A special message for language pedants (AKA Grammar Nazis).

Ok, I've been guilty of this in the past, and I probably will be again in the future. But this gentleman, Stephen Fry, makes some good points.

Linky

From the video:

Missed a few hyphens on "less-than-perfect."

Everything's relative. To me over-reactive grammar Nazis annoy me just as much as people who think it's appropriate to use texting abbreviations in any written language situation.

I saw a funny programme on BBC3 (i think) the other night. It was called 'Freak like me'.

In this programme was featured a young man who could not resist the compulsion to correct all the graffitti he came across in his daily urban life, and thus carried a black all-surface marker on himself at all times. You had to laugh really, he certainly found it quite funny.

I've just corrected someone on the thread 'Empathy options' on the defender forum.
They made a grammatical error, no big deal, corrected them in the nicest possible way.


<.<
>.>
<.<

What !, No I do not have a pen on me.
Bloomin cheek !.

My thing about grammar and spelling, especially in forums and emails, is that people type like they're in a hurry or they're under some sort of character limit. You have all the time in the world to spell things correctly and use proper grammar. I look up words that I'm not sure I spelled correctly before I hit Submit. I want people to understand what I'm trying to say and not get distracted by how I said it.

Like it or not, people base opinions of you and your intelligence on how well you can speak or write before they even look at the content of your post. There are some folks on the forum that might be taken way more seriously than they are, but their inability to use punctuation, capitalization, or even paragraph breaks, dilutes their message. Non-native English speakers have an excuse. The rest of us do not.

I'm not going to correct every mistake I see, but I am going to move you down the ladder a rung or two if you're a chronic language hack.

And on this topic we just received a broadcast email from our qulaity officer.

This thread is relevant to my interests.

Your all loosers for trieing to maek everyone liek you!

You're missing the 'f' from 'everyone' ! - See... you are clearly more intelligent than you first appear ! - Imposter !.

I am generally able to overlook typos, misspellings, and minor grammatical issues when reading forums like these. As mentioned, it's not really all that important and a lot of folks are in a hurry to finish their post before the boss walks by.

There are some things that drive me completely bonkers and make me just skip right over your post. Here are a few examples:

- Wall of text. Needs no elaboration. The Enter key, people. Use it!
- Stupid abbreviations that save you only one or two keystrokes like "u" for "you" and "r" for "are." and of course, "ur."
- Capitalization of abbreviations that are not acronyms, such as INF and DEVS. (OK, so maybe this one won't make me immediately stop reading like those first two but it's irritating to me on some base level. Nails on a chalkboard.)
- Leetspeak.

So, would I be considered a grammar nazi because I cringe every time I see the misuse of ‘there,’ ‘their,’ and ‘they’re’? The same goes for using except for accept (such as the animator of the video did in his blog, hehe) and vice versa. Ensure where it should be insure, or even assure. (I assure you that they will ensure that we will insure this item.) And maybe is not the same thing as something that may be. I guess you could say that I want to see the correct word in the correct manner in the correct usage. This is perhaps because I read a lot of books, and I see the correct usage almost every day. I’m not so bad about the use of punctuation, but I would at least like a period at the end of sentences. Commas help me know where to pause and perhaps figure out where someone wants emphasis in what they are trying to convey.

Now many times I can figure out what the person with the bad grammar is trying to tell me, but if one had just listened to one’s English teachers and absorbed some of that knowledge, I could do so in a third or quarter of the time. Having to go back and reread statements – often several times – in order to reinterpret them in the context of what else is said, both before and after, is not really something I want or like to do all the time, even though it seems I must do so more frequently as time passes.

But what really gets me is when I see text message shorthand in places where it really shouldn’t be (like many message boards, in my opinion). Or even worse the so called “leet-speak.” I understand that with the small character limits things must be condensed so you can get your point across. This however, leads to many more misunderstandings than even just a written/typed answer or conversation. But that is a whole other subject. When I see SMS shorthand in a long-form typed answer I have to stop myself from immediately thinking that this person is lazy, under the age of 21, doesn’t really care about the subject he is writing/commenting about, is not quite all there, or even just trolling for “lulz.” Perhaps even a combination of any and all of those things. In short I have trouble taking such posts and replies seriously. Now don’t misunderstand me here. I accept a lol, rofl, and even a roflmao in online communication, and even other such online ‘abbreviations’ imo, imho and ianal - even emoticons. But that is because I know what they mean. It took me forever to figure out what the term “QQ” meant on some other boards. (cry, for those of you who may not know. Apparently some think the q’s look like tears from the eyes.) After that I was able to substitute in my head the actual word for what the shorthand is. I just don’t like to see “u gonna bring ur stuff?” and such in a context where typing the words out is more beneficial to all who read it.

At times, though, it seems we are a society beset by a barrage of initials. CIA, FBI, DOA, DOD, DOJ, DEA, HIPAA, COD, PX, FCC, FTC, NTSB, NTSC, COA, CBS, CVS, BP, KFC, HMO, HOA, USB, PCI, SATA, , DVI, HDMI, VHS, DVD, MPG, MPH, AU, USA, UAE, USSR, NOA, MPAA, AFL-CIO, ACLU, HSA, CCD, LCD, OLED, NAMBLA, NIMBY, the list goes on and on. Only some of us know all the words to the letters in the previous sentence.

Fortunately for my sanity, I rarely make a post just to correct someone’s grammar or spelling. In fact, I’m not sure at the moment if I ever have. Perhaps as part of a longer post. However, I am not above ranting about the subject as a whole given the right opportunity (see present example.) My posts tend to be rather short, humorous (at least in my mind) things for mine own – and I hope other’s – amusement, or rather long, thought-out (again in my mind), perhaps long-winded things that seem to be either ignored by the other posters, or the last thing that ever is posted in a thread before it goes off to digital obscurity because I took so long respond to the thread, as I was typing up things to get my point across.

I suppose I like to see not so much proper grammar, but correct word usage because I read a lot of books, and book reading for pleasure seems to be a dying pastime. I’m not above looking up a word in the dictionary to acquaint myself with its meaning if I find one that I am unfamiliar with or cannot figure out from the context of what I am reading. Not everyone will do that. But perhaps it is actually the English language that is to blame, with its plethora of synonyms (two words with the same meaning), antonyms (words with opposite meanings), and homonyms (words with the same spelling or pronunciations but different meanings [I can’t bear to bare myself to the bear.]) Would more reading by today’s youth decrease the incorrect usage of words? While I would like to so, I am perhaps becoming a cynical old fart who also sees reading comprehension woefully low nowadays. If we can’t understand what we read, why would we understand how to use the correct word when it is time to convey our message?

I think I shall leave it at that. ‘Tis quite long enough now…
Now why do I get the feeling someone is going to TLDR me?...

Oh, and I agree with Lothic and WhiteHotFlash, and Ironik. A few misspellings I can deal with. But why is everyone in such a hurry when typing? I tend to write my long ones up in Word, so I have an automatic spell check and a somewhat grammar check, then copy over to boards.