Do I have the WORST liveries in britain??

You are quite right - 'are wont to do' is perfectly correct. I used to be a copy-editor/proof-reader, and then a copywriter, for publishers such as OUP, and I now make my living writing books, so I really do know this stuff!

Glad to find there are some kindred spirits on here who wince at 'would of' and other crimes against the English language! Shall we start a clique? The 'Grammar Police' clique, maybe? Or 'Grammar Geeks'?

I'm so geeky and anal that I don't even split infinitives! (I probably need to get out more LOL!)
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I don't profess to be brilliant at either spelling or grammar, but I give it my best shot!

I remember having to learn 10 words every week at junior school for a test on a Friday. If you got less than 8 correct you were in BIG trouble.

Nowadays, it seems to be acceptable to spell words any which way, and punctuation isn't seen to be needed.

In my current job you had to pass an entry test of grammar and spelling, plus maths and logic. 10yrs ago the pass rate was high, but I believe they scrapped the test a few years back because everyone failed it and they couldn't get any new staff! Now the emails people send me don't make much sense!!
 
I know it is so difficult for some people to grasp English. It is an incredibly difficult language to understand. My mother is foreign (German/Swedish) and so she was taught English and therefore has a far better concept of the quirks and intricacies of English.

In Europe, the teaching of the mother tongue is far superior than it is in this country. You are taught proper grammar ie Nominative, Accusative etc.

That is not to say that any sensible person has ever said, written, or believed that English--or any other living language--is, will be, or should be forever unchanging. New things and ideas in the world that language describes require new language to describe them. Useful habits get picked up, become conventions, and evolve into rules. (For example, most people today have no idea how recent is the extraordinarily useful convention of using commas to set off a nonrestrictive relative clause, so that "Wild geese which fly high are a menace to aviation" will mean something notably different from "Wild geese, which fly high, are a menace to aviation.").

I just feel that the blatant horrors that one comes across in emails and other written nightmares (fine example, the film two weeks notice - NO!!! It is 'Two Week's Notice'!!) are almost too much for me to bear.

Congratulations if you managed to read this far!

PS - Do I get a prize for the best/most interesting hijacking of a post?
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