Notice in cafe in Coventry

Checks not excepted in this establishmant.

(The owners were English.)

Oh Dear, Cathidaw, Its a sign of out times I think. Education standards just don't seem to be what they were or should be. The 3 Rs are not taught like they were and I think this may be a lot to do with it but that is just my opinion.

I was never good at maths, but there is no excuse for careless spelling, mine is pretty good, though I do have to stop and think sometimes.
I think the art of writing has been lost since the age of technology, take text messaging for instance, it encourages bad spelling and grammar.

This has been going on for a couple of generations. Things have now got to the stage where kids who weren't taught spelling/grammar properly in the 70s/80s are now teaching today's kids poor spelling & grammar, compounding the problem.

Yes, I agree Lex. My spelling is awful. It used to be excellent but I cringe at some of the spelling I see written by young people in their early twenties. They write as they speak- phonetically and colloquially.

It strikes me very funny that when we meet people or visit aunts or uncles we haven't seen for a while, we watch our p's and q's, and are very polite, but with real close friends and family we can be very casual in our manners and speech.
For instance, when I first met my husband I think I over did the etiquette and polite conversation trying to impress, remembering not to butt in while he was speaking. ( a bad habit of mine I tried to correct). But years on now, though still very loving, we are so casual and tell each other where to ger off! We even play fight at times!

Lovely isn't it.

I took my kids' school to task over this, they backtracked very quickly, but I'll never forget the English teacher's words...

"These [The children attending the school] are only average kids Mr Rebbonk, and we only ever expect them to make average achievements!" - With teachers like that, what chance have kids got?

Zilch, none, Nade. I expect teachers to inspire children. That is surely the whole ethos of being a teacher or should be. Like Nurses- they should want to care and thus we have a batch of nurses that don't care.(Some do so I am not tarnishing all with the same brush)

sign in Coventry;
Checks and cards not excepted in this cafe.

It irritates me too Cathi, either they have used the American spelling or somebody does't know the English language very well.

Usually the latter Margaret

One of my biggest irritations is the apostrophe or rather the lack of it. To avoid confusion some council's have banned the use of the apostrophe in signs:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9932152/Council-bans-apostrophes-from-all-street-signs-to-avoid-confusion.html

So, it confuses people, let's do away with it seems to be the mantra, after all, this is so much easier than teaching children - and adults for that manner - of the role played by the apostrophe Correct me if I am wrong but the most likely uses for the apostrophe would be to indicate letters not being used eg is not becoming isn't and to indicate noun possession eg John has a mobile phone so that phone is John's mobile phone. In the same way, if a shop is owned by John Anderson and the signage reads Andersons Stationery instead of Anderson's Stationery this is to stop confusion? All I can say to that is well done to businesses such as McDonald's for continuing to use the apostrophe in its rightful place.

Two similar words that cause confusion are stationery and stationary. If I can sit still or be stationary for five minutes and have stationery to hand I will write a letter.

My spelling and grammar isn't perfect, after all, at age 15 I was out in the the working world and so my formal education was cut short but I did go out into that working world with a reasonable grasp of English and grammar that stood me in good stead when my first job included typing letters on manual typewriters that did not have spellcheckers. If in doubt about the spelling of a word your dictionary would point you in the right direction and also provide an example showing the use of that particular word.

English and grammar have been evolving and will continue to do so. Trends appear which have official backing and these trends are rolled out in schools and you now see variations such as J. S. Anderson, J.S. Anderson and J S Anderson.

Is it just the older generations that cringe at the loss of the apostrophe and other trends which would appear to undermine the written word?

During my working life, even as an apprentice, I always had a small dictionary. It often came in handy!

In later years, correcting engineering reports, I became very aware of the poor level of spelling and grammar. I always advised the engineers to use simple short sentences; that did cut down a lot of the problems.



Possibly yes, because we're the last generation that had any real English taught to us.

I love the English language with all it's foibles. Books are now written sometimes without any speech marks.It makes for interesting reading.I write quickly and my punctuation is not always correct but I still use it.(I have someone to oversee my stories.) Perhaps that's why I like writing dialogue, mistakes dont show up so much. Wrong spelling only makes me smile-and I'd love to correct it but never do.I have just read from an original Charles Dickens book'All the Year Round' published 1864, his own version of his visit to Stratford upon Avon.His autobiographic writing is quaintly beautiful and he has a great sense of humour.
My latest giggle was in a cafe/shop in Bude last weekend.'More seating threw here.'on a massive silver arrow.