I think the ability to communicate effectively goes hand-in-hand with the ability to spell, use punctuation and tell the difference between words. When you've got a whole keyboard in front of you I just don't think there's any excuse for being lazy (of course people with dyslexia and other problems are a different case). I think it matters even more when you're dealing with people who don't speak English (in this case) as a second language (e.g. on this forum). The better an English-speaker can use his/her own language, the less likely it is the person they're talking to will get confused as to whether they themsleves are speaking the language correctly. That goes for any language. I'd hate it if I was speaking French to a group of people and each one spelled the same word a different way or didn't care how they used things like apostrophes. It would make it very difficult to learn the language properly and it would quite possibly shit me to tears

BTW I don't think there's anything archaic or 19th century or old-fashioned about the difference between "you're" and "your" or "their" and "there" (for example), they're just totally different words - the fact that they sound the same when you speak them is really no excuse for not caring which one you use when you write them, imho. The other things on that list are just basic English! There's nothing really that anally retentive about them, that's simply how the language works. Language is like an engine - put the wrong bit in the wrong spot and it looks (and sounds) like crap. It bothers some people, others don't care as long as it does the job. If my mechanic worked like that I'd slap him

I didn't start this to have a go at anyone (least of all people who aren't born into speaking English), it's just FYI

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

... you don't provide a good example of how to use "i.e"

Well, it's not my list (mine is much longer :P) and the link is provided in my OP...but it struck a chord! With the amount of written communication we all use these days, surely it can't hurt to know how to do it better.

Quote from Taavi(EST) :

...and does it really matter where your apostrophes are? I mean they don't matter that much anyway, for me in that matter anyway. The message is in the context not in the apostrophes.

Actually, improper grammar changes the context of messages. That was illustrated in my English course at college last year. (I'm amazed at how many 18-year-olds in Canada can't use a comma properly)

I'm with Maggot. A slight change in something simple like a tiny punctuation mark can change the context enough to give someone the wrong idea, just like putting an extra zero when you enter a bid amount on ebay ...

I think the simplest thing to remember about those troublesome little bastards called apostrophes is that they're used for contractions and possessive words (like "they're" and "Scavier's"). They're definitely not used for plurals (like in "plurals").

Proof once again that the English language is a crazy beast. One word, three spellings. Let's start a worldwide petition to get rid of them all and make life easier for us all.

And it'll be more respected if it's an actual Englishman who starts it rather than a non-native English speaker or even worse, an American

Quote from Hankstar :

I think the simplest thing to remember about those troublesome little bastards called apostrophes is that they're used for contractions and possessive words (like "they're" and "Scavier's"). They're definitely not used for plurals (like in "plurals").

Well, IIRC, the possesive "'s" is also a contraction of "his", so "Scavier's" actually would mean "Scavier his". The long form however is outdated and not regarded as correct nowadays, not to mention the wrong gender for the female form

Quote from Becky Rose :

I'm guilty of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. And I don't care.

The ability to communicate is more important than your ability to remember archaic rules of language set out by anal retentives in the 19th century.

Having said that, I dont hold with txt spk at all.

Well, yes. However, you at least put some effort into whatever it is you write. If that is the case because it is hardcoded for you, then that's great. If it's because you put special care in making posts readable, then that's also great.

There are people however, who just smash their keyboard and expect everyone reading it to interpret it and 'look through' the bad spelling and horrible punctuation. A good example is a mate of mine, very intelligent guy and highly articulate when you meet him in person.

However, when you communicate with him online, you seriously get the impression you're talking to a twelve year-old child. He just does not care about spelling and never bothers to correct any of his mistakes.

In this case it's just really bad self-representation.

Hmm, can't really remember where I was going with this post, but whatever.

Quote :

BTW I don't think there's anything archaic or 19th century or old-fashioned about the difference between "you're" and "your" or "their" and "there" (for example), they're just totally different words - the fact that they sound the same when you speak them is really no excuse for not caring which one you use when you write them, imho. The other things on that list are just basic English! There's nothing really that anally retentive about them, that's simply how the language works. Language is like an engine - put the wrong bit in the wrong spot and it looks (and sounds) like crap. It bothers some people, others don't care as long as it does the job. If my mechanic worked like that I'd slap him

I'm with you to a point, which is that I believe in effective and clear communication. My hope is that I achieve this with the majority of my musings around this forum and elsewhere.

What I disagree with is the necessity to correctly spell and punctuate. I do my best, but I suffer mild dyslexia as much as the next person along - and I am no master of the English language despite being British.

I usually maintain that English is my second language, after computers. The truth is i'm just not very good at remembering the common mistakes like lose and loose.

The same is true of my maths. If I may say so myself my ability at maths is very good and I have the capacity to do things with numbers that just aren't taught in schools: I can program in 3D; I can do heuristics; and I can write equations which take up multiple pages.

I still got (EDIT: get) 4 and 7 crossed, and 3 and 5. Or was it 5 and 7 (EDIT: comma) and 4 and 3. I dont know, I get muddled with numbers.

I have the same problem with my English, but you'd be hard pushed to say that i'm not effectively delivering my message.

Dont confuse grammar and punctuation with intelligence and elloquence.

An easy way of remembering the correct spelling of definite / definitely is to think of the word 'finite'.

another common one - to, too and two.

its not so bothersom wen u see people mixin stuffup lik wat is listed in the original post or even wen people simply have a mispelt word or a typin error but wat is bothersom is wen u have people who inglish is there native langage and there not usin any thoght process to type anythin on the internet and all they do is type lik this.

Quote from Taavi(Est) :

Are you guys going to point fingers at the mistake makers as well? At least the topic title should say something like, this topic is for the people whose first language isn't English.

I do believe you should have stated that the other way around. It is the non-native english speaking folks who impress me the most with how well they can communicate in English on an internet forum. I see people end their posts with "sorry for bad english" quite often, yet their english comes out in their posts perfectly fine. Even if their English is a bit off, it is understandable that they may have difficulty getting their point across because of the language barrier. This topic I take as being geared towards the native English speaking. A 16 year old native english speaking teenager should not be typing/writing like the example I have typed out above. I'm not sure if I would expect that from a 12 year old. I think by the age of 12, they should be able to type/write clearly and without errors. Heck, that is 6 years older than my own daughter. She of course can not communicate in written form perfectly at 6, but in another 6 years, I should hope that she can type/write effectively.

Don't be bothered with this thread WE DON'T WANT TO TAKE ENGLISH CLASSES AGAIN geez man :gnasher: :grumpy:

Edit: we are humans we are bound to make mistakes when posting but that doesn't mean we don't know English but if we find em we fix those seriously this whole thread is pointless (NO offense though)

And there we have our first example of missing punctuation

Im had these problem two....

Well I'm not an expert, I learned everything I know from things like this and games (From school... well, It sucks.)

[rant]
On a similar note - a phrase that gets bastardized regularly is "I couldn't care less...". People often say/type it as "I could care less..." Whenever I hear this, I want to grab the person by the neck and scream "NO YOU COULDN'T YOU IDIOT!!" What the heck would be the point of stating that you COULD care less? "Gee, I don't care a whole lot, but I could still care less - so at least I care a little". The point of the idiom is that you could NOT care less than you do already. Get it right, it's not rocket science if your brain is engaged while speaking.
[/rant]

Phew, that feels better

Quote from Ball Bearing Turbo :

[rant]
On a similar note - a phrase that gets bastardized regularly is "I couldn't care less...". People often say/type it as "I could care less..." Whenever I hear this, I want to grab the person by the neck and scream "NO YOU COULDN'T YOU IDIOT!!" What the heck would be the point of stating that you COULD care less? "Gee, I don't care a whole lot, but I could still care less - so at least I care a little". The point of the idiom is that you could NOT care less than you do already. Get it right, it's not rocket science if your brain is engaged while speaking.
[/rant]

Phew, that feels better

I just thought that it was the American equivalent of 'couldn't care less', so I've not yelled at people for this yet. But if it is simply stupidity then I shall make more effort to be sarcastic in future.

I think the last offendee that I saw here was Nuse - possibly twice in one post.

wheel4hummer as well.

Quote from Becky Rose :

The ability to communicate is more important than your ability to remember archaic rules of language set out by anal retentives in the 19th century.

i thought coders loved grammar to bits ?

Quote from Hankstar :

BTW I don't think there's anything archaic or 19th century or old-fashioned about the difference between "you're" and "your" or "their" and "there" (for example), they're just totally different words - the fact that they sound the same when you speak them is really no excuse for not caring which one you use when you write them, imho.

for me a lot of it comes down to thinking it "out loud" while typing so what i type often ends up as a kind of phonetic spelling

Quote from anik360 :

Don't be bothered with this thread WE DON'T WANT TO TAKE ENGLISH CLASSES AGAIN geez man :gnasher: :grumpy:

Edit: we are humans we are bound to make mistakes when posting but that doesn't mean we don't know English but if we find em we fix those seriously this whole thread is pointless (NO offense though)

This isn't targetted to people who make some mistakes occasionally. This is more or less targetted at those who refuse to fix their mistakes and use proper English.

Quote from Jertje :

There are people however, who just smash their keyboard and expect everyone reading it to interpret it and 'look through' the bad spelling and horrible punctuation. A good example is a mate of mine, very intelligent guy and highly articulate when you meet him in person.

However, when you communicate with him online, you seriously get the impression you're talking to a twelve year-old child. He just does not care about spelling and never bothers to correct any of his mistakes.

In some occasions this might be related to how "nerdy" people are in general which relates to ability to use keyboard in general. E.g. people over 30+ that are not "born with computers". Then again you see so many people that seems to be at least little "nerdy", clearly older than 12 years but they just doesn't seem to care at all about their writing. I couldn't care less reading those posts without a single capital letter or any dots.

English forums are simply great to way maintain language skills. My English grades were average at best in high school, writing just wasn't "natural" at all but now it is very easy. I would actually like know how many grammar mistakes this post has if someone wants to count. I have never cared about or learned long complicated grammar rules, that applies also to my mother language, I just try to make it "look right" even when I would have no idea about the grammar rules under it.

deggis, I'm with you about posts that just seem to be one long sentence with no pauses or capitals or anything. That's mainly because I read a line as if someone's speaking to me, same as when I read a script or a book. Therefore, when I read something like "why dont my thing work properly i payed and got ript OFF wheres my refunnd wtfu r all scum" my first reaction is usually "Wow, this gimp's off his medication"

BTW I didn't scan your post or tally up the errors as it's pretty well sorted and everything makes sense :up: The point of starting this thread is not that people should go for perfect language with no mistakes and write like Queen Lizzy (hell, I sure as **** don't ). I just thought some people, born English-speakers or not, might like to know what some very common mistakes are and would care enough to fix them It certainly wasn't "aimed" at anyone in particular, as a couple of posters seemed to think.

The original article (link in OP) is aimed at born English-speakers, however, and in a more work-based sense, e.g. where you'd be communicating with bosses, co-workers, clients, that sort of thing. That explains why the title is a little, um, abrasive - it's aimed at people who should know better whereas my first post was aimed at people who should know better as well as people who may have a perfectly good reason not to

Quote :

i thought coders loved grammar to bits ?

function grammar()
alert{'runtime error, no language pack found'};
end function

10 PRINT LOL
20 GOTO 10
RUN

Nice one Becky

Well, BBT, I could care less about those kinds of mistakes, its just the l33t haxxors that I wish I could take out back with the shotgun.

Quote from Becky Rose :

function grammar()
alert{'runtime error, no language pack found'};
end function

chomsky is my homeboy

Prof. Chomsky is quite the cunning linguist :up: