speak with confidence and authority consider joining a local Toastmaster's group. There you will find others desiring speaking skills in all levels of attainment. They offer booklets of hint and tricks, what to avoid. They will teach you devices and gimmicks and punish you with the infamous "ah!" counter. They tend to meet t lunch or after work. Check your local listings or Google "Toastmaster" for you hometown.

If you wish a more formal setting for learning speech and speaking, consult you local community college. There are may options including rhetoric and debate.

Writing is communication just like speech. You use words in a row selected and composed much like a composer writes music. I suggest and desiring to be better writers take a couple of night school courses. If the course material is any good it will discuss, compare, and contrast narrative, technical, illustrative, etc in general and also explore rhetoric, research materials (and how to find them and employ them.) This is not to be confused with composition and how to write a simple declarative sentence. Writing conveys whole ideas, concepts, and arguments in complete works whereas composition is used to manufacture the sentences, to organize them into paragraphs: the essential parts of a written work. More or less. You might say writing is strategy and composition is tactics.

You can't learn either over night. If you have a desire to learn writing you must spend the time to learn the skills and a few community college courses are the best way to do it. Sometime early in the course you will be asked to write a little of yourself. This is the time to tell your instructor your reasons for taking a writing or composition course and ask to be to forgiven your problems with grammar and spelling which you are working on in parallel along with taking the course. Your journey might take a couple of years. Time well spent for a younger man wishing to further himself.

You will find that an ability to speak and write will promote better understanding of yourself and others, advance you in your trade or profession, render you more resistant to bullshit and propaganda etc. Basic skills in speech writing are as valuable to a citizen as welding is to a metalworker.

Let's add one more skill to the mix: sketching and drawing. in 1978 I took a couple of night courses in basic sketching and drawing. An ability of expressing intelligibly on paper the concepts in your mind advances not only your own understanding but the understanding of your co-workers and colleagues.

Good spelling and grammar are certainly important. And ability to communicate in speech and on paper is as oxygen to communication.
 
My Father got me hooked on Isaac Asimov and Douglas Adams.

Highly recommended. I've noticed very few of my peers will take the time to sit and read. It shows.

My late father was a science fiction fanatic. I'd buy him a boxed set for Xmas and you wouldn't get a peep out of him until the New Year. My mum used to play hell with me.

Funnily enough it's the only genre I never got into. When I was laid up with a broken leg years ago my neighbours brought me all sorts of books, Agatha Christie style whodunnits, Westerns, Crime thrillers, I read the lot but Sci- fi I just couldn't get to grips with.

Reading a quality newspaper is also very useful. The first thing I did when I got married many years ago was start buying " The Manchester Guardian ". The " Guardian " is a liberal broadsheet that takes a good couple of hours to read. That's 45 years ago now and I still read it every day, cover to cover.

There is another short cut - marry an English teacher like I did !

Regards Tyrone.
 
Don't succumb to text speak at every opportunity. It may pay off in the future when you submit a resume. I know that I would pick a candidate with a well written resume over another equally skilled one that can't write.
Joe
 
I'm in my early 30's, and it is an issue for a lot of people our age. It can be fixed though, but not by going on more courses. I think functional english is what matters, as long as you are not in a role where you are writing lots of documents then don't sweat it too much - and use those around you as a way of picking up on your mistakes.

I used to manage a bloke who was a complete pedant about grammar, it really helped me because he used to pick me up on stuff - sure it was annoying too, but it did help me.
 
Not much to add to what has been said here. I'm 28, my parents encouraged me to read lots and I still read voraciously, in print and online. It's helped my writing skills tremendously- in a way that is internalized and feels very natural, like an instinct.

Don't just read what you can buy in the supermarket. Sites like Goodreads.com and even Amazon reviews/recommendations are great to discover new things, especially if you don't have a lot of bookworm friends.
Aren't those reviewes often the blind leading the blind. I cringe at some of the writing. I would consider it a a great linguistic step forward if people would just learn when to use your and you're, there and their or I and me. I think it can be blamed on the educational system. My friend once got a letter from his son's teacher that was so full of errors that he took a red marker to it, circled the errors and sent it back. In earlier times the OP would have never have gotten out of school without a better grasp of the language. Do they even teach sentence structure? Do kids know the difference between an object and a subject, an adjective and an adverb. It is obvious that they know no geography or history. I hope there are no errors in this rant.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
 
Aren't those reviewes often the blind leading the blind ...

Sure, but they can be excellent resources if you have read a book and are looking for something else similar. It can also be a starting point if you have a certain topic or genre you are interested in. You still need to know how to assess reviews and decide what is worthwhile to read. That can't be taught in a PM post!
 
I agree reading is the key. Reminds me of an English teacher in high school who used reading level tests in his classes. Each Fall he would test the class and start in with enthusiasm to raise their reading level. Success in June! Next September??? They would drop back down several grade levels. The teens did zero recreational reading. He told me that he finally gave up and taught to the top 50 % of the class and to Hell with the rest.
Get yourself an E reader or Ipad. For around ten bucks a month you get kindle unlimited. Most public libraries have E books and that is even cheaper. Best part is no one judges what you read by looking at the cover while you are in a waiting room or airplane. So don't ask what subject matter I read... too embarrassing.
 
Don't succumb to text speak at every opportunity. It may pay off in the future when you submit a resume. I know that I would pick a candidate with a well written resume over another equally skilled one that can't write.
Joe

My sister uses speak text all the time. Keep telling her to check before hitting send. Messages always sound like they're coming from someone straight off the boat.
 
I went through grade school before spell check. I probably first saw it in High School but didn't really use it until college. I can't spell at all so it's not exposure to spell check that causes this. I'm a wiz at math. My grammar is fine. But I just had to re-type the word "grammar" 4 times to get it right. Who knew it had a second "a"?

I figure the purpose of language is to communicate. If others understand me, I'm doing fine. By the way - I also just went back and fixed the apostrophe "s" on "others" that shouldn't have been there and had to use spell check to fix "apostrophe" - twice.
 
I was never taught curisive in school. Public school k-12

Consider that a blessing rather than a failing of your school system. Cursive was invented so a fountain pen could complete a word without being lifted from the paper. It should have died with the fountain pen as well.

I grew up before spell check, and I am a poor speller. The English language itself is part of the problem. To quote James Nicoll, "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." This word is spelled like the French, that word is spelled like the Romans, and the other is Yiddish. Math is much easier, there are rules.
 
Cursive is of limited real use. I can do it, and once in a while I use it but it certainly does little to enhance my life. I can write faster with it, but my handwriting is crap to the point of being nearly a secret code that only I can decipher.

I have to agree on reading being a great help with language skills. I'm a big sci-fi and fantasy reader myself. I've known people who graduated high school in the last 10 years that have admitted to being functionally illiterate. Exactly how that can even happen I do not know, but the long and short of it is that if you can't read, you can't write. No need to become the next Shakespeare (which I hated in school by the way) but being able to communicate is important. I know people who send emails as a giant block of text, not a period or complete thought to be found. Its really hard to work with that just because I have absolutely no idea what they want.
 
I know the English language is evolving but does everyone (even commentators on the news) have to add an "at" on the end of a sentence? "Where is it at?" OY!
 








 
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