Grammar Nazi, or educator?

Jean-F said:
In an effort to define “young” as it was to me, I was 30 as 1970 dawned, and all through the seventies spade was the buzzword for you know which ethnic group.
The N word was definitely around, but compared to the S word, it was still used, but a lot less often.
New words were invented by those who thought that they were clever and avant garde, but those words died a natural death.
One that lingered for a while was schwartz or schwartze (German for black), I think that those who used that word felt that it was American slang, and by using it, they (in their minds), were elevated to pseudo Americans, but they may have been unaware that it was also American/Yiddish slang for penis as well as black.
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oh yeah for sure i ain't that old.

when you said very young i thought you meant teenager :P
 
Jean-F said:
Then you are lucky adolf, or more likely quite young, anyone of my age, especially a Londoner, will be familiar with the other meaning of the word, fortunately it’s becoming passé now.
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Being familiar with it, and immediately thinking of it in such a context are two different things, though.
It's like that 'Cheekiest Monkey in the Jungle' t-shirt debacle about a year ago - People from all kinds of backgrounds use that phrase for their kids. Yes, it could be interpreted as an offensively racist term in the right (wrong) context... but only if people actively seek to do so, and that certainly wasn't the original context. Same as with this one.

wolfie138 said:
you may well be right, it was somewhere very like that, pretty sure it was around the Med. there was uproar about it at the time, must have been one of the first Brit-tourist-murdered-abroad type stories.
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Nah, this was a Danish girl murdered by three British squaddies, although the full story is even more horrific.
 
Grammar Nazis are like a lite version the people on social media who want to control speech and banish anything that can be remotely twisted into being offensive. I think social media has created a group of people who seek to control the world around them and get anything they don't like as a collective erased (censored) and punished (cancelled).
 
mmj_uk said:
Grammar Nazis are like a lite version the people on social media who want to control speech and banish anything that can be remotely twisted into being offensive.
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No.
Grammar Nazis just want people to use the correct grammar, there's nothing more to it than that.
 
mmj_uk said:
Grammar Nazi's
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No apostrophe...

mmj_uk said:
are like a lite version the people on social media
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version of the people...

mmj_uk said:
who want to control speech and banish anything that can be remotely twisted into being offensive.
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That sounds like way too much hard work...

mmj_uk said:
I think social media has created a group of people who seek to control the world around them and get anything they don't like as a collective erased (censored) and punished (cancelled).
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As it is, you're not allowed to swear on here, post sales threads without a price, link to competitor websites, or offer legal or medical advice... This is just the rules of grammar to which society aims to conform.
Nothing to do with what us 'Nazi's' personally like or dislike - There is an official, agreed standard of grammar and we merely prompt everyone to try and meet that standard, as best they can.

We're doing our part... Are you?

Would you like to know more?


:p
 
Feek said:
One of things that frustrates me most isn't necessarily grammar but it's apostrophes. I see far too many posts with random apostrophes thrown in and each time I spot one, I have a metaphorical shudder. Rogue apostrophes just leap off the page and look so out of place.
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ttaskmaster said:
No apostrophe...
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I may have corrected that because it was so glaring :D
 
I don't see the need in pointing out errors unless the mistake causes confusion...if someone uses its instead of it's or bought instead of brought etc it's still obvious what they mean
 
builder22 said:
I don't see the need in pointing out errors unless the mistake causes confusion...if someone uses its instead of it's or bought instead of brought etc it's still obvious what they mean
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By using incorrect spelling or grammar, one is increasing the likelihood of confusion. "Obviousness" is relative.

As well as that, if you use correct spelling and grammer, no-one can pull you up on it.
 
builder22 said:
I don't see the need in pointing out errors unless the mistake causes confusion...if someone uses its instead of it's or bought instead of brought etc it's still obvious what they mean
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While it’s very laudable to not point out someone’s mistakes in public, if I read a post that has grammatical mistakes, e.g. “should have”, “would have”, instead of “should have”, “would have”, or brought for bought, I say nothing and move along, but I reserve the right to think of the poster as an extremely ignorant berk.

Lysander said:
You fell into the trap... and to prove it was one, I spelled it correctly in the previous sentence :)
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I’m glad that you posted that, my first thought was “Is this a trap?”, but I had a nagging thought that perhaps you had an ambivalent attitude toward spelling!
 
My wife will say "I'm not having a go of you", instead of "I'm not having a go at you".

The irony is, she is most definitely having a go at me when she says it and correcting her just fuels the fire :D
 
Feek said:
No.
Grammar Nazis just want people to use the correct grammar, there's nothing more to it than that.
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I’d agree with that all day long Feek, but unfortunately there are lots of people who think that an apostrophe is needed if you duplicate a noun, e.g. car’s not cars, Nazi’s not Nazis, mirror’s not mirrors.
Anyone gently pointing out their mistake, in the hope that they’ll learn from it, immediately becomes an SS stormtrooper in their eyes.
 
EVH said:
My wife will say "I'm not having a go of you", instead of "I'm not having a go at you".

The irony is, she is most definitely having a go at me when she says it and correcting her just fuels the fire :D
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Welcome to my world, except with my wife, it’s “I’m fed up OF this lockdown.”
I’ve given up gently pointing out that perhaps she should be saying, “I’m fed up WITH this lockdown.”
That way lies threats of, “D’you want to eat your dinner through a straw?”
 
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EVH said:
My wife will say "I'm not having a go of you", instead of "I'm not having a go at you".

The irony is, she is most definitely having a go at me when she says it and correcting her just fuels the fire :D
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"Can you be more pacific?"

I think this one really is important to point out, because it just makes the utterer sound stupid. Most people will know what you mean but most people will also think you're stupid.
 
builder22 said:
I don't see the need in pointing out errors unless the mistake causes confusion...if someone uses its instead of it's or bought instead of brought etc it's still obvious what they mean
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It's not about what they mean. It's about how they convey it and how they can definitely do better... I know, because that's how I got better at it myself, and how everyone else got better at it.
It's like your mum telling you not to talk like a London gangstah-rapper.
 
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