[FudgeNuggets]

I get really frustrated with trying to look stuff up, read articles and converse with people who cannot spell, use correct grammar or even the right sentence structures. I know the internet is global and people from non-native English speaking nations will have trouble with this. I know that there are a lot of kids out there using the net(more on that in a minute). Finally, I know that typos happen and I make my fair share of them. Those things withstanding, how hard is it to try to at least try? If you get the punctuation wrong or misspell a few words, then big deal but even in the third grade I knew the difference between "they're" and "their". It just seems to be getting worse. Unless I'm reading something from a commercial resource that MUST get these things correct without looking foolish and being discredited then it is getting REALLY hard to understand what most of these people are trying to convey. I don't even mind the occasional 'pwnage" "1337" or such, but the level of people not even being able to be coherent is ASTOUNDING. Is it failure of the eductation system, people not caring or just plain laziness? I don't know but it is pretty depressing.

Also, what is with the spread of completely false information, people anonymously insulting other people for no reason and defacing other people's property (web sites, threads, blogs etc..)? Is the net becoming the 21st century trailer park? Are people really this rude and inhospitable?

I invite everyone to leave their opinions and rationales on this.

[Midnight Dream]

I myself can attest to the annoyance of this. Quite often I have to bite my tongue when I see a "wat r u up 2?????"

Saddening, how the internet is degrading the quality of proper grammar and spelling within our (global-)society.

[TalRW]

Originally Posted by FudgeNuggets

Are people really this rude and inhospitable?

It's not that people are this rude/inhospitable in real life. It's just that for example you can't go up to someones face and say "F*** You!" without getting the beat down. But online you can. Basically give someone an anonymous outlet and they will act like it. I mean take like a grade school kid. They can't go around calling everyone on the playground $#@^%$#@%$#@$!@# (not really swearing just making the symbols) or they will get in trouble. Give them access to a computer and wow they can cuss out everyone and go and grief people and not get in trouble. Problem is this isn't limited to children, some people don't grow up.

As far as the writing goes the thing is people just wanna (<--- I know it's not a real word) get their ideas down fast in places such as messageboards/chat/blogs. They feel it's more about the content and without some authority figure such as a teacher or someone correcting their spelling it's more about getting the meaning across then the actual "proper language". Secondly if you aren't being graded no one, with the exception of my mom, actually spends time going back and proofreading their writings on the internet.

My 2 Cents

[mage_x]

Originally Posted by TalRW

Secondly if you aren't being graded no one, with the exception of my mom, actually spends time going back and proofreading their writings on the internet.

I do.. Sometimes I have to edit a post 10 or 15 times to get it right.

[Roofles]

What always confused me was people who generally seemed knowledgeable would type like IDIOTS. With bad sentances and random misspellings and complete lack of puncuation. I also hate ...lol... and other crap in the middle of posts.

[brickout]

Anonymity breeds incivility. And apathy.

[benbaked]

Some people are just lazy. Others are probably high, or drunk, or both. Some try to blame it on a broken keyboard

I've been much better about my post grammar since the last time somebody here griped about it.

[Illah]

Aww nice reply killed! I hate when that happens. Anyways, here's a quick recap since I'm not retyping all that stuff.

I write properly whenever possible, even on cell txt messages. I have a few vices (prob, cuz, wanna) but otherwise it's almost always spelled properly and grammatically correct...even when I drink! Yes, I've drunk posted, but aside from perhaps a more forward tone, you'd never know it if it weren't for the 4am timestamp

I look at is as constant practice to continually improve my writing. I can churn out pages of very high quality writing in under an hour. That's part of the reason I had a perfect 6/6 GMAT writing score (MBA admissions test, like the SAT/ACT for graduate business school).

I think that for the most part the condensation of language is a symptom of the huge amount of writing people do. Texting, blogging, IM, etc. all contribute. Time is a priority, so abbreviations are used. As long as people are smart enough to know where the line is drawn, that's fine.

If they don't know where the line is drawn, or their 'real' writing deteriorates due to lack of practice, then all that means is less competition for me...I encourage them to keep it up

--Illah

[masakabassist]

I do my upmost to include correct grammar and punctuation whenever I post on the internet. I also proofread my posts.

It does my crust in when people write with letters and numbers such as the example posted above by Midnight Dream (Wat r u up2). I often find it more difficult to read something like Midnight' example than I would if it were written correctly. How people say it still conveys the point is beyond my comprehension, because, without the use of proper english how are you supposed to get the full effect of what the writer is trying express?

[benbaked]

Originally Posted by Illah

Aww nice reply killed! I hate when that happens. Anyways, here's a quick recap since I'm not retyping all that stuff.

AHA! The infamous vBulletin logout bug! I wish they'd fix it, I get hit by that bug all the time.

I'll add that I realized I was getting too lazy/comfortable with my typing when I found myself using all lower-case on blackboard for a distance learning class this past summer. It was a writing class too.

My instructor must've been disgusted.

[Frodo Baggins]

Originally Posted by Illah

Aww nice reply killed! I hate when that happens. Anyways, here's a quick recap since I'm not retyping all that stuff.

I write properly whenever possible, even on cell txt messages. I have a few vices (prob, cuz, wanna) but otherwise it's almost always spelled properly and grammatically correct...even when I drink! Yes, I've drunk posted, but aside from perhaps a more forward tone, you'd never know it if it weren't for the 4am timestamp

I look at is as constant practice to continually improve my writing. I can churn out pages of very high quality writing in under an hour. That's part of the reason I had a perfect 6/6 GMAT writing score (MBA admissions test, like the SAT/ACT for graduate business school).

I think that for the most part the condensation of language is a symptom of the huge amount of writing people do. Texting, blogging, IM, etc. all contribute. Time is a priority, so abbreviations are used. As long as people are smart enough to know where the line is drawn, that's fine.

If they don't know where the line is drawn, or their 'real' writing deteriorates due to lack of practice, then all that means is less competition for me...I encourage them to keep it up

--Illah

There is nothing more to say here. Illah hit it dead on.

As most people know, I have a blog that is fairly well read among both friends and strangers -- and in fact, many of the comments I get are about how it's so nice to see clean, clear, and funny writing in the (personal) blog community. I've recieved a lot of positive comments about my writing, but I've always been regretful that I wasn't better trained in English. I would love to be better spoken and have a talent for writing beautiful prose -- I think it's a marvelous talent.

Sure, I can do beautiful math, but beautiful writing is something I've always been jealous of.

[deRusett]

I live with a spell checker, I rarely post anything with out checking it for spelling mistakes first. I agree people should care more about what they say and how they say it on line. but Online today, is far different then on line of 5 or 10 years ago. today is a world of being anonymous, it is not like the news groups of yesteryear that posted your e-mail address with each of your posts. AND as computers get cheaper the less educated get on line for cheaper, when I was 14 online it was rare to find people my age or younger online on a forum, it was all chat rooms, and even in the chat rooms, at 14 I was most often the youngest. now it is not uncommon to find 9,10,11 year olds on forums, chatting, making websites. the grammatical skills of a 9 year old are not great. and they are not expected to be, but then you get the 14,15 year olds who think why try when I see it done like this and no one cares, then the 17,18 year olds follow suit and it escalates until you see forums filled with people who can barely string together an idea, and that idea is so poorly laid out that the thread is useless, and filled with flames.

I have a problem with flames. 9 out of 10 threads I read I don't post in, of those that I post in, probably 9 out of 10 are relevant to the subject. Never do I think about posting for the purpose of cutting someone up, and I don't see the reason for it.

[Illah]

deRusett - speaking of a spell checker, Firefox 2.0 now includes one. It works like Word where misspelled words are underlined with the red squiggly thing.

Helpful tip to improve writing/spelling - when you noticed a misspelled word, delete and retype instead of defaulting to using the spell checker

--Illah

[whooping_a_panda]

what erks me is when i get text messages competly devoid of vowels...

[Zatrix]

i just dont see the point in making all the correct puncitations and stuff.

why would you want to spend your time spell checking to make sure everything is perfect?

are you being graded on it?
does it matter?

as long as you can read it its fine.

i mean really why would someone care if you didn't capitlize a word, spell it perfectly as long as its readable, put a coma in words such as dont , wont, cant.

It doesn't mean people are stupid. It just means people are lazy and there's really no point in writing perfect on the internet since no one such care about grammar accuracy. I just read the content.

^^^ notice how that was grammar perfect my last paragraph. but i only did that to show you it can be done. but like i said it really shouldnt matter because im writing this sentence fast and not using much if any grammar correctly and yet you can still read it.... am i rite? yes sir

[mage_x]

Originally Posted by Zatrix

put a coma in words such as dont , wont, cant.

Originally Posted by Zatrix

It doesn't mean people are stupid.

Only if you call apostraphes commas.


Just kidding.

[Karbon]

I dont really care as long as people know the difference between "to" and "too", "their" and "there" etc

[SolidxSnake]

Originally Posted by Zatrix

i just dont see the point in making all the correct puncitations and stuff.

why would you want to spend your time spell checking to make sure everything is perfect?

are you being graded on it?
does it matter?

as long as you can read it its fine.

i mean really why would someone care if you didn't capitlize a word, spell it perfectly as long as its readable, put a coma in words such as dont , wont, cant.

It doesn't mean people are stupid. It just means people are lazy and there's really no point in writing perfect on the internet since no one such care about grammar accuracy. I just read the content.

^^^ notice how that was grammar perfect my last paragraph. but i only did that to show you it can be done. but like i said it really shouldnt matter because im writing this sentence fast and not using much if any grammar correctly and yet you can still read it.... am i rite? yes sir

Actually, that was a run-on sentence.

I don't really mind that writing (though I don't prefer it by any means), but it's the stuff where every and/or every other word is completely misspelled or abbreviated without any punctuation at all. A complete lack of mechanics. To make it worse, those people tend to think that everyone can completely comprehend what they've typed.

And obviously, there are people who do care about perfect spelling and GRAMMAR (NOTE THE A. That's a pet peeve of mine). Thus the start of this thread

[Wraith]

Originally Posted by mage_x

I do.. Sometimes I have to edit a post 10 or 15 times to get it right.

Same here, i type very very fast, and in an odd fashion that lends to mistakes.

What would I do without the build in Firefox spell check!

[warlock110]

Originally Posted by Wraith

Same here, i type very very fast, and in an odd fashion that lends to mistakes.

What would I do without the build in Firefox spell check!

i didn't even know firefox got a spell checker lol

seriouly, as long as they got their point across i don't think it matter much... people tend to type fast on the net. looking at the US population alone, imigrants play a big part of the comming up generation. they might spell stuff right, but grammar wise you can forget about it. english as a 2nd language will always have this problem...

anyways.. don't be too hard on people. it's not like you're grading what they wrote on a message board. cut them a break...