Sorry, dude, but:
The grammar and the spelling belong to the other people - so this should be “people**'**s”.
I usually am multi-tasking to the extreme and often end up misspelling things in my posts, but I can’t think of a single time (recently, at least) IRL that I’ve had my grammar checked.
This may be just me talking out of my ass here (welcome to the Straight Dope! 
), but I think it’s safe to say that regularly getting your grammar corrected probably means you are regularly making some egregious mistakes. Or you have asshole friends. Whichever.
(Now I will sit back and wait for everyone to come in, rip apart the grammar of my post, and therefore render my first sentence utterly untrue. grabs some coffee).
people’s/peoples…DAMMIT I MISSED ONE ! ! ! ! or is it damnit…darnit…dangit…
SHIT I MISSED ONE ! ! ! !
[QUOTE=Windwalker]
As a teacher of English as a foreign language, it’s my job to correct people’s grammar. However, this has had the (strange?) effect of making me LOATHE to do it outside of the classroom.
[/QUOTE]
Others are not so inhibited. So I’ll note that you probably meant to write either “loathe doing it” or “loath to do it.” (Link.)
I will point out someone’s bad spelling online if it’s germane (“I can’t find anything online about how to make a bananna daqueri!” Spelling it right would help.) or a funny typo. Ditto for grammar (if they’re asking for help). But typos happen to everyone and it’s just not worth the hassle to make something as informal as a message board post letter-perfect.
In spoken everyday conversation, correcting others’ grammar makes you a great big prat.
I do twitch every time someone says they’re an athiest. If you’re gonna be one, at least learn to spell it, please!
I’ve been known to correct people’s grammar (desperately trying not to Gaudere myself, and I keep typoing) for two reasons:
First, sometimes their grammatical mistakes just drive me that crazy. I don’t care if you chew gum and I’m not much fussed if you smack your lips or crack your knuckles, but if you say ‘irregardless’ I may have to break your spine. Because I don’t WANT to do that, necessarily, I am likely to say “Oh man, that word really drives me nuts.”
Second, I don’t want you to sound uneducated to someone else. There are some mistakes that make people sound annoyingly correct, but using ‘I’ as a direct object or writing ‘could of’ is noticeable and bad, bad, bad. You will be understood, but people who had to spend years in school learning how to write and years more learning Latin are liable to start convulsing.
For me, at least, it’s not a power trip. I am usually very careful and will bring it up later on: “You know, that who/whom and I/me when I’m saying ‘Joe and I will be there’ always confused me until I took Latin. Then I discovered… blah blah blah” With the friends I have, their eyes usually don’t glaze over.
[QUOTE=Bosstone]
Stephen Pinker offers up an explanation: it’s sarcasm. As in, “As if there were anything else I could care less about.” I’m a little skeptical of that explanation, but otherwise it’s no different to me than any other rote phrase people use that make no sense when thought about.
[/QUOTE]
I could buy Pinker’s explanation (I believe it’s explained in his book, The Language Instinct), and it’s a convincing enough argument. However, I prefer a simpler approach. It’s an idiom. It doesn’t have to make sense. Lots of idioms don’t make sense when parsed out literally. I mean, shouldn’t it more clearly be “to eat your cake and have it, too,” (the original version of the phrase) rather than the other way around? There’s plenty of illogical turns of phrases in English. Leave this one be.
[QUOTE=MissTake]
I will admit to doing this IRL.
The Kid always asks “Can I” rather than “May I” and it drives me bonkers.
[/QUOTE]
Well, it is perfectly acceptable and idiomatic in spoken English. In more formal context, though, there still is a strong preference to use “may” to indicate permission. However, kids learn to use “can” because that’s what they hear and they’re trying to imitate it. Personally, I generally do not use “may” in spoken language unless I’m trying to sound extra polite, very formal, or otherwise genteel. It’s not quite as formal as, say, the precise usage of the objective “whom,” but in my peer group “can” for permission would be the standard construction.
[QUOTE=Scarlett67]
I do twitch every time someone says they’re an athiest. If you’re gonna be one, at least learn to spell it, please!
[/QUOTE]
Why? I’m probably more athi than you are.
I don’t think I correct people that often, but if someone has such bad spelling, puctuation, and grammar that I can’t understand what the hell they’re on about, I’ll tell them. These people usually then complain that I should read the content of their posts rather than nitpicking their spelling. But that’s just the point, I can’t get at the content because I don’t speak drunken Klingonese!
[QUOTE=pulykamell]
It’s an idiom.
[/QUOTE]
Idiom! Thank you. That’s what I was going for with “rote phrase,” but my internal dictionary moves at a speed measured in baud sometimes.
[QUOTE=Windwalker]
The only thing I will ever correct native speakers on (because it REALLY annoys me) is: “I could care less.” That damn sentence just doesn’t make sense!!
[/QUOTE]
Sure it does. It’s like, “He could be fatter, but then he’d need his own zipcode,” only the second half has been worn off with overuse.
[QUOTE=Snipe1978]
Not to sound too harsh here…but seriously, why the hell do some people feel that it is their solemn duty to always correct other peoples grammar or spelling? I know they usually open with “not to be nitpicky”, or “sorry for my English teacher type actions”, but what exactly do you get from doing this?
[/QUOTE]
A feeling of superiority.
[QUOTE=Snipe1978]
<snip>Seriously, why do people always insist on nitpicking on other peoples grammar and spelling?
[/QUOTE]
Because the fight against ignorance is taking longer than they thought.
[QUOTE=Snipe1978]
Not to sound too harsh here…but seriously, why the hell do some people feel that it is their solemn duty to always correct other peoples grammar or spelling?
[/QUOTE]
That’s a good question…
And there’s your answer.
[QUOTE=Liberal]
I guess I should get at least an honorable mention:
[/QUOTE]
How did I ever miss that? 
Was it Samuel Johnson who corrected a lady who said, “Sir, you smell”, with “No, madam, you smell. I stink!”
Regards,
Shodan
[QUOTE=Jodi]
And in “have to correct”, “to correct” is not an infinitive.
[/QUOTE]
Just to be clear, “correct” is a bare infinitive in that phrase, while “to” belongs to the modal auxiliary “have to”?
[QUOTE=Bosstone]
Myself, I make a distinction between spelling and grammar. Grammar ain’t always so cut and dry, but spelling generally is, and I don’t really have any patience for negligence, particularly when text is the chosen medium of communication. That said, I don’t correct spelling outside of my job unless it’s directly related to the point being made. It leads to nothing but defensiveness and wasted time. Course, my job is proofreader, and if I see egregious misuse of apostrophes, I will let the writer know about it. (“Look at the Applebee’s of the world”? What the hell, people?)
[/QUOTE]
First, try cut and dried, okay?
Second, now that I’ve made you hate me, what kind of publication(s) do you work for, if you don’t mind saying? From reading my local newspapers, I’ve thought proofreaders were a thing of the past. I’m so glad to see that I’m wrong about that.
[QUOTE=Indistinguishable]
Just to be clear, “correct” is a bare infinitive in that phrase, while “to” belongs to the modal auxiliary “have to”?
[/QUOTE]
Was that a question?
Did anybody doubt that this would turn into a grand nitpicking orgy?
I hate grammar-Nazis, too. It’s even more infuriating when the corrections they suggest, or the “errors” they point out, are just plain wrong.
[QUOTE=thirdwarning]
First, try cut and dried, okay?
[/quote]
I am cut to the quick!
I actually don’t mind being corrected. If I’m going to be a snob about language, I consider myself open to criticism as well.
Unfortunately, no actual publication per se, although I’m trying to change that. I work on transcripts for business conferencing; earnings releases, internal meetings, webcasts, things of that nature. That’s mostly why I make a distinction between spelling and grammar; with a transcript, if someone says something stupid, you have to let it go. It’s what was said, after all. But the onus of spelling correctly is entirely on the transcriptionist, and I’ve developed an eagle eye for catching a misused its or it’s.
[QUOTE=McNew]
A feeling of superiority.
[/QUOTE]
It makes me feel like a big man.