Does bad grammar make you investigate an app a little further?

"Me and my girlfriend want to move in together..."

Guy makes plenty of money, but something seemed hinky. Says he doesn't have a Facebook page, but his GF's name is unusual enough it was easy to find her.

Lie #1 - he does have a Facebook page, hers says she is in a relationship with him with a link to his page.

Lie #2 - both his page and hers are covered with pictures of babies. They have 2 little ones, not mentioned on the app. For a studio apartment.

Lie #3 - pit bull not mentioned on the app.

Lie #4 - says his GF is a waitress (doesn't say where) but her page says she just got a (seasonal) job at the local water park and that she hoped it would be a turning point for her. Someone asked, "Who will watch the kids?" and she said, "I have no idea."

Lie #5 - they already live together.

Also they are both Facebook friends with a couple of old tenants who did not leave under the best of circumstances.

"Me and my (fill in the blank)" is standard for Class C tenants where I live. Some of my wife's extended family routinely speak like this:

* "Are you'uns all going to the game this weekend?"

* "Me and Travis was going to go but now we aint."

It's part regional dialect; part lazy speech. The aren't lazy people (farmers/ranchers), but as long as everyone they typically interact with understand what's going on, it's good enough for them. I don't modify my speech patterns when we're around them, nor do I lord it over them. We simply speak in the way most comfy to us and get along in spite of our idiosyncrasies.

I screen tenants the same amount as always, regardless of grammar. Any of the lies I miss are found out during the 2-minute home inspection.

That's the grammar snob in me coming out. My father was a constant grammar corrector when I was growing up. His mom was British so he came by it naturally. The phrase "I seen" instead of "I saw" drives me crazy.

I'm not perfect and I can be verbally very slack. I say "I gotta" when I should say "I have to..." all the time.

Good catch.

However, I've given up on grammar, spelling, and the ability to put words in a sentence. If they make enough money to pay the rent and speak well enough to hold a job and they are at least moderately clean and not destructive, I will ignore their grammar.

My upper level tenants with a generous income are for the most part literate, but I've had excellent blue collars guys with good jobs and good income who obviously never went to college.

Bad grammar knows no racial bounds! A lot of educated black people and Latino here and a LOT of uneducated rednecks. So requiring it wouldn't be racist...but it would be class-ist.

I'm been sitting here thinking who among my tenants is a true class C as described here and I'm not coming up with anyone. Even the Toxic Due who just left were both educated people. The daughter earned an internship to study in Spain last year, and the mom was a government contractor (until she got fired, probably for being toxic to work with!)

Bad grammar annoys me, too. But I try hard to not hold it against them, even though I do think it slants the odds toward them being less than stellar tenants.

(I grew up in a family that was not well educated regarding earning degrees, but always spoke correctly and I've taught my children the same)

Now I'm tempted to put a "your, you're and there, their, & they're" quiz at the bottom of my applications! :)

- John...

Hah John. Those are the easy ones! And auto-correct can turn the most proper answer into a bad one. I've sent some messages where I just slap my head after it goes out and I feel compelled to fix it, even if it annoys the receiver.

Try Further and Farther and Lesser and Fewer. And lay and lie and laid. Once you get those in your head, a bell rings when they are used incorrectly. I'm still working on lay and lie and I'm 61.

I left high school in the 11th grade to get married, so even though the odds were against us (1965) we're still together. I, too, finished a correspondence high school course and even took some community college courses. I had gone to cosmetology school while in high school and became a licensed beautician. Later, I became a licensed Realtor. Then I went into banking (teller), thanks to Jimmy Carter & double digit interest rates because I wanted to continue eating. Houses were not selling very well. After that, I went to work for the state as a fiscal assistant.

Real estate won out, I've always enjoyed it the most of anything I've tried to do.

WMH - NC -- Facebook to the rescue again! As part of our screening of prospective tenants, I always check FB. When I see lots of foul language, references to drugs, alcohol and violence, I dig even further to find a valid reason NOT to rent to them (evictions, unpaid judgements (even if the judgements are over 25 years old).

Bad grammar from applicants? The bad grammar and spelling from members of this site drive me crazy. From applicants, I don't want anything in writing except short factual answers on my Application form!

I rent to several tradesmen whose English skills are limited, but who hold union positions and earn decent incomes. "Me and my fiancé" don't require an English test. What do you want, good grammar or good [rental history]?

Does anyone here get that allusion? [Hint: "Winston tastes good ..."]

W,

Good catch!

Correct grammer or not we check FB.

I was disappointed when my children's college professors at a prestigious university (salaries paid from MY wallet!) used phrases like “me and them went...” and “I done this.” People with Masters and doctorate degrees!

I still cringe when folks call in to my favorite radio show about living dent free without basic, elementary school grammer.

Add this to the lack of ability to make a sentence to explaina simple idea and without a tinfoil hat, I think this is an indicator of where our country is headed.

At a funeral last week for a 92 year old man, I noticed all his friends had beauftiful handwriting in the guest book, were polite and could carry a simple conversation we me, a stranger.

At first I thought this was a thread about Cimba... ;)

WMH, "poor" or "bad" are both adjectives and work equally well when modifying the noun "grammar."

One trick I learned is using the word in question in another sentence.

1. The poor boy had no TV set.

2. The bad boy lost his TV privileges.

Mike45, much of the spelling probably has a lot to do with typing on small touch screens, voice to text and spell check. I know I have a hard time with touch screens, put that on a phone size screen and I constantly hit the wrong letter. Sometimes it takes me a long time to get it correct. I actually turned off spell check because it would put out words that changed the meaning of what I typed. Usually, people can figure out what we mean with a misspelled word or 2. Sometimes we have a good laugh at what gets sent.

No I don't require proper grammar and spelling, however, the "we's gonna get 'er" certainly makes me look closer. Now I really hate the "C u thr" stuff, because I actually have to translate it in my older mind. It takes more work than reading the real words or misspelling.

It drives me crazy sometimes, but I'm not one to talk. My "howdy", "ya'll" and other things I type on the net has creeped into my everyday language. The young'uns are the primary renters and they are also the ones changing the language. I'm sure my parents and grandparents said the same thing about us when I was younger. The difference now is that social media is making the change happen twice as fast as it used to.

Haha! oops! I spelled it grammEr because that's the name of a town nearby! Spellcheck was happy with it.

I find that poor grammar within emails, texting, or

Phone calls creates a reaction for me more than the actual application and often goes hand in hand with them legitimately not meeting rental criteria (ie income). Just seems to work out that way.

If I get a call and caller says, “Hi, my name is (____) and I am very interested in the apartment you have listed on Craigslist. Could you give me a call so I can hear more or possibly set up a time to see it? Thank you.”

(First I’m so excited to get a call! Lol)

But It goes over much better than text:

Do u have apt fr rent? Can I see?