Whats' wrong with using apostrophe's? 
Its one thing to read a poorly written post from someone whose native language is not English versus someone else's whose native language is (or at least appears to be - just because they list a location somewhere in the U.S doesn't mean they have a good grasp of the English language). If I run across such a post I usually look where the person is from (if listed), but never think badly about the person because I just don't know the full circumstances. I think one of the best things about BLF is that we welcome people who struggle with English and even encourage them to continue posting even if they are hard to understand. I know we have some fantastic members posting some very meaningful content with grammar that's hard to understand.
I myself don't care for the "text-speak" even while texting. I find no reason to abbreviate most words because you're only saving a letter or two most of the time. It just bothers me too much to send that "text-speak" stuff. People are lazy, especially Americans. Heck, look at all the American sports superstars and musicians who can't even talk in complete sentences! If they can be successful without proper grammar, why do we have use it!
-Garry
Redundant apostrophe’s piss me off.
"legge" means "to lick" in Germany. Who's licking the book on the table again? xD
@gords: Whats wrong with "lend"?
It’s the context, I lend to you, you borrow off me. You don’t lend off me I don’t borrow to you.
Eg can I lend your book is incorrect, unless I already possess it and wish to lend it to someone else. It’s just something that bugs me because someone born and raised in England should be able to speak english properly.
I guess its the same with text speak, that’s one of the things most likely to cause me to haul off and beat someone to death with their own keyboard! |(
Hehe, that's almost like the infamous "I gifted a present to someone" that made it into the BLF dictionary.
I can’t type well and my English is horrible for a native language.
I still know their refers to people, there a place, they’re a contraction of they are.
Sage advice if ever there was.
We all mess up now and again, but Garry nailed it when he said, “People are lazy, especially Americans.” If any one is interested in a “fun” book on gramer, I highly recommend Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, by Lynne Truss.
It’s both humorous and educational.
No. Really. I’m not even kidding this time.
Then, than, except, accept, excess, access. It’s a bother trying to read a post and decipher the meaning from the context but that’s how it goes. I tried to correct a coworker once and got back”but you know what I meant, right?“. By the time you reach adulthood it’s much harder to fix. Now days, I’d much rather put up with it than either embarrass someone publicly or come across as a grammarphile.
You all know this joke, right?
GIRL #1: Where’s your birthday party at?
GIRL #2: Never end a sentence with a preposition.
GIRL #1: Where’s your birthday party at, bitch?
-Garry
These examples will never be officially accepted as correct English grammar, but you’re right that such mistakes are so common that they are practically becoming the unofficial norm. Like the example that sixty545 mentions in the OP; that’s such a common mistake that it even managed to sneak into a scientific paper.
A quick tip: If anybody is trying to learn correct English, completely disregard Yahoo News. It is inexcusably full of grammar and spelling errors.
Great 
Another thing I often read is "should of been" instead of "should have been". Really confused me at first.
I think you are right about “lay” and “lie” and also about “lägga” and “ligga” in Swedish is more different from each other than “lægge” and “ligge” in Danish. But the most irritating is the use of the wrong word in subtitles in film. I have often seen the subtitle: “lig den der” used instead of “læg den der” (“put it there”). The word “lig” in Danish means “corpse” or “equal to”. And it is not just a typo, the subtitler will consistently use the wrong word and drive you nuts.
I am constantly amazed at the proficiency of Europeans that speak English as a second language. I’ve learned a few other languages and I use them daily and actually prefer them for certain topics. However, I seriously doubt that I will ever reach the point of being able to pass for a native speaker. Most of you non-native English speakers who have posted in this thread write English so well that I can’t usually tell. And I’m a real stickler, at least inside of me. 
So my hat is off to all of you.
Now you've got to tell us which languages you've learned. :P
If you ask me, to really learn a language you have to live in a country where its the #1 language, learning it from natives. Learning english is a lot easier than most other languages because its so simple. Almost nothing is written in capitals, grammar is rather simple (compared to German or Spanish) and the biggest part of the internet is in english. I think thats also a reason why us foreigners are better in learning in english than you guys are in learning something else: you dont have to.
Just a little twist I might add, as an English teacher living in Vietnam it does annoy me sometimes the attitude westerners have towards immigrants who can’t speak English fluently. E.g “You’re in my country now, learn to speak English!!”. Fair enough, people need to learn to blend in and learn the ways of their adopted culture, but we go a little over the top and we’re actually being pretty hypocritical.
I don’t think I’ve met a single foreigner in Vietnam who can speak Vietnamese fluently, and I’m talking about people who have lived here 10 years+. Asians in particular do a much better job of learning our language than we do theirs.
Secondly, I’ve found Vietnamese people in general to be very friendly and patient, I’ve never had a situation where a Vietnamese person has told me aggressively to learn to speak Vietnamese better and I talk like a 3 year old.
Further more, learning to speak a new language is bloody difficult and takes years of commitment. It’s almost impossible for an old person as they are past their peak learning capacity.
I could probably go through my own post and point out my own grammar errors, but personally as long as I can understand another poster’s post and there is some attempt at structure to make it easy to read I really don’t care about grammar. English is grammatically such a complicated language that it’s a rare native speaker who has perfect grammar, if such a person even exists.
Edit after rant: sixty545 your initial assumption is correct, we shouldn’t use “then” for comparisons. Like some other posters have pointed out your grammar is better than a lot of native speakers. 
Agreed 100%. Well said.
You need to understand the language well, or else someone will take advantage of you.
i.e.
A guy says to his friend “If you would loan me 5 dollars, I would be forever indebted to you!”
I remember that! 