Why is SPaG important?

Also, I would argue that the rules of SPaG actually make little sense and are very inconsistent like for example the rule "i before e except after c" which has loads of exceptions and without explanation(I'd argue this for a lot of spellings).

That is a "rule" people use to help remember things, which happens to have exceptions. It isn't an official rule of the English language

I read somewhere that more words disagree with the "rule" than agree.

I'm not too fussed about spelling side, but with regards to grammar- learning technical terms such as coordinating, subordinating conj, imperative, subjunctive etc. all come in great use for people learning foreign languages so there is always a benefit there.

I'll let y'all argue about the spelling

I read somewhere that more words disagree with the "rule" than agree.

You are validating my point a lot of English doesn't even follow rules like a lot of spellings you've just got to learn there is no justification to it, no concrete rules like Mathematics and Science.Why should a word be spelt in such a way?Why shouldn't we change English so that it will always obey concrete rules?I can't see why weird is not spelt like wierd I had been misspelling that word for years until I realised.

Why shouldn't we change English so that it will always obey concrete rules?

We need to have set conventions so that everyone can understand everyone else's messages.

If you had spelt half of the words in your post differently, I would have struggled to understand you.

You said this in your OP:

"Therefore, encouraging different non-consistent uses of SPaG that represent a person's individual writing style would actually be a good idea."

And now you say this:



Make up your mind

No you wouldn't have I'm sure I have seen text where only the first and last letter were correct(something to do with dyslexia) and yet you could pretty much understand it all.

Our comprehension ability is also shown through our study of foreign languages, I'm sure most people like me when they did the reading tests couldn't read the text properly but they could understand some of it and get the correct meaning of the text through deduction(I got 100% in the French Reading exam as well).

I am saying that if we are to try to force people to write English in a certain way, it at least should follow concrete rules like Maths and Science.Forcing people to write English in a way that makes little sense as it doesn't even seem to follow concrete rules is very stupid.

I generally think we should forget about forcing people to write English in a certain way but if we are to do that it at least should make sense.

The Oxford dictionary actually states under which circumstances that rule applies

The Oxford Dictionary features three words for which it can't justify the spellings though based on that rule?, which is precisely my point.Those words are spelt that way because someone decided they should be and that everyone should have to do the same because someone else decided to, language is sort of like a dictatorship.

Language is language.. It evolves but it follows general sets of rules and in very few occasions is there actual doubt in what to write if you are aware of all the conventions.

Are all these conventions taught in school though?I don't think so you were just given lists of words to remember the spelling of for next weeks test.

We should probably get back to arguing why forcing people to write in a certain way is a bad idea, instead of arguing why the current use of language is stupid.

It's important to have a standard way of communicating. Using it correctly and effectively is vital. I don't think any special measures to improve it at GCSE need to be taken though: you'll naturally have learned it beforehand by reading books etc.. You'll need to use spelling, grammar and punctuation correctly and effectively to produce clear mathematics.

You do make a good point that it's an imperfect system with many irregularities, but it's the system we have. There are other languages that are more ordered in spelling and in other ways, so you might want to learn one. There's also American English if you prefer its spellings.

I don't like reading books though, I don't think I have read a full book that wasn't given as homework(which was rare except for those short stories you were given in Primary for homework and you read with your mam, most reading was done as a class with you reading some of it).I read study books but I don't think that's the same a lot of them have mathematics instead of being filled with words.

I usually find myself bored after a chapter and I am not even that sure whats going on(I can understand what the text says but I can't really remember much of it and understand it well at school the teacher would tell you what was going on in the book so you would understand), I like pictures in the books most novels and a lot of books don't have much pictures and are just loads and loads of text(I probably have word phobia if it exists I do read short articles and text though and understand them).

We don't use punctuation for speech and this is something that confuses me why do we use it for text and not speech?