So you have a pet peeve about bad spelling in chat?
By
Ad Astra,
Posted on: 2011-10-01 11:23 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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yes teach do I have an hour,s detention |
Originally Posted by LISAR
That should be "too lazy"you are missing a spaceIspace goes hereI'manother space missing
See me after class please. |
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Never could get those right at school either
Prof Radburn controller,Celtic Ice Maiden,blaster,Miss Knockout scrapper,Mistress Davina controller,Stone Hart,tank Split Personality PB.Queen Lostris controller,Fridgid Mary blaster,Shocking Fire blaster Future Elfling defender, Little Weed controller,Capo Angelo MM, Commander Buzzsaw MM, Justice Tank tank all 50,s
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Touche, but, no one's ever called me a jerk for typing at them in complete sentences. |
Originally Posted by MaestroMavius
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Maybe they were thinking mean thoughts. But believe it or not, I can count the number of times on one hand when someone's come right out and asked "y r u doin that?" The first time it came up, I was honest: "I'm learning how to type." They seemed fine with the answer, and we got back to killing monsters.
It's just never turned into the big deal that this forum thread seems to illustrate.
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*Takes a bow* |
Originally Posted by The_Spad_EU
Clever...very clever.
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Hardly anyone noticed, either!
@FloatingFatMan
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Oh, I wasn't really chiming in on the whole typo debate. The wrdos being out of sync yet easily read posts made me think of the 'Did you see' videos is all.|
Originally Posted by Captain-Electric
Touche, but, no one's ever called me a jerk for typing at them in complete sentences.
Maybe they were thinking mean thoughts. But believe it or not, I can count the number of times on one hand when someone's come right out and asked "y r u doin that?" The first time it came up, I was honest: "I'm learning how to type." They seemed fine with the answer, and we got back to killing monsters. It's just never turned into the big deal that this forum thread seems to illustrate. |
I make typos in game constantly, though my most common one is capitalizing the first two letters, as my finger is slow to come off the shift key. REsulting in sentences looking like this.
I don't bother to correct that though. Usually the only time I bother to correct myself on typos is when it's so bad the word is nonsense.
I don't use shorthand, unless it's dire and in the heat of battle, Then I'll shorten as needed.
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I get what you're getting at, but I don't agree. I'm a foreigner myself, many of my friends don't speak english as a first language, and I often see them having a hard time with acronyms and shorthand like this. For starters, people tend to instinctively pronounce things in their mother tongue, so phonetic-ish spelling adds another layer of complexity.| The OP's example "r u lft" conveys enough information that most of us understand what it means. (At least it does in an MMO context - someone outside gaming would probably be confused by "lft".) Everything that was omitted there is, strictly speaking, unnecessary. |
To me, efficient communication is conveying your message in one go, with just the right amount of information. I've never seen capitalization of first words bringing any value, in that I've never seen someone being confused by the lack of capitalization of first words (unless perhaps if someone typed multiple sentences without a line break while at the same time omitting capitalization, but I haven't run yet into that situation in a decade and a half of online gaming), so much like I wouldn't talk as if writing a book when on a forum board, I'm not big on capitalization in video game chats.
That's the reasoning. To be honest, there is one reason that makes me take the leap between that and my emotional "I look down on people doing such" attitude: the amount of insecure and obnoxious young people I've seen over the years using textbook punctuation and capitalization in public arguments, confusing proper grammar with sound rhetoric ; whereas I hardly see most people using capitalization at all, creating a stark contrast. By now, my brain is probably wired to recognize ingame capitalization as a possible sign of immaturity, regardless of how wrong that assumption can be.
For people who were taught to use proper capitalization, punctuation, etc., it actually takes more time and concentration to deliberately break those rules (for purposes of humor, making an example in an argument, or both). My typing speed is normally in the neighborhood of 80-85 wpm, with few or no errors (due in large part to long practice, both professionally and in my hobbies); when I have to attempt "chatspeak", I drop down to literal hunt-and-peck speeds.
Thus I am frequently dismayed when I encounter people for whom the default is not good spelling, etc., and who seem to believe (or at least argue) that extra effort and attention to the form of their expression is only required or worth expending for "special occasions" - like wearing your best clothes only for church or a job interview.
Considering the increasing degree to which the internet is life, the old excuse that "its just the net, it dont matter how i type" is less and less valid, IMO. The manner in which one spends the most time communicating and expressing themselves becomes their default, through practice and habit. And if that manner happens to be sub-literate... well, good luck at that job interview. 
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I always will capitalize and punctuate. The excuse that this is the Internet and that it isn't important is...how to put it nicely....utter bull? However, it is only when people are using that excuse that it pisses me off. I really don't care if you make spelling mistakes or grammar mistakes. Heck, I probably made some of them already in this post but laziness isn't an excuse. I generally can understand chat speak just fine and it doesn't really bother me. Making mistakes myself will bother me so I will correct myself (so I hereby apologize to Bubbawheat in advance if I ever team with him ).
Once, a long time ago in this galaxy my windows live account was hacked and my friends knew it wasn't me because I didn't capitalize and punctuate my sentences...that was pretty awesome (aside from the hacking part).
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How about Grocer's Apostrophe Nazis?|
Originally Posted by FloatingFatMan
The only thing that annoys me about poor spelling in chat, is spelling Nazi's.
Those people need to seriously get a life. |
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
[The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."
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Why would that have to be, though? When I was learning English - and mind you, I started when I was about seven years old - we were simply told that vowels in the English language had two basic sounds - how it sounds when read out of the alphabet, and how it sounds "otherwise." This translates very neatly into how a vowel is read in an open syllable vs. how it sounds in a close syllable, and this is where most of the language's double consonants come from - to double up on a consonan so as to ensure a syllable remains closed even if its closing consonant gets attributed to the next syllable in the word.|
Originally Posted by Prodiguy
Like the letter I. My niece is being taught to say that 'Ih', as in Italy. But what about Ideal? Or Isolate? Or Ironic? They don't start with that sound, so how is she meant to figure that out? It slows down learning progress, especially since by her age, I was reading things casually and she still has trouble reading words like imagine. It makes sense to me, knowing that, why so many younger people where I live can't construct sentences or words without constantly making mistakes I see as juvenile.
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Take, for instance, the word "illicit" since we're talking about the letter I. Spelled like it normally is, it's pronounced with a short E, as "ee-licit," like in "enlist" However, if one were to omit the double L and spell it with only a single one, then it suddenly becomes "eye-licit" like in "isolate," at least in my mind's eye.
Sure, there are a number of exceptions, but there's really all there is to teach about vowels. Teach kids how to tell syllables, then just have them remember which sound for a vowel is used in which syllable. English is not as chaotic a language as some teachers make it seem.
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Originally Posted by Tenzhi
I've never had a problem with capitalisation in the middle of combat, and I play with a gamepad so my hands don't even start on the keyboard. Though I do have to admit to typing less since I moved to a laptop. I suppose I type too lightly and/or quickly for it, because it drops letters if I go at it with my normal typing fervor. I have to slow down and be more deliberate about it, which annoys me almost as much as forgetting to be deliberate and hitting "enter" before noticing that 1/3 of the letters are missing.
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Originally Posted by MaestroMavius
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That's not a dig against the test, mind you, it's completely valid. Focusing your attention on very specific aspects of a scene does make you completely blind to its broader context. I just wish people would develop a new test to demonstrate that, because the old test done again and again no longer works once you've seen it, and I have. Five years ago, on Brainiac.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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That sentence, is something up with which I will not put!|
Originally Posted by Tenzhi
Pshaw. To knowingly use a split infinitive in English is to use English knowingly.
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[Edit: I see that I was beaten to that punch back a few pages.
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I've got different thresholds of tolerance.
Firing off a comment in the middle of a fight? I'm fine with "blue" or "thx" or RUOK? I get it.
Sometime when we aren't fighting? Take a little time. I get we have much LESS space than might be needed, so I still let a fair bit slide in "just chatting." But if u kep typin @me lik this, I'm going to start just ignoring you.
Broadcasting a supergroup advertisement? You'd *better* be taking your time. This is you presenting yourself and your entire group to the (game) world at large. I'd take "The Knights of Knees, a three year old Supergroup, is having a recruitment drive! We have a full base and participate in all facets of PVP and PVE. We're RP-lite, but welcoming. Send @so-and-so a message!" far more seriously than "nites of knees sg open 4 u! PST 2 @some-guy 4 info"
And the forums? You've *got* time. Make yourself presentable. At least make it so we can READ your post. I don't mean "Zero Tolerance for Typos" is in effect, and can even (to a point) deal with homonyms - though the basic ones (there, they're, their, too, two, to and the like) really should be used properly. The usual response is something along the lines of "I'm not getting payd to rite this" or "It's not my job to write an essay." Which is fair enough - so long as you're aware you aren't giving people a great impression of you.
If you take your idea, comment, suggestion or complaint seriously, write it in a way that will make others take it the same way. Here, presentation is key.
Here is a quote from Raymond Chandler to the editor of The Atlantic Monthly regarding changes made to his grammar:
"By the way, would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss-waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will remain split, and when I interrupt the velvety smoothness of my more or less literate syntax with a few sudden words of barroom vernacular, this is done with the eyes wide open and the mind relaxed and attentive. The method may not be perfect, but it is all I have."
Perhaps the best known split infinitive is from the opening credits of Star Trek. "To boldly go where no man has gone before" should, according to outdated rules, be "to go boldly where no man has gone before." The first version definitely appeals more to me.
_________
@Inquisitor
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It's like the choice between wearing grungy clothes or nice ones to a nice restaurant. Sure, old, torn and stained clothes meet the legal requirement most restaurants have for being clothed. They also are likely to be interpreted to mean that either you don't own anything better to wear or you don't care what other people think of your appearance. For better or worse, both either of those conclusions can set negative impressions of someone.|
Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
Omitting capitalization seems to be totally ubiquitous in the game at this point and I myself do it. Why get in the habit of typing "properly" in a context where rapidity is always going to be valued? You can still use correct spelling and punctuation, if you're feeling florid, as you care to, but going for the shift key on proper nouns is silly when you're trying to type "if it wasnt for my horse i never would have spent that year in college" between parts of your attack chain during a hami raid.
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How one types, in its way, sets the same kind of impression, perceived in different ways by different people. "Proper" capitalization, punctuation and sentence structure is a convention much stronger than any "rules" on how one should dress. Adhering to that convention can be seen as pointless and stodgy, or both respectful and respectable, depending on the viewpoint of the viewer. My background is such that I am more interested in behaving in a way that will be noticed by the people who view it the latter way.
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Originally Posted by Nihilii_
That's the reasoning. To be honest, there is one reason that makes me take the leap between that and my emotional "I look down on people doing such" attitude: the amount of insecure and obnoxious young people I've seen over the years using textbook punctuation and capitalization in public arguments, confusing proper grammar with sound rhetoric ; whereas I hardly see most people using capitalization at all, creating a stark contrast. By now, my brain is probably wired to recognize ingame capitalization as a possible sign of immaturity, regardless of how wrong that assumption can be.
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That's right! Remember, kids: On the Internet, if you're doing it right, UR DOIN IT RONG!
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Originally Posted by Nihilii_
To be honest, there is one reason that makes me take the leap between that and my emotional "I look down on people doing such" attitude: the amount of insecure and obnoxious young people I've seen over the years using textbook punctuation and capitalization in public arguments, confusing proper grammar with sound rhetoric ; whereas I hardly see most people using capitalization at all, creating a stark contrast.
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Spelling, punctuation AND grammar Nazis. My post dragged them ALL out of the woodwork for all to see! |
Originally Posted by MrCaptainMan
How about Grocer's Apostrophe Nazis?
Eco. |
Sooo gullible...
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
I use "txt speech" a lot as well as spelling a lot of words wrong. The only exception when i take effort is when im helping a player out.
I'ld be on majority of your ignore list it'ld see Personally i dont see why people think "oh he cant spell so i'll ignore him", not very nice now is it
Whatever happened to the nice nature of the world!
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Originally Posted by Prof_Radburn
As I left school some 45 years ago I find this sort of writing to either be done by a person whose first language is not English or someone who is to lazy to use the spell check,and they wonder why so many of the younger generation cannot read or write no disrespect to you Samuel as i know you are just using this as an example.Perhaps I,m just an old fashioned fogey but seeing the way my granddaughters are being taught with this "new phonetic" way of teaching they are having trouble reading and spelling.So the fact you have 15 and 16 year olds having trouble with the simple stuff in life is no surprise.
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Okay the first problem I have with threads like this is... We are playing a game. I understand there are problems out there with the education system but I have actually seen posts on these forums where someone said one of the criteria that they use in picking team mates is "correct use of the english language and correct spelling". We have players from all over Europe and for many English is, as mentioned above, not their first language. Also while I play on Virtue and rarely see times when team building is a huge problem I have seen post here from players on other, less populated, servers complaining about the difficulty in finding teams or team mates. Are we really willing to pass on a player that MAY play the game exceptionally well simply because they didn't spell a few words right or use the proper phrasing in a sentance.
Then in the post above Prof mentions SPELL CHECK... I'm sorry did I miss that patch somehow. I don't recall any portion of this game that allows me to spell check my tells, broadcast or even the text I may usein creating a story in AE. And since I have neither the time or desire to draft everything I type in word and then run a spell and grammar check before cutting and pasting.. I know for a fact I have posted some really interesting lines of gibberish in game during a battle and even when just standing around chatting. Sadly I admit that years of reliance on spell check have degraded my spelling skills and I was never the greatest english student so my grammer is not always perfect... But I have 5 and a half years of play time and there isn't a task force, strike force or trial I haven't completed successfully.. many of them multiple times. I have 30 Fifty level characters scattered over 2 account and have played just about every AT there is to level 50. Now did you want me or some noobie on your master of run!
Don't get me wrong I H8 L33t speak as much as anyone and my eyes roll when I see anyone broadcasting they are looking for a H3AL0R or advertsing they are one BUT .. aside from the blaringly obvious posts that leave you wondering just how old that person actually is .. are we playing a game or taking a PHD english course.
As for acronyms ... The vast majority of the player base, myself included,uses them to speed things along and I see no problem with that either. and yes I have seen posts here by people that hate them. YEAH right like you never posted 40 level Blaster LFT or STF LFM. Now if my 16 year old is messing up her home work with bad spelling or bad grammer I am going to do something about it. If a player in game, myself included, typos a word or two in a broadcast.. WHO CARES! and if you do maybe you need to find an on line game that focuses on the proper use of the english langauge not one that's about super heroes and super villians. LOL try to relax and have fun.
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Originally Posted by MaestroMavius
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I didn't understand that test. Was I supposed not to see monkey?
Maybe my attention works differently since I have spent all my life watching movies with subtitles and have to concentrate on two different thing in the same time.
Speaking about "leet speak", I don't think that people who are not native in English use it much. I might use some usual game abbreviations like lft, pst, gratz, tnx but I still doesn't know what "cn u oro" means.
Also you can't expect that someone who has been learning English for year have same knowledge as people who have been learning it more then 10 years. People who just started learning language would not know finesses and would have problem with they're and their, loose and lose, which is no excuse for people that are native in English (or leaning it for long time) to make them, too.
Original post actually show us that proof reading job is very hard, and we can easily not notice obvious mistake.
I still find that, of all languages I have learned over years, English have the most complicated spelling, but on the other hand there are no declinations and conjugations which make it much easier to learn then some other languages (Latin, Slavic languages).
"If you want to win you must not lose."
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Originally Posted by EU_Damz
I use "txt speech" a lot as well as spelling a lot of words wrong. The only exception when i take effort is when im helping a player out.
I'ld be on majority of your ignore list it'ld see Personally i dont see why people think "oh he cant spell so i'll ignore him", not very nice now is it Whatever happened to the nice nature of the world! |
The only time I might ignore someone for doing that sort of thing is if they did it during roleplay, but even then I'd be more likely to treat them as a lunatic or someone with a speech impediment.
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
I don't have a pet peeve about bad spelling, or even a feral peeve in the backyard of my mind. It bothers me when someone is obviously using contrived spelling to make people puzzle out what the letters etc. mean, but typos and lack of spelling knowledge don't bother me.
The main point of language is communication. The more significant it is, the more people who are expected to see it, the more time it's worth. Knowing grammar and usage is a worthy goal. We need to keep the evolution of our languages reasonably slow to maintain civilization. (An arrogant statement perhaps, but I think it's true.)
But chat is more like speaking than a document or story. And most normal people do not speak consistently with particularly proper grammar or preferred usage, even when they know them well. Most people don't notice that, either, because they communicate just fine. (I'm a copy editor who's been a reporter. This is one of the main reasons that good quotes are hard to get unless you clean them up -- which you can't count on getting away with in this day of recorded everything.)
In online chat, you need enough proper spelling and grammar to communicate without requiring effort from the reader. Beyond that, it's not worth fussing over. It's ephemeral.
Proud member of Heroes Inc.
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I'm more than happy to leave people with that ambiguity.|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
They also are likely to be interpreted to mean that either you don't own anything better to wear or you don't care what other people think of your appearance.
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| How one types, in its way, sets the same kind of impression, perceived in different ways by different people. "Proper" capitalization, punctuation and sentence structure is a convention much stronger than any "rules" on how one should dress. Adhering to that convention can be seen as pointless and stodgy, or both respectful and respectable, depending on the viewpoint of the viewer. My background is such that I am more interested in behaving in a way that will be noticed by the people who view it the latter way. |
Nobody has ever made me aware of having any sort of problem with the way I communicate in the game. Could it be that they simply avoid all contact with me? It could. Anyone who acts like that is someone I want to avoid in the first place so it works out perfectly. Unfortunately for them they're still going to run into me on events that were organized by a third party, and will have to endure my shenanigans for the duration of the trial.
While that's how I actually type at people, for my character descriptions I write with capitalization and punctuation. Why not? Might as well have them looking nicer since it's hard to imagine there being an element of time pressure there.
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Just to be clear, when I said earlier that I'd ignore people, what I meant was just that I wouldn't respond (or would at least respond in the negative, if it was something like a team request), not that I would go so far as to use /ignore on them!
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Originally Posted by EU_Damz
I'ld be on majority of your ignore list it'ld see
Personally i dont see why people think "oh he cant spell so i'll ignore him", not very nice now is it |
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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As I mentioned in my first reply here, while absence of capitalization and punctuation does tickle some irritation nerve in the back of my brain, I readily tolerate it from most people. It is very common. If someone asked me for help, or a team, and all that was wrong with their /tell was missing capitals or commas, I probably wouldn't even consciously consider ignoring their tell on that basis. I don't like that sort of typing, but I don't judge it very harshly, either.|
Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
Nobody has ever made me aware of having any sort of problem with the way I communicate in the game. Could it be that they simply avoid all contact with me? It could. Anyone who acts like that is someone I want to avoid in the first place so it works out perfectly. Unfortunately for them they're still going to run into me on events that were organized by a third party, and will have to endure my shenanigans for the duration of the trial.
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Given that, and that I seem to care more than the vast majority of people, I'm pretty doubtful that you're missing out on much. I'm sure you're pretty doubtful of it too.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Selective attention test
:P
Maestro Mavius - Infinity
Capt. Biohazrd - PCSAR
Talsor Tech - Talsorian Guard
Keep Calm & Chive On!