Not wanting to sound like Michael Gove but why don't they teach it at schools anymore ??

Indeed. Went I to West Hartlepool Grammer Skool for Boys all our grammers was perfect.


They forgot to inclued speling mind.

I think one of the problems is that mobile phones don't understand the difference between their, there and they're !

Or your and you're

My Spanish ex had a hell of a time learning English. The trouble is not the words, its that they have different meanings. For example; sight and vision, same thing near enough right? ok then consider the difference between these two sentences;

She looks a vision.
She looks a sight.

Got a tale like that from tonight, one of the Danish Lads I work with was sat watching Top Gear , he asked why we called do we call a bus a coach?? ... The said he'd always wondered as the only type of coaches he was familiar with the ones like M. Barron!

What happened to BovverBootBob anyway

I had to explain to a girl I know that although "Je me fais chier" in French translates literally to "I make myself shit", the next time she's in English company it's probably better to say "I'm bored out of my skull".

It's not just these days though, people I went to school with are just as bad, if not worse.

Lazy kids and shite parenting IMO.

I taught kids here Engrish for almost three years, ages from 5 to 20-odd at University level.

It's not just things like Mr I's sight and vision, it's the difference between American, Australian, Canadian and British Engrish.

Luckily I went to the Grammar as well so for me it was a question of remembering the rules, but I can assure you it's one of the hardest languages in the world to learn from scratch.

Subjunctive clause anyone?? That comes in when they're 14.

I'm not sure I agree with that one Mr. Spender. There are three world languages (English, Mandarin Chinese and Spanish) but most speakers learn the last two as a mother tongue. English is the only genuine world language - because it's relatively easy to learn to speak it badly. You don't usually have to ask yourself if a noun is masculine, femine or neutral, you can guess the plural (till you start counting sheeps) and English hasn't got that many irregular verbs (relatively speaking).

True, when you get into the complexities of grammar English is as tough as the next language. Then again, Johnny Foreigner isn't likely to get pulled up on that by most of the native English speakers he meets, because they couldn't begin to explain why something is 'right' or 'wrong.' I've hardly worked with a graduate in the last thirty years who could pick subject, verb, object out of a sentence, much less adjectives, adverbs or subordinate clauses. It's 40 years since English grammar was taught in our secondary schools. Yep, feeling old!

.....yeah my grammars English.....but me grandads Irish....

There are two common errors that particularly annoy me.

1. The use of 'should of' instead of 'should have' or 'should've'

2. Mispronouncing the word 'etcetera'. The first T comes before the C for crying out loud!

My English teacher had huge breasts it was very hard to concentrate in lessons..

I'm not sure it matters unless you want to get seriously fluent.

I can scrape by in French. I'm sure my tenses are all to cock, i'm sure i use feminine where I shouldn't but if the point is to communicate then it works.

For example; If i said to a french bus driver 'vous allez a la opera?' it wouldn't be perfect and Monty, Mr Allez and others could pick loads of holes in it but he would know I was asking if his bus went to the opera if I used a rising intonation. So i communicated and thats the point surely?

Lose and loose, how the fack do you get them mixed up, so many people do it, even the Daily Mail vertically challenged contributor does it

I hate the term "couldn't care less", surely you COULD care less?

Er... Mr I, you are dealing with the French, right? They prolly know full well what you mean but that won't stop them taking the piss and pretending not to, even if it's clear you're making a superhuman effort.
Only saying French because of the context but it could just as well be Dutch, German, Swahili, ENGLISH.

When people nowadays say "I could care less", they actually mean "I couldn't care less", i.e., "no matter what the circumstances, the matter is so insignificant to me that I simply couldn't imagine myself caring any less than I already do."

The term "I could care less", which appears to say the opposite, is actually a Jewish thing, a bit like "I should be so lucky".
Say it with the Jewish intonation -- ">>I<< could care less", and its starts being a little clearer.

...even more annoying is 'somethinK' or 'anythinK' ffs

They still do.

I call your somethink and anythink and raise you somefink and anyfink.

All fair comments Mr Father but the examination system here is the standard and the oral part of the state exams is 5%. They're all frantic about 95% plus results so being understood isn't quite enough. Written grammar is almost perfect but in a class of 50 for 40 minutes the Chinese teacher has no opportunity to speak to every student so that's why they have native teachers. In a two and half hour session at the University I can task them up and do the rounds twice giving each student only two minutes to converse.

Consequently they could write a book but couldn't read it to you.

Write it down, they'll understand immediately but unless they write the answer you won't get one because they can't enunciate it.

Saying that, that's why I get so many young moneyed people in me pub!!

It's a general slipshod approach to grammar, spelling, & simply not reading-back what you have written. Journo's are as bad, if not worse than the rest.
The Echo had a business article this week about a local firm using a "remove operated vehicle" - a big opportunity for a couple of local firms involved to generate big overseas sales. What's a "remove operated vehicle"? To my knowledge there isn't one. Try "remote" instead of "remove" & you get the picture.
Job adverts are another case in point. "Financial Assistant, £16,000 - £175,000". I said I was interested at the upper rate, or alternatively a role as a proof-reader.
Tesco once had an enormous sign advertising their "STATIONARY" aisle.

How about this one then, from a professional writer of English:

"Pools have not took six points from six since September 2011, but last week’s win over Portsmouth was followed up with a deserved victory." — Nick Loughlin

There are in fact two errors, although one of them would probably (and rightly) go unnoticed 9 times out of 10.

'Up with?'

Should be 'up by??'

and we haven't even mentioned diphthongs

Oh aye.

What do you dip yours in??

Is that one of those 'micro' diving costumes?

No, Mr Kev; just a missing comma in t' date.

I'd have said "taken" instead of "took", but I dunno if that's one that you're getting at, or indeed if I'm actually the one who is incorrect.

Any journalist worth his salt would blame the sub-editor for that sort of thing. Even if Loughlin made the mistake the sub-editor is still to blame for it ending up in print.

No, you're right, that's the one.

Middlesbrough school trying for improvements!

http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teess ... -32748896/

Is the other one the comma before "but" ???

I think yous is a very useful and efficient disambiguation and should be made official.
You can't just go chucking second person singulars into the bin and not expect people to compensate!

Nope. It's indeed a comma, but a missing one, just t'other side of 2011.
But as I said earlier, that’s really one for nitpickers since it adds the sum total of fuck all to the semantic flow.
"Have not took" on the other hand is something you might hear but should never write, unless as a quote of course.