OP, I'm with you.

I read all the books I find, and so far found major errors in four of them. I sent a note to Bethesda on each one - if they don't correct it, that's not my problem.

If you're going to publish books, at least make sure that the grammar is correct.

The proofreader was a dunmer.

I want my money back Bethesda.
I am disgusted they would expose young impressionable minds to this heinous and unrelenting butchering of the english language.

Interesting discussion. But then, I teach college writing, so my standards of "interesting" are suspect at best.

I'm with the OP. I'm sure I could be accused of "Grammar Nazism" (or is it "Naziism"?) from time to time, but I try not to be a jerk about it (unless I'm in class, of course).

Anyway, the your/you're thing does bother me, because it's a pretty obvious error - like it's/its and there/their/they're. It doesn't have me foaming at the mouth with rage, but it makes me wince inwardly a little and think, "Ooh, shoulda caught that one."

My other job is as a proofreader, actually, so I may be more aware of these kinds of errors than most. But the suggestion that nobody should care because we all make mistakes... well, spelling and grammatical errors can yank me out of the game world just as much as screwed-up textures and wonky AI. Errors of any kind remind the player that he's playing a game and - yes - hurt immersion. Not the end of the world, no - but they should have known better.

*proofreads post nervously*

You forgot to capitalise English...

I am truly sorry BGSForums. I apologise from the depths of my soul. Wait a minute, I can BS my way out of this.

That was to emphasise the lack of respect Bethesda showed the language, trivialising it's importance. The lack of capitilisation represents this demeanng.

"Ooh, shoulda caught that one."

I will give you a pass because there are two schools of thought on where you should place the period in this situation, and your quote is a full sentence. http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2011/05/the_rise_of_logical_punctuation.single.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy is real.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who proofreads stuff.

So, here's the question. When did the word "of" replace the word "have?"

Like in, "I would of completed that job," - might not be the best example but I think you understand what I'm saying?

Drives me and my wife crazy.

For me it was when that cranky English teacher in Year 9 told me I couldn't.

It is my opinion that this comes from people not reading enough. Their only experience with the English language is through spoken word, and "would've" sounds like "would of".

Ha, well, thanks to all the posters, this little quib provided far more entertainment (and surprising intelligence) than I could have imagined.

Yes, bugs where display drivers crash or where you can't "quit" the enchanting table or the like are clearly far higher priority. But grepping text for "your" and seeing context is pretty easy to fix, and I'm rather certain there are more than a few employees who's only job is to write/edit lore. I don't think the physics engine guys are going to stop debugging gravity fails for this.

What's the harm in reporting anyway? The world's best debugging suite and proofreading army are those playing it. So there it is. Yes, there are also errors in the books. Flame away, the error still exists. All "ur" base are belong to us should have been "u'r", clearly.

Turn off subtitles? People actually sit on their butt and LISTEN to all that blather? I've got a job and a kid, I'd never get to play the game at 1am if I didn't read-click through all the text.

Thx for the entertainment. I don't believe in a million years something this trivial will be fixed.

This is why I believe text to speech is the future.

It may sound stupid to some people, but bad grammar really annoys me. There versus their versus they're. We're versus were versus where. The fact that alot is not a word (one of the worst in my opinion).

I've noticed a few instances in the game were the spoken dialogue doesn't quite match the subtitles.

That one is becoming so prevalent that I have to force myself to type "they're". It doesn't feel correct anymore.

I'm with you on most of your post, but http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html.

I'm not sure I follow - are you referring to the period in "Ooh, shoulda caught that one."? The "two schools of thought" are, I gather, American vs. British usage. As an American, I'm used to the period inside the quotation marks.

I do, however, appreciate the logic of the British method.

Anyway, surely we can agree that there are degrees of pedantry?

Volcano Bakemeat!

I've seen several other misspellings, but the only one I can remember off the top of my head has to do with Ysolda in a semi-spoiler dialogue.

yea thats true a game this big going to have typos,bugs all kind of thing nothing perfect.

The problem with English for us, non-native speakers, is the incredible amount of homophones (your/you're - night/knight - tied/tight - there/they're - no/know - to/too/two - ...) in your language. How words are spelled in English is a very unpredictable business, compared to other Indo-European languages.

In a way, I'm always a bit comforted by the fact that the native speakers sometimes get it wrong as well.

I'm not. It is an extension of the entitlement that many of my fellow Americans believe they have. It has been my experience that non-native speakers care far more about how they sound, how their grammar is, and knowing the correct way to say something. Americans have the attitude of "u no wot i sed".

OK, I'll rise to the bait-

'My wife and I'

me and my wife is correct in this case. you can tell by taking out the "and my wife" part. if the sentence still makes sense, its correct

"it drives I crazy" - see? incorrect.

Quick, we caught another one - haul him into the boat!

"Drives my wife and me crazy" is correct (apart from the missing subject). "me" is an object pronoun, and since it (along with "my wife") is an object of the sentence, it works.

How can you test this? Take away the other object. You're left with "Drives... me crazy." You wouldn't say "Drives... I crazy."

Edit: gar! Beaten to the punch.