Grammar and Spelling: On the internet they are all you have.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

I've been on the internet a long time. I've noticed a few things. I've noticed people do not care if they are intelligent or not. They are lazy. They are stupid. But there are those of us, many of them DUers, who like to be seen as intelligent, quick, and witty. Unfortunately, this is usually overshadowed by these people's complete inability to form a grammatically correct sentence with correct spelling. In my opinion, that is all you have while you're typing and trying to get your point across. To me, no matter how intelligent your point, it is going to become moot if you cannot spell or transform those thoughts into clear, grammatically correct thoughts. I am a grammar Nazi. I am a spelling Nazi. I do not care. I feel that since you cannot speak face to face to someone to convey your thoughts, at least have the respect for your fellow person to care about grammar and spelling.
Do you agree/disagree/hate me? Let me know.
Duckie

[bigwillq]

1. It depends what sites you're on

and what the subject matter is.

I am not a Spelling nazi so it really doesn't bother me.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

2. I will agree with you on that...

If you're on DU, it's probably more important to be grammatically correct than if you're posting on Perez Hilton.
Duckie

[bigwillq]

13. True

:) :hi:

But even on DU I sometimes rush through posts, esp. if I am at work like I am now, and don't spell check.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

14. There is a Mozilla feature that has auto spell check like Word!

It saves me a lot!
Duckie

[bigwillq]

16. I don't have Mozilla (nt)

[YellowRubberDuckie]

18. Why not?

[bigwillq]

21. I like IE better (nt)

[DarkTirade]

30. Okay, NOW I've lost all respect for you...

:P

[Fire Walk With Me]

3. I appreciate clear thinking and writing and spelling, yet am incapable of accomplishing it.

And, I love word jazz, so I have a convenient excuse.

I expect more from others than I am capable of presenting of myself, although I try.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

10. All I'm asking for is the attempt and the admission of it.

Most of the dorks who can't spell or be grammatically correct don't try and don't care.
Duckie

[Rabrrrrrr]

4. Yep - it's funny, but soooo many people accept laziness, shittiness, and apathy in language

- which is the ONLY way we really have to communicate with one another - and insist that laziness is okay because "Hey, people know what I mean anyway" or "it's just words" or some other bullshit line.

But will learn every minutae of baseball's rules, or how to build an engine, or some other area of not very relevant knowledge and see that as very, very important.

And they will also insist that knowing how to drive a car is important, or a doctor knowing how to do surgery, or how to do their job, or how to do any great number of things - but will still insist that knowing how to use language is an irrelevancy.

I see it on freecycle all the time.

There's a guy over in Editorials (dave parts) who writes long articles every few days that, I think?, probably have some great insight in them - but they're written so utterly poorly that I can't waste my time on them.

One would think that, given the utter importance of communication, that people would take more interest in doing so accurately.

But for some reason, they don't fucking care.

I don't get it.

I wouldn't stick a pen up my ass and shit in my mouth and call it "driving to the store". I wouldn't set my hand on fire and call it "writing to my sister".

But way, way too many people do that with language.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

6. You know what else I hate?

Popular usage. Fuck Popular Usage. Popular Usage just fucking promotes idiocy.
Duckie

[Rabrrrrrr]

12. For all intensive purpose's, your dumbhead.

I agree with you - popular usage, when it's ignorant, should be an executable offense.

[Book Lover]

43. "For all intensive purpose's"

I am *so* stealing that!

[Karenina]

52. I usually skip his posts, too.

For the reasons you've cited. However, he hooked me with the title of this one. Somebody get the man an editor!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x336224

[Rabrrrrrr]

63. The first few times, I didn't realize the articles were him - I thought they were off a publication

or a blogsite or something, so I questioned the grammar and asked "Who would publish this crap? I can't even read it" and so forth. I might have had one or two people agree with me.

But what saddened me even more than someone so proudly posting incomprehensible crap, oblivious to the fact that it's incomprehensible, was the 4 or 5 people who jumped on me declaring his articles perfectly understandable and written just fine and that I shouldn't complain.

:eyes:

[WritingIsMyReligion]

58. Then there are the people who insist that they're here to have fun, not to worry about grammar!

I've seen that excuse before, and it is a lame one, since good grammar shouldn't be this agonizing, taxing thing akin to torture. If you use it enough it just becomes automatic, but people drop it before even bothering to get to know it and thus spend the rest of their lives looking less-than-intelligent wherever written communication is the only means of expression.

[quip]

5. You are my soulmate who never was!

:loveya: :hug: :pals:

[YellowRubberDuckie]

7. I am flattered!

:hug:

[rug]

8. I bet you have a lolcat magnet on your refrigerator.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

11. Nope.

I find lolcats quite funny, however, I do think that it makes cats look stupid and they are not.
Duckie

[Starbucks Anarchist]

9. Yep, I'm a stickler for both of those things.

[varkam]

15. I r3411y d0n7 c4r3z0rz 4s 10ng 4s p33pz d0n7 wr173 l1k3

7h1z. L33t sp4111ng sux0rz.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

17. And you're a Mod?

What the hell were they thinking?
:evilgrin:
Seriously, though, it sickens me to see that crap.

[varkam]

19. It's cuz 1m l33t, d0n7ch4 kn0w!

You know, I've never seen writing like that and seen an intelligent, well thought out argument. I suppose it could technically be feasible, but I've never seen it.

[TZ]

20. uh oh

Somebodies been hanging out in the health lounge again. Tends to make one incoherent....;-)

[varkam]

22. Nah, I'm still getting my daily supply of thought control pills from Merck.

They make everything all better. Plus, they give me a big jolt right to the pleasure center in my brain every time I'm able to call woo for what it is. Thank you, Merck!

:rofl:

[Canuckistanian]

23. Grammer and spelling police are not to be paid attention to.

I go nukular when I see one devistating someone els'es posts.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

24. I barely understood any of that.

My EYES! MY EYES!!
Duckie

[Canuckistanian]

26. This might help...

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/leet

[Guava Jelly]

25. I like you as a person

The Grammar Nazi thing sux though.
I don't see where it is a big deal because to me it is like jotting down something on a post it note.
I spell and write like ass but that doesn't make what I have to say any less valuable.
This is one of my biggest pet peeves..
I also feel that if someone commits a grammar crime and it bothers you it is better to pm them than to point it out in an open thread.
But we are cool..(Just don't check this post for errors) :yoiks:

[Book Lover]

44. "...that doesn't make what I have to say any less valuable."

But it does make it less coherent. How can I know if I agree with you or not if I'm not sure the words you write accurately reflect your thoughts? That's what the rules are for!

[Guava Jelly]

51. You could ask

it is easy..
Hey did you mean "whats this thing called love" or "what is this thing called?love"

[Book Lover]

72. Why should I have to?

Why do you object to subjecting your thoughts to orderly arrangement?

Have you ever read Orwell's "Politics and the English Language"? It's a quick read: please check it out. http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/essays/politics-english-language1.htm

[fudge stripe cookays]

53. Bingo.

Doesn't make it any less valuable. But makes me value your opinion far less, since you obviously aren't intelligent enough to make the point more coherent.

[Guava Jelly]

54. I'm sorry you feel that way

I value yours even if I may disagree with it.
peace

[Glorfindel]

27. I agree with you 1,000%

The constant confusion of "then" for "than" and "it's" for "its" drives me crazy. There is no excuse for such carelessness.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

57. but its just the intarnet! who cares??? its better then nothing at all!!

:evilgrin:

/badness

[madeline_con]

28. I'll misspell, and then have to edit.

I get tired of it, and figure it's readable, so I'll just leave it alone.

[DarkTirade]

29. That's one of the reasons why I like DU...

because I type at a ridiculously fast pace, and often my fingers go faster than my brain. But if I have the ability to edit, I can fix my post within seconds (due to my incredibly fast typing speed) and no one even knows that I screwed up. :P

(and the built-in spell-check just fixed my misspelling of the word 'incredibly' before I even hit the post button.)

[Boojatta]

31. Koliding

The word "kolide," used bi ralerode men, haz an indefinit meaning tew menny folks. Thru the kindness of a nere and dear frend, i am able tew translate the wurd so that enny man ken understand it at wuns. The term "kolide" is used tew explain the sirkumstanse ov 2 trains ov cars triing tew pass each uther on a single trak. It is ced that it never yet haz bin did suckcessfully, hence a "kolide."

[HuskerDU]

32. I think that grammar and spelling are important. But I also think

that a person should be themselves. I like using deliberate misspellings because they allow the reader to get a sense of who I am. Lil, cuz, luv and 'em are some of my faves.

Sometimes I'm just an idiot and my post has a couple of errors. If my error is misspelling a fellow DUers name, or ROLF instead of ROFL then I will edit. If it's any other error, I just shrug my shoulders and figure people will cut me some slack.

[BuelahWitch]

33. Any type of "texting shorthand" used anywhere else

drives me up the wall. It's bad enough when the kids do it, but I have a 54 year old acquaintance who often uses "u" for "you" and "r" for "are." Needless to say he's still an acquaintance...

[theredpen]

34. OK, put the spelling flame down and no one gets hurt

Simply put, criticizing people's spelling in Internet posts (technically, Usenet posts) was deemed the purview of tiny-dicked losers back when Reagan was in office. I'm not exaggerating here; we're talking 1985-1986 timeframe. Sure, lot's of smart educated people (who were actually the majority on the net back then) took umbrage to crappy spelling, but it was the feeble-minded twits who would try to use it against you in a flame war. "Why should I listen to an argument from someone so stupid that they spelled existence 'existance'?" It seemed clever the first few thousand times, but really the rules of English spelling are so arbitrary that there's no great shame in spelling "existence" as "existance."

People drop articles, forget to clean up completely when rephrasing something and sometimes just do things reflexively — I always type "withing" when I mean to type "within." It was a lot more important to keep things correct back in the days when correcting was a huge pain in the ass (including starting over).

Grammar flames? A little less looked down on, but still pretty lame. "You're" and "your" are frequently mixed up by people who know full well how to use them. In the old days, people would occasionally lampoon this mix-up by posting a handy reference:

You're — contraction of "you are."
Your — second person possessive.
Yor — warrior of the future.

More people got that last one in the 80's.

Text-message-speak is always flame-worthy, though. If anyone thinks that they are either cool or "efficient" by using "u" instead of "you," they need to be flamed and they need to be flamed mercilessly.

Thus endeth the lesson, newbie.

[Book Lover]

45. I'm unhappy defending this, but I must

When a text message has a tight character limit (160 or so), using "u" for "you" is both efficient and logical.

<off to shower>

[theredpen]

60. You misunderstand

Text message efficiency when you are using SMS (Short Message Service) may be valuable. I'm talking about in a forum posting.

[Digit]

35. I have been contacted on a singles site by a few men who had such horrible grammar and spelling ...

It completely turned me off.
I am speaking of horrible to the MAX.
Drove me up the wall.

[DarkTirade]

36. Yeah, I've had similar problems

and I've found that the best people to connect with on sites like that (at least for me) are often the spelling/grammar snobs who specify in their profile something along the lines of "If your msg looks liek this thn 4get it." :P

[suninvited]

67. I use MySpace as a means of communicating

through messages and pictures with my children and friends, but I got a message from some guy obviously 'looking' that simply said: "Your cute"

It took everything I had not to answer him: "Your dum"

I just never responded. Perhaps I would have responded to a message of a different kind.

[Fox Mulder]

37. I try do do well when I am typing on the Internets.

But sometimes I'll fuck up and use a punctuation mark in the wrong spot or I'll spell a word wrong. I'm not a Nazi about it.

As long as I can understand what the person is trying to say, that's all that matters.

[Digit]

41. That is understandable, I have done the same thing.

If I were to go to retrieve the replies I have received, you would swear they were NEVER educated.
They may be a very nice person, but it gripes on me if they cannot speak or write the english language....not even ONE sentence.

[Gormy Cuss]

38. I think it's elitist to assume that everyone has excellent grammar and spelling skills.

Not everyone is a native English speaker. Not everyone excelled in school. Some may even have attended really deficit schools. Spell check helps with some spelling errors and typos, but it won't correct "its" to it's" or "wear" to"where."

[Oeditpus Rex]

39. Is it 'elitist' to wonder why they seem to lack the basics?

[Gormy Cuss]

42. Wondering why is different from assuming that someone does possess the basics

and is just too lazy to use that knowledge.

[Radical Activist]

49. Assuming the ability to use proper grammar makes one intelligent

is a big stretch too. Its a good sign of the ability to memorize and follow mundane rules, but that's not something I equate with intelligence. I know some very smart people who are poor writers in that sense.

[Gormy Cuss]

69. It's a good sign of intelligence when proper grammar is used but

the lack of proper grammar is not a reliable indicator of a lack of intelligence. Similarly, poor spelling may be evidence of a new learner or someone with dyslexia rather than carelessness.

Well written prose is just easier to read and understand. I believe that possession of proper grammar skills is an important goal but I also understand the reality that not everyone has the ability to write clearly and correctly.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

56. But what about even the basic skills?

Capitalization? A few shots at commas or apostrophes? I can't believe that anyone except perhaps the newbiest of newbie English speakers doesn't know capitalization, at least, and yet it is frequently flouted on the internet, as if one were saying, "Oh wheee, Ma! Look at me! No capitals!"

[Gormy Cuss]

68. Rules for capitalization and apostrophes are troublesome, it seems.

The internet and other keyboard-reliant modes of communication have muted the rules of formal writing in part because most people can't type as well as they can write long hand. I learned to type on a typewriter and have used word processing software at work -- it's natural for me to use the shift key. It's also natural for me to use apostrophes and to proof my own work in terms of grammar and spelling but on DU I've had some giant brain burps because I don't compose well at the keyboard (see above for the use of 'deficit' when deficient was the word that I intended. :crazy: )

I don't like to wade through the posts that are lacking sentence structure and full of inventive spelling. I do however have enough life experience to know that such posts may be the best that the person can do. "Is r childrun lerning?" is too close to the truth in some cases. Having said that, these same people are our neighbors, friends, relatives, and they deserve a voice.

On a lighter note, my composition skills have deteriorated over the years. Businessspeak ruined it.

[HEyHEY]

40. meh i don't care i write for a living if you want it proper pay my ass

[Radical Activist]

50. Exactly.

People shouldn't have to worry about that in a place they visit for fun.

[harmonicon]

46. +1

[marzipanni]

47. Here is a picture of her and I.

Oh, that's the one without her. It's a picture of I me.
:think:

[Radical Activist]

48. Proper grammar and spelling online is immoral.

Its part of net culture from the start when people shortened words and phrases to save bandwidth.
No one should be held responsible for anything not caught by spell check. This is most applicable to sites people visit for their own entertainment and enjoyment. Worry about looking intelligent at work, not in a discussion forum or chat room.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

55. I completely agree.

It is hard for me to see beyond crappy spelling/grammar, especially crappy grammar--I live in the language on the internet, as do all of us, and to me bad grammar (not a few missing commas, but CONSISTENTLY BAD GRAMMAR) automatically sets off warning lights in my head to the tune of, "Hey, this person's dumb or lazy or something," even if that's not the case at all. It. Just. Looks. Wrong.

:grr:

On Edit: Wheeeeee smilies.

[KatyaR]

59. I totally agree.

Bad grammar, spelling, and punctuation make me crazy. One of my "secret vices" is reading fan fiction. I can't tell you how badly I want to throttle people who write something really good but basically unreadable because of poor grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Did they not learn anything in school? Most of it is simple, basic English.

This is a really sore spot with me. We have marketing people in my company who couldn't write a three-paragraph story if their life depended on it. I could do better, and they're supposed to be the communication experts!

I myself have a big problem with typing errors--rearranging the letters in a word, typing a wrong word. It's like my brain and my hands aren't communicating properly. It's been getting worse for the last year or so, and it makes me crazy when I don't catch the mistakes.

[Orsino]

61. One also has one's wit, and the force of ideas.

I have spelling/grammar OCD, too, but compelling writing does not entirely depend upon mastery of the basic tools. That's all they are, you know--I've read far too much dull writing that was perfectly grammatical and had perfect spelling. I don't care, for instance, whether Picasso could ever draw a straight line. It all depends, I suppose, on what one wants one's words to accomplish, with the caveat that one shouldn't obscure the gist.

So I disagree somewhat*, but let's just say that I heartily sympathize. Heartily.

*Riddley Walker, by Russell Hoban, is a great read, though it can be work.

[RebelOne]

62. Since I am a copy editor, bad grammar, spelling and punctuation

drive me up a wall. So many times I am tempted to correct a DUer's post when I see errors, but I just grit my teeth and ignore them.

[Love Bug]

64. Why we're at it, can we ask people to use punctuation?

What really bugs me are the people who refuse to use capitalization or other punctuation. Unless you are e.e. cummings, not capitalizing is just fucking pretentious.

[Iggo]

65. I definately agree.

(Slow pitch is fun...lol.)

[Jamastiene]

66. You are asking this libal to spell correctly?

:P

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2834319
















:hide:

[1gobluedem]

70. I'm with you

And I'm a Punctuation Nazi as well.

I insist that my staff use correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation at all times, even in e-mails. There was a lot of griping at first. But, guess what? Every student who has worked for me has since told me they started getting better grades on their papers after they began working here.

My point is that sloppiness can permeate everything if we continue to allow poor grammar, punctuation, and spelling in any kind of written word; formal and informal.

I'm not perfect; errors and typos creep in at times. But, I do try.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

71. I can has spy-c toona rollz now?