ENGL 390: Modern English Grammar 4 Units

"Usage matters: A comparative study of judgments of English usage errors"
A survey undertaken by Dr. Johanna Rubba and the students of English 390: Modern English Grammar, of Cal Poly State Univ., San Luis Obispo

Results of the general survey (corrected 6/7)

Demographic information - Responses to items by category of error and answer - Comparative favorable vs. unfavorable 'scores' for each category of error - Results by gender - Results by occupational group -  Summaries of results for each individual 'error' category
 

Click here for Shawn Stafford's summary tables AND BAR GRAPHS by all dimensions: Whole subject pool, gender, age, occupation. A REALLY NIFTY SUMMARY, ESP. THE BAR GRAPHS!
 

Demographic information: The subject pool was almost evenly divided between males and females. 31% were between 18 and 25; 49% between 35 and 55; 20% were over 55. Therefore we were surveying a relatively young population, which could be of significance, considering that sensitivity to language changes and education about things like grammar and mechanics vary across generations.  7 individuals did not report their occupation. 41% of those reporting were not educators, but employed in the private sector or by the government;  59% were educators. 18% of the total pool reporting an occupation were middle-school teachers, 13% high-school teachers, and 28% were college teachers.
 

M/F		Age		Occ
#1		#2		#3
M	101	18-35	65	Ind	82
F	107	35-55	101	MS	36
Total	208	55+	42	HS	26
		Total	208	Coll	57
				Total	201

Responses to items:

Percentage of subjects choosing each answer for each category:
 

	No  error	Mis- spelling	Dialect difference	Var. in St. Engl.	Punctu- ation	Informal style	Capital- ization	AVE
(a) I see no error	50%	23%	7%	35%	21%	59%	25%	31%
(b) Bothers  a lot	16%	41%	78%	26%	37%	13%	25%	34%
(c) Bothers somewhat	23%	27%	12%	27%	31%	17%	34%	24%
(d) Error does not bother	11%	10%	4%	13%	12%	11%	15%	11%

Comparative 'scores': The first number reflects the percentage who marked either b or c (bothered to some degree), the second number reflects the percentage who marked either a or c (sees no error or is not bothered at all by error).

• No error                     40-60
• Misspelling               67-33
• Dialect difference    89-11
• Variation in the
• standard dialect      47-53
• Punctuation              68-32
• Informal style           30-70
• Capitalization           60-40

Results by gender:
 

	No  err	No  err	Mis- spel	Mis- spel	Dial diff	Dial diff	Var. in St. Engl.	Var. in St. Engl.	Punc	Punc	Inf style	Inf style	Cap	Cap
	M	F	M	F	M	F	M	F	M	F	M	F	M	F
(a) I see no error	50	50	24	22	7	7	34	35	22	20	59	59	24	26
(b) Bothers  a lot	14	19	39	43	76	79	25	27	35	38	11	15	25	26
(c) Bothers somewhat	25	22	29	25	3	9	28	25	31	30	15	19	33	37
(d) Error does not bother	12	10	17	10	0.6	5.5	13	0.75	12	11	15	7	19	11

M/F are about equal in the 'I see no error here' category. Women are very slightly more bothered in the (b) category overall. In most cases, men are more likely to vote 'bothers me somewhat' although the variation is slight and there are a few categories in which women respond with higher frequency with this answer than men. With one exception (dialect differences), men are more likely to see an error but not be bothered by it at all. Overall, the gender differences are slight, but where they do show up, in the majority of cases women are stricter than men.

Results by occupational group

Note: Results for capitalization are not available at this time. As there was only one capitalization item, this is not an important gap.

Overall, the college teachers and business people were the strictest — these two groups had figures of 60% or more when combining the (b) and (c) ratings. The other two groups — middle- and high-school teachers — had combined (b)-(c) ratings between 50% and 60%. The middle school teachers were the most tolerant, including noticing fewer errors than other groups (their (a) rating is the highest of all occupations). Business people were next-least-likely to notice an error, with nearly a third of respondents marking (a) on average. Only a quarter of high-school and college teachers were likely to find no error in any given item. The college teachers were the strictest group, with the highest number of 'bothers me a lot' ratings (though this was not quite half the pool of college teachers).

Business: (figures are percents)

	No  error	Mis- spelling	Dialect difference	Var. in St. Engl.	Punctu- ation	Informal style	AVE
(a) I see no error	43	27	6	38	25	44	30.5
(b) Bothers  a lot	19	37	77	23	29.5	18.5	34
(c) Bothers somewhat	27.5	27	14	27	34	26	26
(d) Error does not bother	11	9.5	3	12	12	12	8

Middle School Teachers (figures are percents)

	No  error	Mis- spelling	Dialect difference	Var. in St. Engl.	Punctu- ation	Informal style	AVE
(a) I see no error	52	32	16	43	23	42	35
(b) Bothers  a lot	16	40	70	29	29	29	36
(c) Bothers somewhat	25	19	11	21	22	21	20
(d) Error does not bother	8	8	3	8	10	8	7.5

High-school Teachers (figures are percents)

	No  error	Mis- spelling	Dialect difference	Var. in St. Engl.	Punctu- ation	Informal style	AVE
(a) I see no error	40	13	2	35	21	45	26
(b) Bothers  a lot	19	33	76	11	30	14	30.5
(c) Bothers somewhat	28	39	11	27	32	28	27.5
(d) Error does not bother	13	15	11	23	17	14	15.5

College teachers (figures are percents)

	No  error	Mis- spelling	Dialect difference	Var. in St. Engl.	Punctu- ation	Informal style	AVE
(a) I see no error	61	15	5	26	14	32.5	26
(b) Bothers  a lot	14	48	82	33	43	26	41
(c) Bothers somewhat	14	28	9.5	29	32	26	23
(d) Error does not bother	12	9	3	12	11	15	10

 

No error	Business	MS Tchrs	HS Tchrs	Coll Tchrs
(a) I see no error	43	52	40	61
(b) Bothers  a lot	19	16	19	14
(c) Bothers somewhat	27.5	25	28	14
(d) Error does not bother	11	8	13	12

The college teachers are most accurate in the no-error category, although only on a 60-40 ratio. (That is to say, 40% saw an error where there was none.) Middle-school teachers were next most accurate, followed by business people and then high-school teachers. Note that, where an error was detected, the tendency was towards not being terribly bothered.
 
 

Misspelling	Business	MS Tchrs	HS Tchrs	Coll Tchrs
(a) I see no error	27	32	13	15
(b) Bothers  a lot	37	40	33	48
(c) Bothers somewhat	27	19	39	28
(d) Error does not bother	9.5	8	15	9

Teachers, especially high-school and college teachers, are least tolerant of misspellings. People employed outside of teaching are only slightly more tolerant. The group most tolerant of misspellings is the middle-school teachers.
 
 

Dialect difference	Business	MS Tchrs	HS Tchrs	Coll Tchrs
(a) I see no error	6	16	2	5
(b) Bothers  a lot	77	70	76	82
(c) Bothers somewhat	14	11	11	9.5
(d) Error does not bother	3	3	11	3

All groups come down hard on nonstandard-dialect forms in writing, with college teachers leading the pack. The middle-school teachers are the most tolerant, but only relative to the other occupational groups. They are still quite unforgiving of written nonstandard-dialect forms.
 
 

Variation in St. English	Business	MS Tchrs	HS Tchrs	Coll Tchrs
(a) I see no error	38	43	35	26
(b) Bothers  a lot	23	29	11	33
(c) Bothers somewhat	27	21	27	29
(d) Error does not bother	12	8	23	12

College teachers are most likely to see and object to a standard-dialect usage that is undergoing change. The middle-school teachers and business people are somewhat less likely to spot one of these usages.  However, when those in these two groups do consider a usage erroneous, they tend to be bothered by it. High-school teachers are more forgiving, with high rates of tolerance (answers (c) and (d)) even when they consider the usage erroneous.
 
 

Punctuation	Business	MS Tchrs	HS Tchrs	Coll Tchrs
(a) I see no error	25	23	21	14
(b) Bothers  a lot	29.5	29	30	43
(c) Bothers somewhat	34	22	32	32
(d) Error does not bother	12	10	17	11

High-school and college teachers are both more aware of and less forgiving of punctuation errors, but by relatively slight margins. College teachers come out strictest in this category. Once again, the middle-school teachers are the most forgiving, with ratings almost evenly distributed across (a)-(b)-(c). In every occupational group, more than half the subject pool both notices and objects to some degree to punctuation faults.
 
 

Informal style	Business	MS Tchrs	HS Tchrs	Coll Tchrs
(a) I see no error	44	42	45	32.5
(b) Bothers  a lot	18.5	29	14	26
(c) Bothers somewhat	26	21	28	26
(d) Error does not bother	12	8	14	15

Within this tiny category, we find all but the college teachers to be very forgiving of informal style in writing. If more items had been included, the ratings might be different.
 
 

Summary results by category

No-error Category: 50% correctly saw no error; 50% thought the items contained an error.
Of those 50% seeing an error, the majority were not bothered very much by the error they thought was present.

no/er	no/er	no/er
sum	ave	%
617	103	50
204	34	16
283	47	23
137	23	11

Misspellings: Most (78%) noticed the spelling error, and the majority were bothered to some degree by the error (68%). Those not seeing the error or not objecting at all to the error were  a third of the subject pool (33%)

spel	spel
sum	ave	%
375	47	23
673	84	41
449	56	27
163	20	10

Dialect differences: 94% detected a dialect difference; 90% objected to some degree to this difference. At 78% 'bothers me a lot', this category attracted the largest number of maximum negative responses. A very small portion of the subject pool either did not detect or were not bothered at all by the dialect variation.

dial	dial	dial
sum	ave	%
71	14	7
804	161	78
120	24	12
44	9	4

Changes underway/variation within the standard dialect: This category has the broadest diversity of judgments. Though 68 detected something that they viewed as an error, 'botheration' levels were about equal for the 'a lot' and 'somewhat' categories. Just over a third of the subject pool did not detect anything they would characterize as an error. A slightly larger number of subjects than for other categories saw an error but were not bothered at all.

var	var	var
sum	ave	%
1218	72	35
925	54	26
936	55	27
446	26	13

Informal style: One item is too little to judge for this category. However, most of the respondents (59%) saw no error in this item. Those who detected an error were not much bothered by it — only 13% were 'bothered a lot'.

inf
46
206	%
122	59
27	13
35	17
22	11

Punctuation faults: 80% of the subject pool detected an error, and, as with spelling, most of the subjects (68%) were bothered by the error to some degree. Nearly a quarter of the respondents did not notice the punctuation fault.

punc	punc	punc
sum	ave	%
613	44	21
1061	76	37
889	64	31
340	24	12

Failure to capitalize: Again, too tiny a sample to generalize from; but it patterns similarly to spelling and punctuation. However, the number of respondents bothered only a little or not at all is close to half: 49%.

cap
5
207	%
52	25
52	25
72	34
31	15