I took my english language GCSE in 1987, I was educated in a state school (there was no grammer school system in the Midlands at the time) and I passed both that exam and my english literature exam which included an essay on Chaucer's a Pardoner's tale in the original middle english (what the point of that was I still don't know but I did think it was fun and a very lyrical way of reading the poem). My english language lessons included grammer and spelling lessons and they were marked on our essays and exams. Our exam also included an oral presentation where you were expected to speak articulately on your favourite book. Due to that and through my extensive reading I feel that whilst my spelling and grammer is by no means perfect it is probably above average.
What on earth was the point of stating all that I hear you ask, well firstly I wanted to reassure some members that it wasn't just schooling in the 70's that dealt with grammer and spelling, they were teaching it well into the 80's and 90's too
but mostly I just wanted to give a little background as a foundation for the attitude that I'm about to expound.
My personal belief is that when infomration is written down, as with this forum it is quite important to ensure that the way someone reads your post is the same way you hear it in you head when you are writing it. The best way to do that is to do your very best to make sure that your puctuation and grammer is as accurate as possible, there is no tone of voice or body language in written forums so you have to do your very best to make sure that the writing itself is as clear as possible. Of course all posts are valuable it's just there's less chance of misunderstanding if they are written using the correct spelling, punctuation and grammer.
