Why do people get so annoyed with incorrect spelling or grammar?

Question

I'm not a great at spelling or grammar I do always try to use a spell check where possible . I would just like to know why it makes people so mad?

Answer 1

Because sometimes, others cant understand what they are saying. They dont get the point or the real meaning of what they want to say. They think you're stupid or non educated.

Answer 2

Some people are perfectionists. They are irritated when other people don't seem to care the way that they do about spelling or grammar & make so many errors. Many people obviously don't bother with spellcheck or it would weed out a lot of the mistakes. I'm a perfectionist, but I have bigger things to worry about!

I was an English Specialist & have always been an impeccable speller however, I don't launch into a tirade when I see misspellings because it doesn't bother me. I am my own harshest critic but I tend to go a bit easier on everyone else! I try not to sweat the small stuff. I find that with the internet, people don't have the patience or the time to worry about spelling. They type things quickly & let it go, so naturally errors occur. Also their teachers may not have been as strict (or the teachers may have been poor spellers, who knows?) and so they never actually learned how to spell correctly. Grammar is something that is covered in grade school & after that you're just kind of left to your own devices. Admittedly I don't even remember a lot of grammar rules that I learned in school. As a poet I got used to writing without punctuation or capitalization. In my job we have to type in short forms & abbreviations so trying to form proper sentences & punctuate them correctly is more of a struggle for me these days. I'm a control freak though so I'm usually on top of it. I don't expect everyone to worry about it the way that I do & I don't pick people apart if they make a mistake. Usually I can tell what they meant anyway.

Answer 3

I let is go but cannot understand why they do not bother to use the spell check - so I assume they are just scoring points - but I do get cross also at people giving a thumbs down for slightly misssspellllt words. It is the questions and answers that make me cross though more than the spelling.

Answer 4

Lots of people see incorrect spelling and bad grammar as sloppiness. If a person is pedantic and really picky they can feel so superior to others. The problem today is that many teachers themselves are unable to use the English language properly so pupils bad habits never get corrected.

Answer 5

I think you are talking about me, to me a mistake is a mistake whether it is in words or in ideas; a mistake on behalf of someone signifies lack of concentration, absence of respect and regard, substandard material stuff, as if meanings of things do not matter very much. I get very annoyed when people do not bother to run a spell check after taking so much trouble to think and write something. I never forget to run spell checker myself after everything I write, however small or informal, and to spell correctly is one of the best habits I picked from my school.

Now, every word is that specific word because it is specifically spelled; there is no point spelling a word wrongly and assuming that ‘others will know what I mean’. What if they don’t; for this reason, this is bad attitude. Why, for example, one should leave the meaningfulness of what one is trying to say unto others? And why not be accurate and responsible in every way? How for example would it sound like if one would pronouns as many words wrongly as one spelled wrongly, in public? Your excellent and sharp speech and other oratory skills have developed out of nowhere but from reading imprints of very accurately spelled words, and also thanks to your good teachers as well.

Answer 6

Alot of the reason is because people wanna preserve the english language as much as possible although it is forever changing in style. And alot of the reasons is because we let things like spell check and the way we write SMS and Instant Messages take over rather than preserving the traditional grammar.

Answer 7

I find it very annoying. Not that I am excellent in grammar myself. I find incorrect grammar and spelling hard to understand, make the idea one is trying to convey incoherent.
It changes the gist of the idea
it also changes the flow of the idea.

Personally, i don't harbor bad feelings to the authors. That is them, I am pretty sure they excel in math, or any other fields.
I believe though that respecting yourself also means writing properly while pointing your thoughts across to the mass or community like where we are at Y/A.

We're talking about grammar and correct spelling, right?
As to the computer street jargons, or slangs like 'cool,'nerd''tigga', i find they are not part of standard grammar correct usage, . They still convey the same message, but in different words. Unless we mispell the slang word or the computer lingo, then it becomes wrong grammatical usage.

Answer 8

Personally, as a teacher of English as a foreign language, it would be interesting for my students to be able to join a chat line or ask and answer questions on this site. However, since, as a native English speaker, I have difficulty understanding many of the questions because of grammar and spelling mistakes, I am reluctant to suggest this. Simple mistakes such as 'is they' or 'do it' would only add to the confusion.

Lonely Goatheerd might take into consideration that this particular site is aimed at the UK and Ireland.

Answer 9

Because they can't understand what one is saying. I find it desperately difficult to fathom some of the questions - they are frequently short statements with a load of question marks. Like -"West Bromich Albion"?????? At first I was saying things like "No finite verb" and I thought that people were being awkward and it took a week before I realised that half the population have no communication skills. I now don't bother to answer those questions.

Answer 10

I think its bcoz they r well educated and find it stupid when people make simple grammer or spelling mistakes.
Just think-- u can do something thats v easy for u and when somebody else try to do the same thing they do it incorrectly so ur to be feel annoyed bcoz in ur view its a v easy thing but for others its hard. And u think like- what a moron d person is who cant do such a thing!!!

Answer 11

Lynsey D,
I don't like to see bad grammar or spelling but that's just because I'm old, mind you I'm not that good myself!
I think it is because it looks as if the person either isn't trying or sometimes is deliberately trying to sound 'street wise?'
As another person said "If a jobs worth doing ..." and my view is everything I do has my name attached so I try to to do as good as I can.
Still, each generation try to develop their own way of impression and normally it gets frowned on by their elders, my generation was just the same with terms like 'daddio' 'fab' and 'cool man' etc:
Or maybe I'm turning into a bit of an 'old fuddy duddy' eh?