Banned for Wanting Grammar!

[devonin]

[Squeek]

Originally Posted by Magewout

You know damn well what that sentence said. Exaggerating doesn't make a valid point since I can do that with a proper sentence as well.

Do I? Can you prove it? You think I can figure out that jibberish, but what if I decided 16 years ago when the Internet was first starting to become popular to ignore all that garbage? I can't even tell you what half of the commonly-used acronyms these days mean let alone translate what an idiots says. I decided long ago that it wasn't worth knowing. If someone can't take the time to type out a proper reply, their post isn't worth reading.

And no, you can't do that with a proper sentence. Every correction I made was to an obviously misspelled word, a word without punctuation, a word without capitalization, etc. For example, if I see NASA versus nasa (which, by the way, Firefox underlines the "nasa" indicating a mistake), I will think "National Aeronautics and Space Administration" versus "nasal?"

I'd like to call bs on your protip. If you have a proper understanding of the language, most of the time you'll know whether it's a typo or not. You can get a lot of information out of the context. I'm doubting whether you have ever tried to translate a foreign language. The "English isn't their first language bull", as you call it, is nevertheless very correct. If even native speakers make mistakes to it's/its and they're/their/there, it's unfair to expect from everyone that they don't make mistakes, and to some people it might seem very rude to correct every mistake they make.

What about Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Russian, Greek, etc? They don't use the standard A-Z alphabet. Yeah, good luck detecting a typo. When the same two characters in Japanese can mean literally 100 different things, you think you're going to recognize a typo? If you're lucky enough to know the context of the sentence in advance you might be able to detect a typo.

And eh, I am respecting this forum's rule, however, this discussion is about other forums with different rules, and grammar freaks complaining about them. How would you feel if people would constantly run around commenting on your language. Maybe reading bad grammar is annoying for you, but having 10 posts after that with corrections is annoying for other people trying to read the thread.

Btw, here's a real protip: spell-check programs don't correct all mistakes.

I personally disagree with the original poster of this thread. I would not purposely try to fix a forum's habits like this. The only reason this was successful on FFR was because so many of the users already typed properly and wanted this rule in place. After all, we have serious discussions here sometimes and we want to be taken seriously. I don't take someone seriously if they can't speak seriously. It's just that simple.

And I know most spell-check programs won't catch all of the errors, but Firefox was kind enough to underline every single one of yours in your example while I was messing with it.

[^_^aki*rox^_^]

Why do people have to complain so much?? As long as the sentence isnt, "omg, wtf ayd yfl?" or something like that, then why is it such a big deal? im really not that uptight to complain if someone writes "wat" instead of "what." I mean I even spell "rocks" as "rox" in my username, yet obviously I know grammar. The internet's about relaxing and enjoying it, not feeling like your still in school!

[Squeek]

It shouldn't be a chore to type properly.

[Bynary Fission]

Originally Posted by Squeek

It shouldn't be a chore to type properly.

But that doesn't mean everybody has to. Personally, I absolutely hate it when people "tlk lyk ths", or at least when I can't understand what they are trying to communicate. But, I've learned to ignore it - it's not my place to tell them how they should talk, and being an asshole about it won't help. From what I've seen from your posts regarding grammar, Squeek, you fail to realize that. I resist the urge to tell them to correct small grammatical issues, because it isn't worth fighting over. I pick my battles, and arguing over grammar isn't one of them. Really, I'd rather spend my time trying to do something worthwhile than go about telling people how to act and conform to my standards, which they probably don't care about anyways.


~Bynary Fission

[lord_carbo]

Internet discussion about grammar.

[sonic-fast-fingers]

Originally Posted by MalReynolds

For example:

She had a crack baby.

vs.

She had a crack, baby.

Zack Galifianakis! I love that guy, he is so funny. (if this is not where you got this joke from correct me).

Originally Posted by Squeek

It shouldn't be a chore to type properly.

It really shouldn't be a chore. It should be natural to type with at least grammar. Then if you have a long enough post take the extra 2 or 5 minutes to organize it.

[Squeek]

Originally Posted by Bynary Fission

But that doesn't mean everybody has to. Personally, I absolutely hate it when people "tlk lyk ths", or at least when I can't understand what they are trying to communicate. But, I've learned to ignore it - it's not my place to tell them how they should talk, and being an asshole about it won't help. From what I've seen from your posts regarding grammar, Squeek, you fail to realize that. I resist the urge to tell them to correct small grammatical issues, because it isn't worth fighting over. I pick my battles, and arguing over grammar isn't one of them. Really, I'd rather spend my time trying to do something worthwhile than go about telling people how to act and conform to my standards, which they probably don't care about anyways.


~Bynary Fission

When was the last time I corrected someone's minor mistakes? Ok there was that one time but these days I don't do it to insult anyone. I see common mistakes and I just know one day you'll be writing your dissertation and you'll make that mistake again. It's a lot worse when your future rests on that one mistake rather than some random person's opinion of you. If I tell you your mistake, you're more likely to remember it for the next time.

Hell, haven't you see Tass's posts? He's the guy who posted the grammar/spelling rule and he still refuses to capitalize any of his sentences. However, you won't see him making spelling mistakes or typing like an elementary school child.

[sonic-fast-fingers]

Originally Posted by Squeek

When was the last time I corrected someone's minor mistakes? Ok there was that one time but these days I don't do it to insult anyone. I see common mistakes and I just know one day you'll be writing your dissertation and you'll make that mistake again. It's a lot worse when your future rests on that one mistake rather than some random person's opinion of you. If I tell you your mistake, you're more likely to remember it for the next time.

Hell, haven't you see Tass's posts? He's the guy who posted the grammar/spelling rule and he still refuses to capitalize any of his sentences. However, you won't see him making spelling mistakes or typing like an elementary school child.

I noticed that about Tass's posts. I wasn't sure if it was a series of coincidental mistakes or if that's just how he talks on the forums. Tell me Squeek: is that ironic to you? That Tass made the grammar/spelling rule but he doesn't capitalize?

[Bynary Fission]

Originally Posted by Squeek

When was the last time I corrected someone's minor mistakes? Ok there was that one time but these days I don't do it to insult anyone. I see common mistakes and I just know one day you'll be writing your dissertation and you'll make that mistake again.

It's good to know you have such good intentions in your corrections. However, some lot of people, including myself, don't appreciate being corrected like that - being that the people who generally do this type of thing are in either a parental, instructive, or nurturing position (e.g teachers, parents, guardians, so forth), it can come off as insulting to some people to see a 22 year old man on the internet whom very few even truly know to be corrected for these "little" mistakes time and time again, myself included.

To put it in perspective - imagine you making grammatical mistakes on a forum. Perhaps you didn't notice it, or it was an oversight. Regardless, I happen to come by and correct you, saying "This is wrong, that's wrong, fix this...". If I did this on a frequent basis, wouldn't you feel annoyed, even insulted, that some kid on the internet is constantly correcting you, an adult of all things? I can't speak for you, but I know I wouldn't feel very happy about that.

Originally Posted by Squeek

It's a lot worse when your future rests on that one mistake rather than some random person's opinion of you. If I tell you your mistake, you're more likely to remember it for the next time.

Understandable. I can think of two common examples where spelling errors would have possibly serious ramifications - computer programming and your résumé. But if the person makes the mistake, it's their fault. If the person isn't careful enough to review something like that and correct those mistakes, let them learn the hard way, because anybody who cares enough about their work will do it properly.

But then again - it really isn't anybody's place to correct somebody's small errors, unless you happen to be a Language teacher. If they care, they'll figure it out and fix it.

Originally Posted by Squeek

Hell, haven't you see Tass's posts? He's the guy who posted the grammar/spelling rule and he still refuses to capitalize any of his sentences. However, you won't see him making spelling mistakes or typing like an elementary school child.

I thought you might mention that. Your casual attitude towards his posts is the stance I take for almost all forum posts - though I personally think the reason nobody points that out is because he is an admin.

True, his sentence structure is good, as is his spelling - but making mistakes occasionally doesn't mean you're an idiot or a sloppy poster - hell, I constantly review my spelling and grammar, yet even I make mistakes from time to time. Doesn't mean I type like a child or need immediate correcting.


You even said yourself earlier in the thread - you acted like an asshole towards people who didn't use perfect or near-perfect grammar before the rule enforcing it was implemented. I strongly disagree with that - that's comparable to being a dick to somebody because their religion/beliefs isn't in compliance with yours. I see it as a form of intolerance.


~Bynary Fission

[Squeek]

Originally Posted by Bynary Fission

It's good to know you have such good intentions in your corrections. However, some lot of people, including myself, don't appreciate being corrected like that - being that the people who generally do this type of thing are in either a parental, instructive, or nurturing position (e.g teachers, parents, guardians, so forth), it can come off as insulting to some people to see a 22 year old man on the internet whom very few even really know to be corrected for these "little" mistakes time and time again, myself included.

I am a teacher.

To put it in perspective - imagine you making grammatical mistakes on a forum. Perhaps you didn't notice it, or it was an oversight. Regardless, I happen to come by and correct you, saying "This is wrong, that's wrong, fix this...". If I did this on a frequent basis, wouldn't you feel annoyed, even insulted, that some kid on the internet is constantly correcting you, an adult of all things? I can't speak for you, but I know I wouldn't feel very happy about that.

I can't imagine making grammatical mistakes, but I make logic mistakes all the time and I don't mind when I'm told I'm wrong.

So let me ask you this: do you mind when all of the hard work you spent studying and all the hard work you put into writing the answer on an exam in school comes back marked wrong? Doesn't that feel like an insult? Why not? Because you're wrong.

And once again, I don't do that. I correct common mistakes every once in a while. These days it's more or less things that change the meaning of your post, like saying "could care less" when you mean "couldn't care less".

Understandable. I can think of two common examples where spelling errors would have possibly serious ramifications - computer programming and your résumé. But if the person makes the mistake, it's their fault. If the person isn't careful enough to review something like that and correct those mistakes, let them learn the hard way, because anybody who cares enough about their work will do it properly.

That's the thing. You might only get one chance. If you lose that one chance because you wrote "could of" instead of "could have", wouldn't you feel like an idiot?

But then again - it really isn't anybody's place to correct somebody's small errors, unless you happen to be a Language teacher. If they care, they'll figure it out and fix it.

I am a language teacher.

You even said yourself earlier in the thread - you acted like an asshole towards people who didn't use perfect or near-perfect grammar before the rule enforcing it was implemented. I strongly disagree with that - that's comparable to being a dick to somebody because their religion/beliefs isn't in compliance with yours. I see it as a form of intolerance.

If I can find an example of this, I will post it. In the meantime, let's just say I used the "can't take your argument seriously if you don't type properly" stance on multiple people. Most of them don't post here anymore, but a few of them are respected veterans now. I'm sure they feel animosity toward me for that still, but they understand my point now. Some of them even lecture others on it.

[RubiedCross]

Originally Posted by Magewout

You know damn well what that sentence said. Exaggerating doesn't make a valid point since I can do that with a proper sentence as well.

Actually, I had to pause and reread the sentence because of the lack in grammar. Yes, the Squeek did exaggerate, but there's a difference missing a comma here and there and having complete sentences (if they can even be called that) without grammar. Using grammar (and using it correctly) is great practice. It helps your understanding of the English language, and it does make you look smarter. I say that because the majority of the society really lacks in the grammar department.

Originally Posted by Magewout

I'd like to call bs on your protip. If you have a proper understanding of the language, most of the time you'll know whether it's a typo or not. You can get a lot of information out of the context. I'm doubting whether you have ever tried to translate a foreign language. The "English isn't their first language bull", as you call it, is nevertheless very correct. If even native speakers make mistakes to it's/its and they're/their/there, it's unfair to expect from everyone that they don't make mistakes, and to some people it might seem very rude to correct every mistake they make.

I can't speak for Squeek as to what he has done and what he hasn't but when you try to translate a foreign language that has mistakes, it can be extremely hard. Yes, sometimes you will understand what the word is anyways. Heck, maybe even the majority of the time you will know. But, if you don't have a complete understanding of that language, you may not know whether they made a mistake or it's a word you don't know. That's happened to me a lot while taking French and Spanish the past 2 years.

Originally Posted by Magewout

As for the commas, I didn't really have a problem with it, but that's probably just me as I'm used to reading **** like that :P

I'm sure Squeek wasn't basing his comma statement on the fact that some people use a comma after every word, but the fact that you said there are only "10" statements out of millions that a comma would make a different.

Originally Posted by Magewout

And eh, I am respecting this forum's rule, however, this discussion is about other forums with different rules, and grammar freaks complaining about them. How would you feel if people would constantly run around commenting on your language. Maybe reading bad grammar is annoying for you, but having 10 posts after that with corrections is annoying for other people trying to read the thread.

You might have been talking about that before but right now you're arguing about the use of grammar ANYWHERE on the internet (Please, correct me if I'm wrong).

Originally Posted by Magewout

Btw, here's a real protip: spell-check programs don't correct all mistakes.

Spell-check does not correct all mistakes. Of that, you are correct. If you have a newer version of say Microsoft Office, however, then you can paste a post in there and it will correct your grammar as well (or at least show you what is wrong).

Originally Posted by magewout

It's not their fault because it's what they constantly read all over the internet.

This isn't from your previous post, but this is a very good reason TOO use correct grammar. If you have people who don't completely understand English and they are learning while browsing the internet, then they will have misconceptions on words/acronyms/grammar. Some things we cannot help, like acronyms, but we CAN use correct grammar and we CAN spell out our words completely.

Sorry for the huge post, haha.

EDIT:: Wow I didn't even realize the thousand posts after the one I just quoted. Whoops. I guess I'll leave this just in case though.

[virus003]

Originally Posted by devonin

You needed to have an actual chance of getting in, in order for him to ruin your chance.

Pretty sure he ruined all my chances, INCLUDING a chance of getting in.

[Chrissi]

Originally Posted by virus003

Pretty sure he ruined all my chances, INCLUDING a chance of getting in.

Dude.

If I don't know who you are, you aren't getting in. You really think you have a chance? 90% (I'm totally guessing at this statistic, if you didn't know) of FFYa members are ancient. ANCIENT. And famous. You are neither.

Uh, I don't know how Rubied Cross got in, I think it was based on a single post in Ghost of the GOTR TGB version. But he's an okay guy, I think.

FFYa isn't a big deal... which I guess is easy for me to say when I'm already in it and make the majority of my posts in there these days. And I enjoy the forum greatly. It's just kinda like a gentlemans club. We all know each other, no unfamiliar faces, no idiots... it's sorta nice but it's also sorta bland. You coop people up so much and things get a little stale, you know?

[Magewout]

Originally Posted by Squeek

Do I? Can you prove it? You think I can figure out that jibberish, but what if I decided 16 years ago when the Internet was first starting to become popular to ignore all that garbage? I can't even tell you what half of the commonly-used acronyms these days mean let alone translate what an idiots says. I decided long ago that it wasn't worth knowing. If someone can't take the time to type out a proper reply, their post isn't worth reading.

And no, you can't do that with a proper sentence. Every correction I made was to an obviously misspelled word, a word without punctuation, a word without capitalization, etc. For example, if I see NASA versus nasa (which, by the way, Firefox underlines the "nasa" indicating a mistake), I will think "National Aeronautics and Space Administration" versus "nasal?"



What about Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Russian, Greek, etc? They don't use the standard A-Z alphabet. Yeah, good luck detecting a typo. When the same two characters in Japanese can mean literally 100 different things, you think you're going to recognize a typo? If you're lucky enough to know the context of the sentence in advance you might be able to detect a typo.



I personally disagree with the original poster of this thread. I would not purposely try to fix a forum's habits like this. The only reason this was successful on FFR was because so many of the users already typed properly and wanted this rule in place. After all, we have serious discussions here sometimes and we want to be taken seriously. I don't take someone seriously if they can't speak seriously. It's just that simple.

And I know most spell-check programs won't catch all of the errors, but Firefox was kind enough to underline every single one of yours in your example while I was messing with it.

It's not our fault you refuse to learn commonly used internet acronyms. I understand your point if you say that sometimes you don't know if something's an abbreviation or not, but things like u=you, 2=to/too/two, or c=see are commonly used all over the internet, and are very recognizable as well. When I'm typing replies using my Wii console instead of my computer, I also type in an abbreviated way, simply because it's so damn hard to type with perfect punctuation and whatnot. Does that mean that everything I post with my Wii isn't worth reading?

And yes you can. You say you're a language teacher, so you of all people should know about homographs. Even a word spelled correctly can be interpreted in more than one way. So if you see 'nasa' without capitalization you'll naturally add an 'l'? Seems weird to me, I'd still read it as NASA, but keep in mind that the person who typed it probably didn't take the time to press Shift Lock.

You're correct about most of the Asian languages, but I know from experience that those languages are nearly impossible to master as a non-native speaker, whereas English and e.g. French are very easy to learn (by the way, Greek is a very bad example, typos are easy to spot ).

As for not taking people seriously when they don't have perfect grammar: that is to me the arrogant stance of someone who is used to people (in your case probably kids) listening to them. They don't do what you say, you ignore them. In your first paragraph, you wrote 'an idiots'. Does that mean I should disregard that paragraph?

This is why I always hated my language teachers: they have the nasty habit of correcting everyone, everywhere. I'm okay with that in a school environment, but when you're not at work and keep correcting others the only thing you're doing is making yourself impopular. Not to mention that noone will listen to you because they don't have to. Outside of the school, you don't have to take up the role of some Messiah who has come to save the English language from mistakes.

@the person complaining about my example with '10' cases where the comma does matter: of course there are more than 10 cases, but the number of cases where it doesn't matter vastly outnumbers the cases where it does.

[Grandiagod]

When I play WoW there would be no way for me to use proper grammar fast enough to convey a message in an emergency situation.

On forums if I'm making a ****ty post I don't usually bother with grammar. If it's a CT post or somewhat serious post I try to type in a way where my point is abundantly clear.

In short not using proper grammar in an environment which would benefit from grammar is idiotic. Not using proper grammar in IMs or a game isn't a big deal.

Lets get all huffy about it.

[Magewout]

Originally Posted by Grandiagod

Lets get all huffy about it.

I really like discussions like this one I'm actually enjoying this ^_^

[Grandiagod]

All the people I talk to from Belgium use lots of emoticons. Not that it's bad or anything, that's just an observation.

And by "all of the people" I mean one other person.

I must find more Belgians on the internet and verify this hypothesis.

[MalReynolds]

squee

[Squeek]

Originally Posted by Grandiagod

When I play WoW there would be no way for me to use proper grammar fast enough to convey a message in an emergency situation.

On forums if I'm making a ****ty post I don't usually bother with grammar. If it's a CT post or somewhat serious post I try to type in a way where my point is abundantly clear.

In short not using proper grammar in an environment which would benefit from grammar is idiotic. Not using proper grammar in IMs or a game isn't a big deal.

Lets get all huffy about it.

Yeah, I stopped capitalizing and ending sentences on AIM. I still put commas, apostrophes, and all the other marks in there, though.

I have a slightly different reason. People were taking me too seriously on AIM. I'd be scaring away anyone who talked to me very quickly. I wish I knew why proper sentence structure scares away people, but that's the way it is.

However, if someone is arguing with me on AIM, I have no problem adding the punctuation and capitalization back in.

Originally Posted by magewtouoitiou

This is why I always hated my language teachers: they have the nasty habit of correcting everyone, everywhere. I'm okay with that in a school environment, but when you're not at work and keep correcting others the only thing you're doing is making yourself impopular. Not to mention that noone will listen to you because they don't have to. Outside of the school, you don't have to take up the role of some Messiah who has come to save the English language from mistakes.

No they don't. I lied about being one, by the way. It was fun.

Not a single one of my English teachers in my entire education career tried to knock people down for grammar. None. None of my teachers even tried to teach proper grammar and common mistakes. I taught myself. You know, common mistakes like "impopular" versus "unpopular" and "noone" versus "no-one".

I'm not trying to rescue you from mistakes and I'm not trying to make you feel bad about yourself for making them. I would have 3 years ago before I wrote that grammar/spelling rule. Now I try to do it subtly so that you don't really notice it but the message still sinks in so as to avoid mistakes in the future.

Why do I do it, then? I've been in college for over four years now, and every class I've had involving post-college discussions has mentioned that you can lose a job you're more than qualified to have by making a single mistake on your resume. You can lose all the respect you have at this position by sending out an e-mail with a major typo.

All I see these days are kids who are more than willing to shorten every word in their sentences because they think it makes it faster to type them. The real concern here is that they're not learning how to type properly, which is why whenever a kid mentions that it's "fastr" to type by removing some letters, I mention that it's not actually faster at all when you have to make the mental conversion to your hands and that it's much, much slower to read with the mental conversion to your eyes. That's why, to reduce the strain on everyone's eyes, I made a rule stating that proper spelling and grammar should be everyone's goal.