Rant Punctuation and general spelling on the forums

The problem is you and the like minded posters often do come across in a very rude manner. In many cases the poster would do well to address there tone in the same way they wish others to check spelling and grammar!

 

Colour me a conceited bugger, I don't care. I'm all for helping people correcting their spelling and will try my level best at assisting with grammar. Crikey, if you look into the mists of time on these very forums I was forever pointing out spelling mistakes in articles and reviews on the main site - and being thanked for doing so, although that was just a byproduct as I was only after one thing, my favourite website to be the best in its field.

I fully agree with you, Unicorn. I am all for helping people out and despite appearances to the contrary, I'll do it without prejudice.

 

Fair enough, it's just sometimes feels like being ripped apart by teachers who do not believe in dyslexia, and clerks at work is one thing. I come on here to relax, you would have thought my best effort was ok rather than constantly having JSP 101 in another window to keep me perfect

Also, the little smile may be meant to show humor, but it just makes me think of some obnoxious bully. I really do find it quite unfair to be judged like that.

 

If it makes you feel any better I've never had any trouble understanding your posts

 

Theres effort and then there's Effort .

Sounds like you normally put in effort which I think people are after and respect.

Effort is too much to ask for, so lads, pinch of salt when its only minor.

 

Yep those those three plus two more.

 

This!

Im totally up for anyone commenting on errors believe me, the amount of times i was taken the piss of because of it made my my english lessons in school horrible.

You think you get away with that but sometimes you get the cocky comment that just is unbelievably frustrating you find it hard not to reply.

 

Okay, from now on you're red

Having correct spelling and grammar in articles and reviews is entirely appropriate, gives a more professional product and I can therefore understand why they would appreciate you pointing out such errors. After all, who wants to subscribe to a product where those producing it can't be bothered to get it right.

But the forums are essentially a group meeting place on the internet, with a bent for technology. That is an entirely different thing to a publication that people pay to purchase or advertisers pay to advertise on. After all, if you were having a telephone conversation with someone who used a word out of context or simply incorrectly, would you interrupt them mid sentence to correct them? If you did it regularly I would suspect they wouldn't want to talk with you any more. This medium is no different.

Consider this, most people on this forum have considerable respect for Nexxo but has he ever pulled people up for grammatical errors? No.

 

Good point Carrie, but most people on this forum have considerable respect for members like Longweight, Shirty, Kenco and Nealieboy (and the rest), and they have pulled people up for grammatical errors and spelling, and have agreed with others who have done the same. As always, the coin has two sides. I have no idea how the majority of members feel about me and my "grammar nazism" and to be honest, it should not and does not matter to me. Proper use of the English language is something that I believe strongly in, no matter how trivial it seems to other people, and I will continue to encourage it in as helpful a way as possible and support the others who share my views on the subject as long as I'm a member of bit-tech

 

Respect has to be earned, Not by being rude and pulling people up for the slightest spelling / grammar mistake.

So you're going to change your ways then?

 

Believe me, if I or any of the others I mentioned wanted to be rude, you'd know about it:

You're an illiterate dickhead.

That's rude.

Of course, I'm just kidding - Like I said, it's a matter of opinion mate, if people think it's rude for me and others to correct other peoples mistakes, then that's how it is. I personally don't think it's rude at all and I try and do it in as polite a way as possible. As I've said, it's only done in an attempt to be helpful and keep bit-tech from sliding backwards into the cold, harsh grasp of illiteracy.

 

Now there's the real unicorn

Of course you're only joking mutt I have just as much affection for you to.

 

No-one is saying people shouldn't have respect (earned high regard) for the forum members you list, but that's not necessarily related to whether they have "pulled people up for grammatical errors and spelling" and even your statement hasn't claimed such a link.

As far as I'm aware there is no forum rule requiring posts to be made in the Queen's English nor appointed you guardians and I personally find that sort of thing nothing short of demeaing (to debase, as in dignity or social standing) towards and highly judgemental (inclined to make judgments, especially moral or personal ones - negatively in this instance) of the targets picked out, unless those targets have "satisfactorily justified" their "shortcomings".

Nealieboy reposted part way through this thread that it wasn't so much the errors but the laziness that's creeping into posts which bothers him such as text speak. Text speak laziness is easily identifiable now isn't it m8 It's also very rare that a post is completely incomprehensible, unless it's posted by Hippoz and all the correct grammar and spelling in the world won't change that

Edit: personally I don't judge someone on whether they can spell, what job they do, how much they earn etc. I judge them based on their character, compassion, consideration, thoughtfulness, kindness, empathy and such like. Correct grammar does not make the man, his character does.

And I repeat, Nexxo, the Mod, formally appointed representative of this forum, feels no need to undertake such a mission so does that make him less than you?

 

Not sure I've earned as much respect as some of the other names in this thread, but thanks for the compliment above Unicorn!!

Two things I'd like to add: firstly, I apologise to anyone who may have taken offence to any posts I have made in the past. I don't generally post to insult, rather to challenge viewpoints or supply useful info (or very occasionally troll a little ). But I'm well aware that like many of us I have one or two posts I'm not overly proud of. This brings me to my second point.

This is a public forum. The difference between a public forum and a "real" conversation is that what is said here is recorded, to all intents and purposes, forever. To draw too many parallels to spoken English is misguided in my opinion. Those who feel the need to politely correct the worst uses of English have as much right to do so as those who type the English in question. Such is the nature of freedom of speech that will always be exercised on this forum. I won't start quoting Voltaire but you get the general gist of where I'm coming from.

I haven't read the rules for a while, but I'm pretty sure the only limitations on freedom of speech here relate to legal issues (under 18s are present), personal attacks and swearing. Nexxo and other mods have stated on numerous occasions that being an arse/grammar nazi/know-it-all is not reason enough to issue a ban, however irritating it may be. Forum rules need to clearly have been broken and usually more than once.

So my advice would be that when posting do your best to ensure that all intended readers of your post will be able to understand what you have typed, without difficulty, and you will not set yourself up for criticism. It also helps if said post contributes in a positive way to the forum. If someone does choose to correct something you have typed, take it in the spirit it was probably intended and move on, there's no need to dwell on it or make any further issue unless you feel it was done maliciously. Personally I'm much more annoyed by know-it-alls who post nonsense and then waste forum space pointlessly defending said nonsense when it's challenged. No amount of good grammar or spelling can help those individuals. I was going to devote a paragraph to buttsex monkeys but I see Carrie has covered that in her post above

It's good to see that the love has largely been restored in this thread now. We're all a pretty nice bunch here I think. Diverse, but nice.

 

A bit late to the party... but I'm here to side with the pedants (generally).

TL;DR - I hate this. Sometimes it means that the text is too long, too dull, or too verbose for the context. But usually it just means that the reader couldn't be bothered reading anything longer than a bullet-point or a sound-bite.

In the case, of poor-quality posts, I sometimes find myself in a TLDR situation. I'll accept a your/you're or a there/their error, because although they are sometimes a product of poor or lazy literacy, but they could also be typo's that a spell checker won't pick up. Another reason to let them slide is because they are simply so ubiquitous, so damn common. The final reason to look the other way is that on their own, the 'message' still gets through.

I scan; We all scan to varying degrees. When I scan a sentence/paragraph sometimes I know that I have missed something, and so I need to re-read but more carefully this time. It's still faster than reading everything slowly and thoroughly.

If we refer to the OP's example... I scanned some of the early posts from the main offender. It was like I was dyslexic! I saw a jumble of letters....but the meaning didn't bubble up from the text. So I re-read, but more thoroughly this time - even so, I had to re-read sentences several times, inserting imaginary punctuation and swapping in words I think the author intended... but it quickly became too tiring, too much of a battle. TC;DR - too crap, didn't read.

I've corrected most of this post as I typed. But reviewing the whole post, I can see a few syntactical and semantic improvements that I could make, but I've left them in, anyway - proof that grammatical perfection is not necessary. We don't need Grammar Nazi's for us all to communicate but we do need to follow the basics for a reasonable level of readability.