Spacecast Community

It would seem as though I'm reminded on a daily basis that a general lack of proper english skills seems to be reaching epidemic proportions.  I'm not trying to rag on anyone in particular, nor am I trying to hold anyone to the standards of a university degree in creative writing. This is a web forum and it's meant to be casual.  I'm nonetheless disturbed by the errors that would be inexcusable on a grade six writing assignment, and as some of you may have noticed, there's a noticeable handful of them scattered throughout recent threads.

Am I making a point?  Not really.  I think I may just be reaching out for a "So Say We All" to console me in these troubled times for our species.

Very off-topic, but the issue is that a lot of places on the net are for casual use, and for people of all ages, languages, cultures, etc. Not everyone has the same education, not everyone has English as their first language, and not everyone puts the same emphasis on spelling and grammar as others. The point of casual forums are to get your point across. If I write in a manner that explains my point clearly but make speeeling errers of which no one can deny the grammar which is poor then I have succeeded. What I would write in a formal setting like my job is going to be very different than what I write in a casual setting.

I think it's a matter of letting it go. The net is freedom (to an extent) and people can express themselves however they please (within the guidelines of the setting). Don't fight it. You'll only get yourself tossed off for trying to be a teacher.
 

SO SAY YOU!   People make mistakes, you just have to live with it.      up.

Actually I agree with Coluch JC.   There are regular posters on this forum that I will not read because their posts are so poorly written.   I am not talking about the occasional grammer or spelling mistake.   I am talking about basic sentence formating and paragraph structure.

These posters may actually have something interesting to say, and considering the length of their posts I assume that they feel strongly about their opinion.  But I don't read their posts because they are incomprehensible and I am not going to take the time to try to decipher them.   I know I am not the only one with this response either. 

If people are going to make the effort to make a post, they can make the effort to make their posts comprehensible.
 

---

Firecracke:

Actually I agree with Coluch JC.   There are regular posters on this forum that I will not read because their posts are so poorly written.   I am not talking about the occasional grammer or spelling mistake.   I am talking about basic sentence formating and paragraph structure.

These posters may actually have something interesting to say, and considering the length of their posts I assume that they feel strongly about their opinion.  But I don't read their posts because they are incomprehensible and I am not going to take the time to try to decipher them.   I know I am not the only one with this response either. 

If people are going to make the effort to make a post, they can make the effort to make their posts comprehensible. 

I agree... if someone can't take the time to read back over what they've typed to see if it contains any mistakes and can be understood, why should I bother trying to decipher the code? No problem with a casual spelling error or typo once in a while... after all, no one's perfect... but when you need a course in deciphering hieroglyphics or a linguistics degree to make sense out of what someone's trying to say, sometimes it's not worth the effort.

Also, I understand that for some of the posters on here, English is not a first language... and that's excusable. It's hard to find fault with someone whose native tongue is francais, for example, when others - for whom English is their first language - have the writing skills of a kindergarten student.

Edit: Actually, I've seen some people on here whose first language I know isn't English write better than some who are supposedly fluent in it. What does that tell you...?

---

"Something, something, something, Dark Side... something, something, something, complete!"

DBash:

Firecracke:

Actually I agree with Coluch JC.   There are regular posters on this forum that I will not read because their posts are so poorly written.   I am not talking about the occasional grammer or spelling mistake.   I am talking about basic sentence formating and paragraph structure.

These posters may actually have something interesting to say, and considering the length of their posts I assume that they feel strongly about their opinion.  But I don't read their posts because they are incomprehensible and I am not going to take the time to try to decipher them.   I know I am not the only one with this response either. 

If people are going to make the effort to make a post, they can make the effort to make their posts comprehensible. 

I agree... if someone can't take the time to read back over what they've typed to see if it contains any mistakes and can be understood, why should I bother trying to decipher the code? No problem with a casual spelling error or typo once in a while... after all, no one's perfect... but when you need a course in deciphering hieroglyphics or a linguistics degree to make sense out of what someone's trying to say, sometimes it's not worth the effort.

Also, I understand that for some of the posters on here, English is not a first language... and that's excusable. It's hard to find fault with someone whose native tongue is francais, for example, when others - for whom English is their first language - have the writing skills of a kindergarten student.

Edit: Actually, I've seen some people on here whose first language I know isn't English write better than some who are supposedly fluent in it. What does that tell you...?

I agree also. I don't mind if people make mistakes - hell, I make my fair share - but if the post is incomprehensible, I don't have time to sit around puzzling over what the person meant.

It's a free Internet, and nobody has to reread before hitting "post" to make sure they're making sense. But if you're not getting any responses to what you're writing, that could be the reason.

Related pet peeve: lack of paragraph breaks. Even if you write a correctly spelled and punctuated post, if it's one giant paragraph, it's hard to read and I usually won't bother.

(Spelling's an easy one. Firefox, and presumably other browsers, have a built-in spell check. This one thinks I spelled "spelled" wrong. As far as I know, "spelled" is still a word - go figure.) 

---

Naomi.:

Related pet peeve: lack of paragraph breaks. Even if you write a correctly spelled and punctuated post, if it's one giant paragraph, it's hard to read and I usually won't bother.

(Spelling's an easy one. Firefox, and presumably other browsers, have a built-in spell check. This one thinks I spelled "spelled" wrong. As far as I know, "spelled" is still a word - go figure.) 

I can't read a post that doesn't have any breaks. My eyes just won't track it properly.

My pet peeve is the misuse of 'there' 'they're and 'their'. I see the wrong version used way more than I see the correct

one. I get the impression that most people have forgotten that 'their' exists at all.

And then there is to, too and two, but that's another story.

 

---

...The poster formerly known as rick -s

I think y'all have gotten the point, then. If the post is comprehensible, then it doesn't matter if the spelling or grammar is poor. It's only when it is incomprehensible that there's a problem. But...it's not our problem, because we carry on as normal, ignoring or not as we please. The problem, then, is only for the original poster of the message since people won't understand him/her. Hence, we return to "it doesn't matter".

You're right, of course, Equisilius. I guess the original point of the thread, though, was Coluch_JC musing about what happened to the ability of most people to communicate properly using the English language, aside from the occasional typo. As I stated above, when you have people whose first tongue is another language able to communicate better in English than someone who is supposed to be fluent in it, it makes you wonder what the problem is. And it's far more widespread than just here on this forum.

My pet peeve, Naomi and Psi-Phi-Sam, is "could of" instead of "could have". I guess a lot of people are used to saying "could've" and assumed it used the preposition "of" instead of "have". Minor annoyance, I know... but still. It was drilled into my head in elementary school... where did these people get they're, uh... there? no... their education? Coulda, woulda, shoulda... LOL!

---

"Something, something, something, Dark Side... something, something, something, complete!"

Coluch_JC:

 a general lack of proper english skills

Speaking of which, it's 'English,' not 'english.'

---

TheVok:

Coluch_JC:

 a general lack of proper english skills

Speaking of which, it's 'English,' not 'english.'

Oh, so they weren't discussing billiards. My bad.  

Psi-Phi-Sam:

Naomi.:

Related pet peeve: lack of paragraph breaks. Even if you write a correctly spelled and punctuated post, if it's one giant paragraph, it's hard to read and I usually won't bother.

(Spelling's an easy one. Firefox, and presumably other browsers, have a built-in spell check. This one thinks I spelled "spelled" wrong. As far as I know, "spelled" is still a word - go figure.) 

I can't read a post that doesn't have any breaks. My eyes just won't track it properly.

My pet peeve is the misuse of 'there' 'they're and 'their'. I see the wrong version used way more than I see the correct

one. I get the impression that most people have forgotten that 'their' exists at all.

And then there is to, too and two, but that's another story.

 

Here is another pet peeve of mine, to add to yours - it's the misuse of "your" and "you're".  Often times "your" is used instead of "you're", which I rarely see anymore. 

srlsy, i tink it iz kewl dat we r discussen teh decline of the inglish language on teh instrument ov itz destruction.  kthxbai.

---

20 minutes into the future.

WHO:

srlsy, i tink it iz kewl dat we r discussen teh decline of the inglish language on teh instrument ov itz destruction.  kthxbai.

Even when you're trying to mess it up, your post is still a heck of a lot more understandable than some others I've seen recently.

And I don't know about "instrument of destruction" of the English language... I think that's happening in our schools... but the 'net's definitely assisting big time.

I just don't get what happened in the last 20+ years... when I went to school, there was great emphasis on articulating properly in the language we use. Grammar, spelling... punctuation... why are these things no longer important? Maybe because so many kids can't grasp the basics and it's easier for schools to just not teach them? There is a spell-checker in all the word processing programs today, so perhaps the computers will tell the kids when they're wrong...?

---

"Something, something, something, Dark Side... something, something, something, complete!"

Firecracke:

grammer or spelling mistake. 

It's 'grammar,' not 'grammer.'

Most ironic thread ever? ;)

---