Do you correct people?

I tend not to correct pronunciation. Mostly because I don't pick up on it fast enough - and it'd seem a little pedantic to say, after the current speaker has finished speaking, "oh, by the way..." (which might be met with an enthusiastic "Yes?") "you mis-pronounced 'schedule' by giving it a hard 'c'".

However, reading (be it reading over someone else's essay, in which case I'm sure corrective comments are welcomed; or on MSN, in which case...probably not xD) stuff, I generally correct glaring mistakes.

The things I hate the most are confusion with "their", "they're" and "there", because those are easily differentiable (not like a continuous simple function, but you know what I mean); "its" and "it's", because it's easy to work it out by considering "it is" or "it has" in place of the ambiguous word, and "you're" and "your", because...well...the most moronic of people should be able to grasp the difference.

Having said this, I'm much more likely to correct the spelling or grammar of someone I know quite closely. Perhaps I really am afraid and embarrassed to correct people.

On the other hand, in class, if someone explains to me their solution of a problem in mathematics (I'm sort of like...a student-mentor kinda person to most of the Further Maths set xP), and it's evident that they have made an error and are therefore talking crap in subsequent lines of logic, I'll often let them continue - I don't feel I have the right to interject.
Y'know when someone has an understanding of a topic and knows how to apply logic...their eyes light up, and you can tell they really enjoy the sense of academic achievement - I prefer not to ruin that immediately, for often the mistake is only a simple omission of a minus sign or something of the like, which does not necessarily render the remainder of the solution worthless; I don't feel spoiling their fun is justified.

I do believe, however, It is everyone's duty, to correct someone when they have made a mistake; perhaps the proposed correction may indeed be wrong, but nonetheless it will help better both people involved.
As such, I don't feel too embarrassed when corrected (especially if it's done in a constructive manner). I'm generally appreciative when someone points out that I'm talking rubbish.

And I'll bet every one of you a tenner that I've made a a gazillion spelling and grammar mistakes in this post. xD

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Don't suppose anyone's heard of a little book called, "Eats, Shoots and Leaves"?


Lynne Truss was inspired to write a book about the "inner stickler" in people (the urge to correct spelling and grammar - particularly in terms of punctuation and stuff) also doubling up as a brief history of punctuation, because she read in some leaflet, "The panda eats, shoots and leaves":

"A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

Why? asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

I’m a panda, he says, at the door. Look it up."

I find that more amusing than I probably should.
Anyway - the book came with a bunch of stickers. These stickers were mostly punctuation marks, but some were blank. The idea was to use these to rectify punctuation omissions/mistakes in posters - like on a shop that sells "Video's" or something similar.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

That would be too good to be true.
It doesn't actually happen...does it?

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.