So how do you feel about "Grammar Elitist"
By
10100101,
Posted on: 2009-05-15 10:11 in Mission Architect
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Spelled 'Freakshew' (though I assumed the writer was Ed Sullivan 
)
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That made me LoL, God I'm old....
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Spelled 'Freakshew' (though I assumed the writer was Ed Sullivan )
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That made me LoL, God I'm old....
[/ QUOTE ]Me, too! Except for the fact that he's dead and all. 
No AV/EBs Deal with The Devil's Pawn-207266 Slash DeMento and the Stolen Weapons-100045 Meet the Demon Spawn-151099 Feedback
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I have had people complain about dialog a few times. But it is mostly dialect, ie the use of "ain't", "gonna", "fixin' to", and "ya'll". I guess because I don't use "yous guys" they don't like it.
People don't normally speak grammatically correct. Which to me give more life to a character.
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I believe that's "y'all". 
I cringed a little when I was writing dialog for some gangsters in a mission recently. I'm sure someone will point out the grammatical errors, but you're right. When people speak, they don't follow the rules of written grammar. On the other hand, written dialog should probably be somewhere between the grammatically correct ("I would like to invite those of you who are present to visit my home again on some future date") and the more realistic gobbledygook that most of us use when actually speaking ("Dudes, seriously. Like, yeah, we should... [waves hand, indicating their current location] y'know. Yeah.")
Avatar: "Cheeky Jack O Lantern" by dimarie
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I have had people complain about dialog a few times. But it is mostly dialect, ie the use of "ain't", "gonna", "fixin' to", and "ya'll". I guess because I don't use "yous guys" they don't like it.
People don't normally speak grammatically correct. Which to me give more life to a character.
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I believe that's "y'all".
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It is. Stands for "you all" which is actually grammatically incorrect in itself but I love the South so I'm not complaining.
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... I'm sure someone will point out the grammatical errors, but you're right. When people speak, they don't follow the rules of written grammar. On the other hand, written dialog should probably be somewhere between the grammatically correct ("I would like to invite those of you who are present to visit my home again on some future date") and the more realistic gobbledygook that most of us use when actually speaking ("Dudes, seriously. Like, yeah, we should... [waves hand, indicating their current location] y'know. Yeah.")
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People don't follow grammatical rules, but you never write dialogue the way it is actually spoken. To do so would be needlessly convoluted; people in fiction never speak like you or I do.
In reality people repeat words, restart sentences, correct themselves and use interjections such as "uhm" or "uh" constantly -- but you sure as hell don't want to have to read that.
Pay attention to the way to actually talk sometime and think about whether or not you'd really like to read a novel that was written as such.
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I have had people complain about dialog a few times. But it is mostly dialect, ie the use of "ain't", "gonna", "fixin' to", and "ya'll". I guess because I don't use "yous guys" they don't like it.
People don't normally speak grammatically correct. Which to me give more life to a character.
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I believe that's "y'all".
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It is. Stands for "you all" which is actually grammatically incorrect in itself but I love the South so I'm not complaining.
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One could argue that it is a shortcoming in the English language that we cannot differentiate between singular and plural second person pronouns. Words like y'all, yunz, and youse were all created to fill that gap.
Avatar: "Cheeky Jack O Lantern" by dimarie
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One could argue that it is a shortcoming in the English language that we cannot differentiate between singular and plural second person pronouns. Words like y'all, yunz, and youse were all created to fill that gap.
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Well we did have one at one time. The lack of a separation between those pronouns, if I recall correctly, goes back to the English nobility who decided at some point that they didn't particularly care and phased it out. This becomes funny when you point out that "thou", which now sounds nigh-royal to our ears, is actually the less than polite singular form.
Grammar correction is helpful - ignore it at your own peril.
If you skimp on the easy details, the rest is probably worse.
Four hundred years ago there were "grammar elitists".
They were the few that could read Latin. With that ability they ruled the western world. It was through the efforts of many notable people that texts began to be translated so people could understand, and the treasures of western literature were brought to the average person. Out of these efforts came the Renaissance, and with that, modern science.
For a millennium, those elitists had kept themselves in power by ensuring that the common person could not write. We call that period the "Dark Ages". That is the fundamental reason why little progress was made during that time. Therefore, I have great difficulty considering anyone you would claim to be an "Elitist".
If you want to know how I feel, I wince every time I see a spelling mistake. I am disappointed that you do not care about your own work (I fixed your title in this reply). I am frustrated that you know nothing of the plight of those that went before you, and could care less about others. To be blunt, you ask for my opinion, but you do not want it - you want others to agree with you. My opinion could not be printed without censorship.
You can call me elitist, but it does not really take that much effort to join this 'club'. Nor am I necessarily 'proud' of the fact that I can in fact, form coherent sentences. I believe you have shot yourself in the foot and are now whining that your foot hurts.
If you care about your own work, you should take pride in it.
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Four hundred years ago there were "grammar elitists".
They were the few that could read Latin. With that ability they ruled the western world. It was through the efforts of many notable people that texts began to be translated so people could understand, and the treasures of western literature were brought to the average person. Out of these efforts came the Renaissance, and with that, modern science.
For a millennium, those elitists had kept themselves in power by ensuring that the common person could not write. We call that period the "Dark Ages". That is the fundamental reason why little progress was made during that time. Therefore, I have great difficulty considering anyone you would claim to be an "Elitist".
If you want to know how I feel, I wince every time I see a spelling mistake. I am disappointed that you do not care about your own work (I fixed your title in this reply). I am frustrated that you know nothing of the plight of those that went before you, and could care less about others. To be blunt, you ask for my opinion, but you do not want it - you want others to agree with you. My opinion could not be printed without censorship.
You can call me elitist, but it does not really take that much effort to join this 'club'. Nor am I necessarily 'proud' of the fact that I can in fact, form coherent sentences. I believe you have shot yourself in the foot and are now whining that your foot hurts.
If you care about your own work, you should take pride in it.
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I generally agree with this post.
I'm not a "Grammar Elitist," but if you're so lazy you don't mind dropping your level of communication below mine, don't be surprised when you feel like I'm looking down on you when I offer suggestions on actually putting all the letters in your words, all the words in your sentences, and all the punctuation at either end or in the middle.
Now that is a sentence.
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I am frustrated that you know nothing of the plight of those that went before you, and could care less about others . To be blunt, you ask for my opinion, but you do not want it - you want others to agree with you. My opinion could not be printed without censorship.
You can call me elitist, but it does not really take that much effort to join this 'club'. Nor am I necessarily 'proud' of the fact that I can in fact, form coherent sentences. I believe you have shot yourself in the foot and are now whining that your foot hurts.
If you care about your own work, you should take pride in it.
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Shouldn't that be "couldn't care less" or, at least, "could not care less"?
No AV/EBs Deal with The Devil's Pawn-207266 Slash DeMento and the Stolen Weapons-100045 Meet the Demon Spawn-151099 Feedback
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I am frustrated that you know nothing of the plight of those that went before you, and could care less about others . To be blunt, you ask for my opinion, but you do not want it - you want others to agree with you. My opinion could not be printed without censorship.
You can call me elitist, but it does not really take that much effort to join this 'club'. Nor am I necessarily 'proud' of the fact that I can in fact, form coherent sentences. I believe you have shot yourself in the foot and are now whining that your foot hurts.
If you care about your own work, you should take pride in it.
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Shouldn't that be "couldn't care less" or, at least, "could not care less"?
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He might mean it exactly the way he sounds. It's not an incorrect statement, merely an imprecise one that probably doesn't mean what it says. So you can safely say it "could" be that, or he might have meant that, but can you really say it "should" be that?
I've been a writer and an editor and blink/cringe at typos. Especially my own. Especially when pointed out to me post-production.
That said, I've also been a teacher, and that's the side of me that comes out more often. (Hence me pouring soooo much of myself into a short Tutorial hoping it helps players have fun learning a thing or two.) This means that I give a huge amount of slack to people who are putting some effort into their grammar and spelling. I'll let them know what they can fix, but I don't really penalize for a few mistakes like that when evaluating their arcs.
I guess I'll tend to err on putting focus on the positive & potential, while overlooking the rough edges. This is especially true in grammar. I personally feel this brings me more joy.
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Four hundred years ago there were "grammar elitists".
They were the few that could read Latin. With that ability they ruled the western world. It was through the efforts of many notable people that texts began to be translated so people could understand, and the treasures of western literature were brought to the average person. Out of these efforts came the Renaissance, and with that, modern science.
For a millennium, those elitists had kept themselves in power by ensuring that the common person could not write. We call that period the "Dark Ages". That is the fundamental reason why little progress was made during that time. Therefore, I have great difficulty considering anyone you would claim to be an "Elitist".
If you want to know how I feel, I wince every time I see a spelling mistake. I am disappointed that you do not care about your own work (I fixed your title in this reply). I am frustrated that you know nothing of the plight of those that went before you, and could care less about others. To be blunt, you ask for my opinion, but you do not want it - you want others to agree with you. My opinion could not be printed without censorship.
You can call me elitist, but it does not really take that much effort to join this 'club'. Nor am I necessarily 'proud' of the fact that I can in fact, form coherent sentences. I believe you have shot yourself in the foot and are now whining that your foot hurts.
If you care about your own work, you should take pride in it.
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I've been waiting for you....LOL
You can be as proper as you like, and you can rate a arc how ever you like.
My point was and still is, I do not, nor will I ever rate a arc badly, do to a few extremely minor spelling errors.
I rate it solely on rather I enjoyed it.
Now if it was riddled with horrible grammar, its a good chance that the arc will be pretty bad as well.
But I'll wait to see.
I made this thread for discussion only, and no matter what you believe on the subject, or my reasoning behind the thread, I will always feel that to rate a arc that someone says was a blast to play, but I will give you a lower rating due to the fact you used To instead of Too, is just being anal.
But that is not "why" I made this thread, I made it to see how others felt, and or rated arcs.
/e sits and waits for grammar corrections on this post
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I am frustrated that you know nothing of the plight of those that went before you, and could care less about others . To be blunt, you ask for my opinion, but you do not want it - you want others to agree with you. My opinion could not be printed without censorship.
You can call me elitist, but it does not really take that much effort to join this 'club'. Nor am I necessarily 'proud' of the fact that I can in fact, form coherent sentences. I believe you have shot yourself in the foot and are now whining that your foot hurts.
If you care about your own work, you should take pride in it.
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Shouldn't that be "couldn't care less" or, at least, "could not care less"?
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He might mean it exactly the way he sounds. It's not an incorrect statement, merely an imprecise one that probably doesn't mean what it says. So you can safely say it "could" be that, or he might have meant that, but can you really say it "should" be that?
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Not knowing his intent with the afterthought was part of the reason that I posed it as a question. It's hard to figure out exactly who "could care less" in that context. But, the problem that I have with it is the "could care less" phrase, itself. The phrase, as it's posted, means that someone could care less, or, they might not care less. It's completely ambiguous. When you "couldn't care less" (or 'could not', without the contraction), then it means that you don't care at all. That was my point, which was totally sarcastic since he/she was being so 'proper' in the rest of the post.
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I love you, TonalRegression. Great post.
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And how many times will you go back and fix minor details like that on a published arc? once, twice, 3 times?
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When they're found and brought to my attention (which I appreciate), I go in and fix them. I've tweaked my currently published arc approximately eleventy bazillion times. Eleventy bazillion and one isn't going to bother me.
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If I notice one letter out of place in mine, I'll go back and fix it. I'm a stickler.
If someone sends me feedback on a spelling or grammar error, I will go back and fix it.
If I see a few spelling and grammar errors in another arc, I'll likely ignore it. If they're gratuitous, however, it will cost them stars.
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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If you care about your own work, you should take pride in it.
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I completely agree with everything in this post. Also, I would suggest that if someone wishes to be taken seriously when presenting their thoughts via a written medium, they should take the time to express themselves coherently. That means using at least passable spelling and grammar. Exorbitant spelling and grammar errors are the written equivalent of slurring and mumbling. If you were attempting to engage others in a conversation but did not take the time to articulate your words, you might well find your ideas gain little traction. It's similar when it comes to communicating through writing, be it in a message forum or in a story arc.
If you expect people to take what you say seriously, then you should be conscious of how say it, taking care to express yourself as eloquently as you are able. Doing less than that implies laziness at best, and willful ignorance at worst.
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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I thought this might be a good discussion, and so far it has been =).
And I want to add something, to just a few in the front that failed to read my whole post.
I "Love Feedback", and when people tell me that I have spelled something wrong I go and I fix it, I really do try to spell everything I can correctly, as well as have friends proof it for me before I publish it.
But when someone tells me they rated my arc lower because I had a Boss name spelled with a ' in it and it shouldn't be, as well as I had "to" instead of too, but they loved the story, I think that is going way overboard.
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You just have to ignore types like that. They remind me of guys I used to know that would wait for a waitress to make ONE mistake so it would justify them not leaving a tip. 
Dec out.
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I am one.
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Then we should just ignore you - Decorum said so!
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Four hundred years ago there were "grammar elitists".
They were the few that could read Latin. With that ability they ruled the western world.
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Four hundred years ago was the early 1600's. Shakespeare wrote his plays in 1596. And while it was true that Queen Elizabeth could read Latin, she could also read English, French, Italian, and Greek. However, based on what I know of her reign, I serioulsly doubt her primary governing tool was her ability to quote Virgil.
Similarly - Shakespeare was a fantastic playwright, but he was only moderately educated - but he understood Latin, Greek, and French (as well as a bit of Hebrew, I think). Pretty much anyone in middle class England at the time who could afford to send their children to school would do so - and in those schools, they learned Latin. So claiming that 400 years ago that Latin was the monopoly and primary governing tool of the politcially powerful is something of a misnomer, to put it mildly.
Most rulers at the time, and even in the centuries prior, used a combination of force, intimidation, tradition, political savay, and rule of law to govern. The ability to speak latin was certianly known by scholars and priests - who tended to be the younger brothers of kings, rather than kings themselves. So while it is true that latin was part of a well-rounded mideval and Rennisance education, it was part of EVERYONE'S well-rounded mideval and Rennisance education.
Basically, everyone in Europe spoke Latin - or at least, enough to get by in Mass. And with that base, it's fairly easy to get basic fluency in a language - basic schooling wasn't uncommon, depending on where you were and at what time periods. There were quite a few mideval colleges and Universities - and even local churches had schooling for townsfolk.
The Middle Ages were many things - lacking locations to learn Latin was not one of them. Now, I"m not claiming that everyone in the Middle Ages went to college, or even a majority did - but enough townsfolk sent their children to the local church or grammar school that a significant portion of the population did, in fact, speak that language. Yes, some places worked their peasents for 18 hours a day - Eastern Poland was like that at times, I belive. But other places, including some palces in England or SouthernFrance, had what ammounted to 6-hour work days. So folks had, in times and places, LOTS of free time. And one of the things to do in the Middle Ages was to learn additional languages - most folks in England during the Middle Ages, for example, spoke their local dialect, a bit of Latin, and were moderately fulent in Old French.
Further, having a common language was one of the things that allowed people living in Europe at the time to communicate with each other, despite having a varity of languages to deal with. It's what we do now, with English - and most people consider having a common language that people can speak to be a good thing.
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It was through the efforts of many notable people that texts began to be translated so people could understand, and the treasures of western literature were brought to the average person. Out of these efforts came the Renaissance, and with that, modern science.
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Um...no. Most of the scientific works and discoveries were made by folks translating ancient greek and arabic texts...into Latin. And then they started doing their own experiments, which they wrote down..in Latin. And published to their comrades in colleges and universities...in Latin.
And of course there were all those nifty engineering marvels that were laying around Europe, that were designed by the Romans...who wrote everything down in Latin.
And up until fairly late in (ie, th 1800's), the language of science was latin: scholarly treaties were published in Latin, and in general scientists spoke in Latin. But again - nowadays, they use English.
And modern science traces its roots back to a variety of places, including ancient greek philosophers who, oddly enough, spoke and wrote in ancient Greek...and LATIN. It can also be pulled back to monastic tradition, whereby monks felt that they could understand the Mind of God by meditating on His creation. It can also be traced back to the humanism of the Rennisance, which was in turn partially fueled by massive wealth transfers that occured as a consequence of various Bubonic Plagues. Which, incidentally, was also one of the big reasons for the increase in books - people were writing things down so that information wouldn't be lost due to everyone suddenly dying of disease. Yes, the printing press was a factor in this. So were other things.
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For a millennium, those elitists had kept themselves in power by ensuring that the common person could not write. We call that period the "Dark Ages". That is the fundamental reason why little progress was made during that time.
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No. We call it the Dark Ages because historians in the late Rennisance wanted to feel good about themselves, and thus proclaimed their own era to be an Age of Light to contrast to what they felt was the barbarism of three hundred years prior.
This was, in turn, an arrogant and faulty attitude on their part. The more neutral term for the Dark Ages is the Middle Ages. In fact, lots of interesting academic and proto-scientific stuff was going on during that times. But 1600's historians didn't want to acknowlege that they were standing on the shoulders of their ancestors, and so snidely called them "The Dark Ages".
And no, rulers by and large didn't actively try to keep their populations ignorant by keeping Latin from them. That would imply that they didn't want towns or cities on their lands, which tended to have better-educated individuals. On the contrary, most rulers LOVED having dense population centers, simply due to their increased tax revenues.
Or to throw it back at you: please cite your accredited historical source that claims that there was an active and consistent attempt by a majority of rulers in Europe over the span of 1000 years to keep their populations in ignorance by prohibiting them from learning Latin, please. Because that claim smacks of Illuminati and conspiracy theory.
That being said - I do agree that publishing in a local language does help with assisting the local culture - but it doesn't particularly assist the spread of science or other scholarly pursuits. Mainly because if you're a scientist, you likely already have an education - nowadays that education includes the ability to speak English. Previously it included Latin. Different language, but the same idea.
I don't lower rating for a few grammar mistakes. Afterall I'm no english major. Unless it is so bad that you would've have thought a 3rd grader wrote the arc. But I do comment on it. And that's because it is a good arc and that is such a simple thing to fix. I want to see that arc polished as much as possible and have a better chance to get dev's choice possibly.
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I point out people's grammatical and spelling errors and typos when I catch them. I appreciate when people do the same for me, since there's always stuff you miss and if you go back in and edit dialogue the cursor does wonky things and you end up with random letters in weird places. I have had people thank me for pointing out stuff like that in feedback. However if I go to the trouble to point out all your spelling errors that means 1) you have few enough that I can point them all out and 2) you obviously cared enough about your arc to actually proofread, and I won't rate you lower because you missed something. If it's full of spelling and grammatical errors that shows me you just don't care, and I'll rate you lower.
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This pretty much sums up my philosophy on ratings based on grammer. I think its an important part of one's story arc and should be correct, but if there is only one or two things I'm not gonna rate it lower. Just about everytime I've pointed out a minor spelling or grammar mistake in arc feedback I've received a thank you from the author. If it will take a small treatise to cover all the errors though, yeah thats going to get rated lower. The exception of course is if its flavored dialog. I wouldn't expect a Pirate, Zombie, etc character to speak grammatically correct, if he/she/it did it actually wouldn't be as believable.
And it's spelled RIDICULOUS. Seriously, if I see "rediculous" I am seriously temped to dock a star, even if the rest of your spelling is perfect. It's personal pet peeve.
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