Is bad grammar acceptable?

Question

Our council’s written docs (agendas, policies, minutes etc) are full of misplaced apostrophes, spelling mistakes, missing words, contradictions, repetitions and poor choice of language. I have raised my concerns publicly in meetings (whenever a policy is renewed) and also privately, but have come to realise that a majority of councillors and also the Clerk do not even recognise that there is a problem, let alone have any willingness to correct it.  Could the forum advise please whether I should persevere? Or whether I should just chill out and accept that this is the way it is? I am also interested to know whether this is a common problem in other councils?

Answer 1

I feel your pain!

There seems to be a common ‘dumbing down’ of many elements of current society and if you pull it up YOU somehow become the ‘problem.’

Maybe when ‘attention to detail” (or maybe even OCD?) become protected characteristics or diagnosed disabilities then you will feel more able to just ask people to do things proper like….

Comments

I presume you're referring to CDO, which is not unlike OCD, but with the letters arranged in alphabetical order, AS THEY SHOULD BE!

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That made me larf!

Answer 2

I blame the education system.  It never ceases to amaze me that we turn out young people (and old ones for that matter) who cannot differentiate between their, there and they're, or too, two or to.  Yes, I am of a certain age and have memories of the blackboard eraser being thrown at her in class for getting it wrong!

Comments

The blackboard eraser incident was a breach of your human rights and you should have pursued it through the European Courts!

Answer 3

In this day and age, there's really no excuse. Spellcheckers, Grammarly etc.