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Cryosite wrote on 2011-02-04 07:31
I consider myself one of these, though I know I am far from perfect when it comes to spelling, punctuation, and so on. I do think I am pretty good at these things, but I do make mistakes and typographical errors from time to time.
Being "pretty good" and also being the sort of person who watches over what she types to try to avoid making mistakes, I often see those mistakes others make. I consider it just being helpful to the other person to point out those mistakes so they can be learned from, so we can all strive to be better at this challenging task of communicating with each other.
Allow me to elaborate on that highly important fact: We are all attempting to communicate with each other. Wither it be one person trying to express some idea to anyone or everyone, or someone seeking to have things explained to him or her, or two or more people discussing back and forth... communication is being attempted. Yes, I said attempted.
As much as people attempt to communicate with each other, how often do people actually succeed? Never perfectly, as it is impossible for two people to understand each other with no errors what so ever. You can't read the mind of the other person to know if they understood exactly what you've said, or that you understand exactly what they mean. The best we can hope for is is that sufficient understanding has taken place.
One of the biggest things that causes problems in the world, to the point of people starting wars and killing each other even, is over the misunderstandings caused by failures in communication. I'm not claiming that someone has gone to war because of a missed comma or apostrophe, but people have killed each other over a difference of opinion about how a certain ancient book should be interpreted, or because one person expressed an idea (with no malice or ill intent meant) that the other found offensive (or blasphemous).
On a much smaller scale, many disagreements occur because one person thinks a single word means one thing, when the other person things it means something else. Pages and pages and pages of arguments have occurred with the ultimate result being that eventually both people figured out one or two words mean different things to each other.
Even if we speak the same words, confusion and misunderstandings can happen. It takes a great deal of care, and personal vigilance to try to limit how often and how severely this happens. The problem only grows exponentially worse however, if we just arbitrarily throw in different words, or different spellings of a word. It can be hard enough at times to just read what a person has written, and figure out what it is they mean. When you add to that the difficulty of translating misspelled words and misused words... the task can be truly daunting, and very little sense can be made at times from what others say.
Despite that, the trend these days (one that has grown rampantly for years now) is for people to completely disregard these things, and just mash the keyboard nearly at random, and expect others to make sense of what it is they are saying. Many people (I tremble at the thought of accepting that it could even be "most" people now) seem to have this lazy concept that it is "easier" to say things like "u" and "ur" instead of "you" and "your/you're."
Even if you are right that it is easier to use such grossly abbreviated words, realize that what little effort you save yourself, you are imposing on your audience. Sadly, most of your audience probably has the same mentality as you do these days... but it is a real travesty that such lack of respect is so readily accepted. Your laziness in typing is directly increasing the amount of effort your audience must go through to make sense of what you say. You should be grateful anyone is even making any effort to listen to you at all, and you should seek to be as clear and understandable as possible.
I understand that in some mediums, abbreviations are necessary. Text messages for example often have a price/character or a very small character limit. It would be quite acceptable to use as many abbreviations as possible when texting. But that is because texting is a crappy, limited medium to be communicating through. A place like these forums, you aren't being charged by the letter, you have no deadline to meet when typing things out, and you can get away with pages of text in a single post.
Being a young person can offer some room for leeway. But with that leeway comes the expectation that the young person should be especially accepting of corrections made to his or her grammar and spelling. No one should be insulting anyone else period, but understand corrections suggested are not insults, but are offerings of help.
If you are somehow physically limited in your ability to type... there are keyboards available with larger keys. You can also make use of sophisticated auto-correction features that are available natively in browsers like Firefox, or use a word processor program like MS Word or Openoffice.org's Writer. You can take a moment to scan through what you're about to post and right-click the underlined words to have the program correct them for you.
If you are a the age where you should be graduated from highschool, there is no excuse for you to be making mistakes as badly as someone 10-17 yrs old makes. You know better. If you have time to be spending your leisure on some forums for an online game, you have time to better yourself and overcome your deficiencies as a member of society. If you're too lazy to even do that... then you have no room to be offended if someone corrects your spelling and grammar. Again, like the children described two paragraphs up, take the offerings of help.
Anyone that uses being a "grammar nazi" as a way to insult people, stop it. No one should be insulting anyone, especially on the basis of spelling and grammar. Make corrections, and offer help. But also, if you can understand well enough what the other person has said to make that correction, then do also respond to what they have said as if they have made no errors at all. A post that contains nothing but grammar corrections doesn't contribute to the thread as a whole (except in cases where you are giving feedback to a guide, for example, and your feedback is to point out corrections that are needed).
If someone takes the time to point out your error, and they aren't being a troll about it, thank them for their help. Edit your post to correct the mistakes. If you make a correction for someone, and they edit their post to fix it, edit yours to remove the correction. No one else reading the exchange later needs to know about the error, everyone has a better time, and things are easier for all to read. Communication is enhanced, and we all do our part to combat the threat of miss-communication.
PS: please point out any mistakes I have made in this post. I welcome them.
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gentrone wrote on 2011-02-04 07:50
I'm a Wall of Text Nazi.
I think people should be able to say more using less words. If your have a lot of things to say, at least make an outline so people can get a general idea of what you're trying to say. I used to think people had to to take the time to read my stuff thoroughly but then I realized I could reach a bigger audience if I made things clear. If that isn't enough evidence to support my theory, you should take into account that people get bored easily and the only reason you're writing down your ideas is to persuade others or discuss a topic.
However, I did read your post and I must say that I almost completely agree with you. You see, if people communicate one way or another shouldn't be an issue as long as they understand each other.
Even if you are right that it is easier to use such grossly abbreviated words, realize that what little effort you save yourself, you are imposing on your audience. Sadly, most of your audience probably has the same mentality as you do these days... but it is a real travesty that such lack of respect is so readily accepted. Your laziness in typing is directly increasing the amount of effort your audience must go through to make sense of what you say. You should be grateful anyone is even making any effort to listen to you at all, and you should seek to be as clear and understandable as possible.
If they have the same mentality, then there is nothing wrong, right? I mean, communication is achieved.
Also, I think people should stop saying grammar=syntax. They are different things.
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Liraiyu wrote on 2011-02-04 08:03
I'm semi grammer nazi.
My favorite activity involves talking to my grammer-nazi bro when we're both really tired, so we make spelling mistakes and typos everywhere and make huge deals out of them. :D
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Narc wrote on 2011-02-04 08:15
What really befuddles me is when people 7yp3 LiiK33 d1s
and then randomly use ellipses after every word.. but with two periods..
Or Capitalize Every Word For No Apparent Reason.
WHY.
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Ithiliel wrote on 2011-02-04 08:17
I would like to pretend I'm a grammar nazi. I'll point out simple mistakes if necessary but I've found that I tend to mix up sentence structures a lot thanks to studying multiple languages. That and...my English seems to run away from me at times.
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Liraiyu wrote on 2011-02-04 08:18
Quote from Narc;319865:
What really befuddles me is when people 7yp3 LiiK33 d1s
and then randomly use ellipses after every word.. but with two periods..
Or Capitalize Every Word For No Apparent Reason.
WHY.
I KNOW RIGHT
I remember asking a guy who talked like why he didn't bother typing properly, he responded 'its nt schol, gramar dosnt mater'
THAT WAS HIS RESPONSE. IT HAUNTS MY DREAMS.
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Ithiliel wrote on 2011-02-04 08:22
Quote from Protoman;319868:
I KNOW RIGHT
I remember asking a guy who talked like why he didn't bother typing properly, he responded 'its nt schol, gramar dosnt mater'
THAT WAS HIS RESPONSE. IT HAUNTS MY DREAMS.
Ick I loathe people who talk worse than a two year old. Those are the people I always ignore.
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Mama wrote on 2011-02-04 08:44
I hate people
who msn me
while pressing enter
this frequently.
that aside, in the current age of internet and instant gratification, expecting humans to.. not act like humans is ironic and pretentious.
Things will never change in that aspect. but it's good to be an idealist.
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gentrone wrote on 2011-02-04 08:55
Quote from Mama;319881:
I hate people
who msn me
while pressing enter
this frequently.
that aside, in the current age of internet and instant gratification, expecting humans to.. not act like humans is ironic and pretentious.
Things will never change in that aspect. but it's good to be an idealist.
But
It's fun
to write
like this.
You know, you can learn a lot about people by studying the way they write and speak.
Like, breaking down sentences like I just did shows 'grammar units' or 'units of thought' in a sentence. Know what I mean?
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Mama wrote on 2011-02-04 09:07
Quote from gentrone;319884:
But
It's fun
to write
like this.
You know, you can learn a lot about people by studying the way they write and speak.
Like, breaking down sentences like I just did shows 'grammar units' or 'units of thought' in a sentence. Know what I mean?
I agree entirely. I've made my own set of stereotypes around determining someone's personality through how they type, but it mostly applies in settings such as MSN or in game chat since it's higher stress.
as for the breakdown part, it's just annoying trying to parse sentences, especially when my chat window can only be so long.
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Bride wrote on 2011-02-04 12:17
i don't believe you need to type everything out and perfect your punctuation to sound smart or to make a point
i used to be like that when i was 13/14? stopped caring about it long ago and i'm glad i did. i know when perfect grammar is essential and it certainly isn't on a measly forum or IM chat
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Devoth wrote on 2011-02-04 12:32
Quote from gentrone;319884:
But
It's fun
to write
like this.
You know, you can learn a lot about people by studying the way they write and speak.
Like, breaking down sentences like I just did shows 'grammar units' or 'units of thought' in a sentence. Know what I mean?
I love you. I share the same thoughts.
Quote from Protoman:
I'm semi grammer nazi.
My favorite activity involves talking to my grammer-nazi bro when we're both really tired, so we make spelling mistakes and typos everywhere and make huge deals out of them. :D
Grammar is spelled the way I just typed it. If you want to be a nazi, you've got to do it right? Just kidding.
I'm not really one to point out peoples' spelling/grammar/etc mistakes (the only thing I truly care about is spelling). If I placed myself in their shoes, I kind of see it as being obnoxious and possibly even condescending. There are a few exceptions to this. The first would be when someone ASKS me to frequently point out their mistakes, and the second is when someone corrects me after I make a simple and obvious typo (yes, I know how to spell that word, I just hit the wrong key).
I do have a two words that are pet peeves when spelled wrong, though.
Separate
Definitely
The amount of people who spell those two words wrong kind of makes me go, "Uhh.. what the f*ck?"
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Arsik wrote on 2011-02-04 12:58
Eh, I still don't see the point of having to get on people's cases over grammar mistakes on the internet. It's not like you guys are all English teachers or something, right? As the OP said, people make mistakes, and yes, while telling them nicely will help them learn from their mistakes, taking your time to only comment on their mistakes, on the internet, will probably make them think you are just trolling them, which can cause unnecessary drama. Especially if the person that's making the errors isn't a native English speaker. When I first played MapleStory, I signed up for MapleSEA, thinking it was the North American servers, because it was in English. So my sister and I are going through Maple Island when some guy talked to us (more specifically my sister), and my sister went all Grammar Nazi on him, telling him that she's only interested in people that can speak perfect English. I felt bad for the guy, even though he was flirting with my sister over some pixels, and then the next day, I found out that MapleSEA was for South East Asia, and I told my sister, who immediately felt really bad about it. So you do have to take into consideration the upbringing of a person before you become a Grammar Nazi to them.
To me, as long as I can understand the person, then they're fine. ifgteytak eleidis.nnuperdsatendsentce (If they talk like this. And they don't have a period at the end of their sentences), then I get on their case about it, nicely though, because I'd rather not have them win a flame war by having my eyeballs explode out of their sockets. Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy pointing out small mistakes my friends make though, because what's wrong with a little teasing, especially when they said something, but it came out completely different? But taking your time on internet forums/blogs where people are there casually, only to point out grammatical mistakes doesn't really make sense to me.
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Liraiyu wrote on 2011-02-04 13:20
Quote from Devoth;319945:
Grammar is spelled the way I just typed it. If you want to be a nazi, you've got to do it right? Just kidding.
I was half asleep when I typed that. Don't judge me! D:
It's a perfect example of the little mistakes we both make that we make big deals out of, though.
I once tried labeling my entire music folder while half asleep, kept spelling 'disc' as 'disk'.
Spent the next morning fixing everything up, hurr.
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Mabbi wrote on 2011-02-04 14:32
I don't capitalize the first letter at the beginning of a sentence, I don't put periods at the end of my messages, and I probably hit enter to send a message rather than putting a coma. However, I do like to spell things correctly, and if I'm not describing physics, I also like to write so people will understand me.
When it's late, and I've spelled something incorrectly, I usually correct using the '*' key. Sometimes though, if it's really late and I'm having a tough time with the words 'necessary' or 'immediately', I usually put an "or however you spell it" after the word or sentence just to let people know I know it's wrong but don't currently have the brain power to fix it.
People usually correct me, as they know I take no offense to grammar corrections.