Rant Punctuation and general spelling on the forums

[Nealieboyee]

Hi All,
I really wasn't going to say anything about this. I just grit my teeth and try to ignore it, but lately its becoming a nightmare. We have new threads all over the place beginning with lower case letters. The sentences are badly punctuated (to the point that you can't understand a f**king word). There is "text talk" everywhere. Seriously, its makes the forum look disgusting!

Can't we do anything about this?

Case in point....here

[Picarro]

Skitzab is dyslexic. Your argument is invalid.

But I agree. People should try to strive towards a more proper Standard English instead of letting the forum drown in "1337-speak" and text-language.

I know I might not be the best at times but some of us does not have English as our mother tongue which makes it a bit harder to write proper, grammatically correct, sentences.

But I do think people should then put their country in the "Location" box - it would help alleviate some of the hatred towards their poorer English if it is clear that they are not native speakers.

[Nealieboyee]

It is actually quite easy to tell the 1337 speakers from the foreign-tongued ones. You also get the ones who are just plain lazy and won't bother with their punctuation, which can at times make it difficult for us to help because we can't understand them.

[K404]

bt mai spellingz iz gud!

[Phalanx]

Originally Posted by Nealieboyee

Hi All,
[new paragraph]
I really wasn't going to say anything about this. I just grit my teeth and try to ignore it, but lately it's becoming a nightmare. We have new threads all over the place beginning with lower case letters. [single space] The sentences are badly punctuated (to the point that you can't understand a f**king word). There is "text talk" everywhere. Seriously, it's makes making the forum look disgusting!

Can't we do anything about this?

Case in point....here

Sorry, I couldn't resist. Love you Nealieboyee xx

On a more serious note, it doesn't take very long to make sure your text is legible. The odd speeling mistaek or punctuation error is fine, but when it's blatantly obvious people aren't making an effort, then they shouldn't expect too much of a response, if you ask me.

[Tomhyde1986]

To be fair the Bit-Tech forums are far from the worst I've seen. The current ongoing thread in the serious forum entilted "WTF is this forum coming to" is a prime example of well thought out, well reasoned and eloquently presented arguments (for the most part).

Try reading something like the MMO-Champion forums. It's particularly bad over there recently. I've spotted at least a dozen threads starting something along the lines of " Whos gonna do xxx when xxx is released?" Any thread that doesn't have a grammatically correct title I generally ignore these days unless it's clearly deliberate on behalf of the original poster. Call me a snob if you wish.

I've even seen it creeping into the Toms Hardware forums of late too. To be fair it might always of been there and I've only just notice but good grief it's annoying.

That all being said I'm far from the best. My spelling is actually fine and in the age of the internet where you can just google a word spelling is almost irrelevant. I must admit my typing is god awful and apparently so is my proof reading. In conversation though I tend to make an effort to use eloquent, correct English as far as possible.

I'd be curious to expand this issue to a more general look at society and possibly explore the relationship between the rise of technology and it's apparent (at least to me) affects on communication as a whole. That might be a discussion for the serious forum though.

EDIT: I should mention this post was typed in Word to avoid any grammatical mistakes to attempt being too much of a hypocrite. I'm sure there are still a few that remain though.

[logonui]

I think this is an issue everywhere, not just on the Bit-Tech forums.

It seems that the younger a person is (and I realise this is an unfair generalisation for many) the worse their spelling and grammar are. I have a number of friends who work in education and people actually hand in essays that have been written in "text speak".

Those of us who didn't necessarily grow up with mobile phones and chat clients were brought up to use full sentences and punctuation because we didn't have a limit to the amount of characters available.

As times change so does the use of the language. Lol was added to the oxford dictionary last year, it's just the English language evolving as language always has.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12893416

I don't like it and it bugs the hell out of me but there's not a lot we can do. I find the use of could instead of couldn't in "I couldn't care less" to be more of an irritant.

[bulldogjeff]

Originally Posted by Picarro

Skitzab is dyslexic. Your argument is invalid.

But I agree. People should try to strive towards a more proper Standard English instead of letting the forum drown in "1337-speak" and text-language.

I know I might not be the best at times but some of us does not have English as our mother tongue which makes it a bit harder to write proper, grammatically correct, sentences.

But I do think people should then put their country in the "Location" box - it would help alleviate some of the hatred towards their poorer English if it is clear that they are not native speakers.

I'm mildly dyslexic, but most of what i say makes reasonable sense (most of the time). I know how to use punctuation and I use Opera because the spell checker on it is brilliant I then reread everything before I hit the post button, so that's not really an excuses, it's just down to lazyness.

[Cerberus90]

Originally Posted by Phalanx

Sorry, I couldn't resist. Love you Nealieboyee xx

On a more serious note, it doesn't take very long to make sure your text is legible. The odd speeling mistaek or punctuation error is fine, but when it's blatantly obvious people aren't making an effort, then they shouldn't expect too much of a response, if you ask me.

Aren't you supposed to have a double space after a full stop. That's how I've been taught to type on a PC, and how I've been doing it for the last 10 years.

[wuyanxu]

lolwut? u mad bro?

dis is teh interwebz.

[Phalanx]

My bad, both ways are acceptable if they're consistent, which Neal was. I only picked up on the last one because double-spacing is the less common way. But yes, you're right.

Still, I was only ribbing. Neal knows me and how I'm like.

[Comfyasabadger]

In RL, yes we should strive to speak and write proper and I'm terrible for it.

Here on the boards however I think it really isn't a necessity.

It shouldn't matter how bad the spelling or grammar is, if your fairly intelligent you will be able to figure out what the person was trying to convey.

Arocdnicg to rsceearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pcale. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit pobelrm. Tihs is buseace the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

[Picarro]

Originally Posted by Comfyasabadger

In RL, yes we should strive to speak and write proper and I'm terrible for it.

Here on the boards however I think it really isn't a necessity.

It shouldn't matter how bad the spelling or grammar is, if your fairly intelligent you will be able to figure out what the person was trying to convey.

Arocdnicg to rsceearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pcale. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit pobelrm. Tihs is buseace the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Sure it is possible to figure out what people are writing, but I browse these forums for fun - not to be mentally challenged by a word and letter puzzle

[lp1988]

Originally Posted by Comfyasabadger

In RL, yes we should strive to speak and write proper and I'm terrible for it.

Here on the boards however I think it really isn't a necessity.

These small things are very important, at least I regard these small messages as "practice" so I do not lose my edge as I would otherwise not use written English in my daily life. It is in your daily usage that you learn something, not whenever you write an entire article, so saying that it's unnecessary on the forums is like telling a sports person that practice is not necessary as you learn it all on the field.

[Nealieboyee]

Originally Posted by Comfyasabadger

In RL, yes we should strive to speak and write proper and I'm terrible for it.

Here on the boards however I think it really isn't a necessity.

It shouldn't matter how bad the spelling or grammar is, if your fairly intelligent you will be able to figure out what the person was trying to convey.

Arocdnicg to rsceearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pcale. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit pobelrm. Tihs is buseace the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

How about not capitalizing the first letter of the first word of a sentence or title? Can that be blamed on Dyslexia? Thats just pure laziness in my opinion. It really does make the forum look messy.

[GeorgeStorm]

While I'm not perfect, I do try to make sure my posts are coherent and readable.
Also I've never heard of double spacing after a full stop? Capitalising the first letter of a sentence is such an easy thing to do, yet makes such a big difference to a block of text.

[Silver51]

Your choice of spelling and grammar on public forums will dictate how others perceive you.

Write like a child and you will be taken for a child, write like an adult and everything will be sunshine and unicorns.

[K404]

Originally Posted by Silver51

write like an adult and everything will be sunshine and unicorns.

I see what you did there

[Mankz]

This forum is better than most places on the interweb, but has been going down hill of recent.

Ladies and gentleman, if in doubt, write your post in Word, use spellcheck, and then post it over. Simples.

[mrlongbeard]

Originally Posted by Nealieboyee

How about not capitalizing the first letter of the first word of a sentence or title? Can that be blamed on Dyslexia? Thats just pure laziness in my opinion. It really does make the forum look messy.

I'd rank that right up there with txt