Does it matter that many people don't seem to know how to spell and punctuate correctly?

I work in a large global corporation, and receive up to 50 emails every day. It is unusual if they do not include spelling and grammatical errors. Some recent examples are:





-PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR FIGURE'S BY FRIDAY


-PLEASE ENSURE THERE ON TIME


- YOUR EXPECTED AT 10AM





Market stalls are famous for signs like: "Finest apple's"





My instinct is to ask "Finest apple's what? Finest apple's pips? Stalks? Skins?





Does any of this matter, or are we doomed to descend into a world of no punctuation, poor grammar and mobile phone text-speak?





That's my grump for the day.

Does it matter that many people don't seem to know how to spell and punctuate correctly?
It matters. It's unlikely to change.





I think less of someone who can't communicate accurately in their native language - it's a bar to communication. Minor mistakes happen here and there, not everyone has to be perfect, but some errors are just too glaring to ignore.





It seems that many of the people asking questions here (in English at least) have no concept of how to form a complete sentence, use punctuation, or spell correctly.
Reply:Not to them obviously.





I've noticed this mainly on this board and the internet. I think all of the LOL's have gone to people's heads.





But I do notice that Lose has become Loose.


I think people just don't read books anymore. They read the chat they are having with a friend on their phone or computer. Believe it or not, reading the language written properly, helps you write it properly.
Reply:The world is forgetting spellings nowadays, it sems to me like that!
Reply:Clearly it doesn't matter to those who do it. It is your right as an educated person to treat them with scorn and ridicule.
Reply:yes, it's important, shows how well educated they are or not
Reply:Does it really matter? If you can get your point across well enough, I don't think everyone needs to be writing at the level of an English graduate.





We make mistakes. Big deal.





I try my best to write with punctuation, grammar and spelling in mind, but I also taught most of my ability to write to myself before classes in school did; it was something that interested me. While this is true for some, other people are mathematical and don't have the patience for fussing with letters.





I agree that signs for businesses should be properly displayed (we have a "Nails and Esthetic's" around here that tweaks me every time), but when it comes down to the little things it just isn't worth the fuss. Personally, I think there's bigger things to focus on than a misplaced apostrophe.
Reply:A couple of hundred years ago spelling and punctuation was not very exact and varied from person to person, even among the well educated. I think spelling and punctuation matter in professional situations, but among friendly correspondence with friends it hardly matters.





When I first started using forums and chat on the Internet in the mid nineties, everyone seemed to write complete sentences and use proper sentence structure and punctuation. This seems to have dissapeared.





I tend to disregard most forum postings from those who don't write correctly and simply leave it at that.





I work at an IT helpdesk for a large university, and only a very small amount of requests come through our ticket system with full setence structure, punctuation, spelling etc.
Reply:I personally think it matters alot. I definitely base my opinion of people on their ability to write correctly. Understandably everyone slips up now and then but they should strive to be correct. It strikes me as very odd that even at this site there is a "Check spelling" icon right above this box and obviously very few people bother to hit it!


You'll enjoy the book "Eats, shoots and leaves". It is hilarious.
Reply:It does matter. It matters because you can and should use this information about the writers to judge them.





Now, let me be perfectly clear about this. The only person who knows what you think of these writers' inability to write a sentence will be you. You are not going to broadcast this information to anyone. You are just going to use this information if you ever need to work with them.





People who use proper grammar are more likely to be both conscientious and trustworthy with important projects in the future. People who do not use proper grammar are more likely to be the people you should not invest project time with, when the project is very important to you.





You know whom you can trust to do tedious, detailed work, as well as whom you can never trust.





I also work in a Fortune 50 company and the rubbish sent through the emails by some of my fellow employees is disgraceful. I have used that information in the past to my advantage when teams were being formed for projects.