WAR Of Words!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[the wiz]

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[Icycle]

I do not verbally attack people whose writing skills are less than perfect, but the way a person writes has an influence on how I perceive that person and what he or she is saying. Online, we are reduced to our screen names, sigs, and the words we write. Therefore we should take care in what we write and the way we write it.

There are several common problems I see that negatively influence my opinion of someone on this forum.

Some people never use capital letters. It's almost as if their shift key is broken. I have a hard time imagining there are many English speakers who don't know the relatively simple rules for capitalization. Not using them makes you look either lazy or dumb.

Some people rarely break up their postings into paragraphs, or use paragraphs that are far too long. This makes their postings look and dense and hard to read. I'll often just skim them or skip them entirely. Each paragraph should have a single, simple idea. When in doubt, break your paragraph up.

Some people use texting abbreviations, like 'u' for 'you', 'r' for 'are', and '2' for 'to', 'two', or 'too'. These are totally fine when you are tying on a keypad with 12 buttons, and you are charged by the letter. But when you have access to a full keyboard, you should spell these short, common words correctly. Maybe it's just because I'm over 30, but to me people who use these words to me look dumb, lazy, or like young punks.

Some people have obviously misspelled words in their postings. Maybe I've just been spoiled by my web browser, because it auto-spell checks and red underlines misspelled words. But even without that feature, it's not that hard to take the ten seconds to paste your posting into Word to spell check it. And especially if you written a long enough posting, it really is worth it to take a small amount of effort to spell check. Obviously this won't catch the cases where you've misspelled a word so that it looks like a different correctly spelled word, but it's something.

And finally, everyone should always take a moment before they post to actually read what they've written. You may not have a personal editor to catch all your mistakes, but you'd be surprised how well it works to be your own editor. Sometimes you've just completely left out a word or something, and when you read what you've written, it's easy to see. Once again, this takes a little time, but it's well worth it. I know that sometimes my brain gets ahead of my fingers when I'm typing, and if I forget to re-read what I've written, I can post some pretty egregious errors.

Be aware of what you are writing. If you able to make your writing a little more correct, do so. It will make it easier for other's to read what you've written, and it will improve their overall impression of you, as well as of what you've said.

 

[the wiz]

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[Icycle]

The sum of a man should be measured by much more than if he used caps, or the right punctuation, the charter of a person is more than just words, it deeds; the kindness in their hearth; the way communicate in person, not something you read on paper.

Word can be misinterpreted by the person reading them; however, face-to-face communication is often not. If reading someone writing is the only way you can now someone we are truly a dying race.

I certainly agree that a person is more than his or her words. But when your only interaction with some is online, as is the case between most people here in the TMF, all you have are words. When considering people on the TMF, you can not see their deeds. You can not see the nuance of tone of voice and body language from face-to-face communication.

When the only thing people have to judge you by are your words, it is all the more critical that you take care in your writing. Using proper capitalization, punctuation, and spelling are small things, but given that we are reduced to our writing here, they take on a much greater importance. They are the verbal equivalent of tucking in our shirts and combing our hair. You can certainly get your ideas across without them, but you'll give a much more positive impression with them.

 

[the wiz]

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[the wiz]

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[Babbles]

Great points - though I agree a person's online presentation should be carefully (structured? it's too late for me to be writing...)

I'd never fault anyone (someone throw tomatoes if I do...) for faulty spelling or grammar, etc., UNLESS that person was picking on someone else for the very same irrelevant "failing." That hypocrisy would grate... Otherwise as long as it's legible I don't *really care.

Spelling evolves, much of it is arbitrary.
Olde or Middle English spelling is almost unrecognizeable when viewed next to modern texts...

Compare it with the (original?) Anglo Saxon and fuggetaboudit, you may as well be reading Norse.

Well, I'll admit it bothers me (a little bit) to read misspellings & goopy grammar,
but the content is *definitely more important, & again I'd never comment on it -- Unless in a PM to that individual to please use a spell check...

Unless in an ONLINE NEWS ARTICLE -- where there is a professional obligation --- OMG THESE EDITORS ARE GENERALLY STONED... where they're supposed to [be paid to] present flawless examples of written language ---- Since many people choose to LEARN ENGLISH FROM NEWSPAPERS, perhaps online as well, frighteningly enough nowadays...)

Otherwise I agree it's nothing anyone should (rudely) comment upon, not everyone prefers that quarter of the brain anyway...

 

[LeeAllure]

As a voracious reader, it's almost PAINFUL to read something which is not
well spelled, has improper capitalization, doesn't use proper punctuation, etc.

Can you imagine if Einstein's writing was so terrible that he was unable to
get e=mc(2) written out properly? He would have had a far harder time getting
people to take him seriously as a scientist and businessman.

Many of the people you wrote about had EDITORS, something few people at
the TMF seem to have (or even want to use - I get a little line under a word
the spell checker on here doesn't seem to understand.

I find that people might misunderstand what someone meant by just reading
their words online, but more people are not going to understand at all, or simply
won't read, if there is one large paragraph filled with misspellings, made up words,
shortened words, etc.

Reading something well written is a pleasure. I choose to occasionally correct
the spelling of someone else (and I correct myself) so that instead of anger
or frustration when reading what they write, I get joy.

If someone can't learn to spell and write better, I just ignore them, but I have
several friends who now are MUCH better writers after taking the things I say
(or write) to them about their writing to heart instead of being defensive and
essentially saying "I like looking like an idiot, and I choose to not learn the
proper way to do things in order to remain an idiot"

That being said, I can easily overlook the occasional typo, as opposed to the
continuous misspelling, poor grammar, etc, which so often characterises
many people's online presentation of themselves.

Lee

 

[alwayssilver]

lol as a reader/writer I can tell you now that it doesn't bother me in the least. I know I don't use proper punctuation and my spelling sometimes has a lot to be desired. But I can look beyond that because I'm a writer. And I do have editors that help my words become clearer. Here's my story. When I was a bean sprout myself I didn't know how to read or spell. Now look at me. Two published novels, two magazines published my MTJ and a few more in the works. People should look beyond the mistakes and look at what's being written. A lot of people don't realize how damaging it is when people point out your mistakes like that. "Oh I'm not bothering to read your points, no matter how valid they may be. You forgot to capitalize the first word in your sentence." Sounds petty to me and weak that someone would do that. Looking past someone’s mistakes shows real character.

 

[the wiz]

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[Dr. Vollin]

lol as a reader/writer I can tell you now that it doesn't bother me in the least. I know I don't use proper punctuation and my spelling sometimes has a lot to be desired. But I can look beyond that because I'm a writer. And I do have editors that help my words become clearer. Here's my story. When I was a bean sprout myself I didn't know how to read or spell. Now look at me. Two published novels, two magazines published my MTJ and a few more in the works. People should look beyond the mistakes and look at what's being written. A lot of people don't realize how damaging it is when people point out your mistakes like that. "Oh I'm not bothering to read your points, no matter how valid they may be. You forgot to capitalize the first word in your sentence." Sounds petty to me and weak that someone would do that. Looking past someone’s mistakes shows real character.

Mistakes are one thing and, sure, they can be overlooked - to a point. Some posters' contributions are so full of them, though, that they're, as LeeAllure said, almost painful to read - especially in a long post.

Refusing to use proper spelling is another issue, one I can't bring myself to overlook. If someone can't be bothered to type "you" (OMG, it's two extra letters!), I usually don't bother with whatever points they're making.

 

[Icycle]

Were a lot of these posts written in some kind of code, that I can't read?

The initial post in the thread was complaining about how some people attack other people due to their bad grammar, spelling, etc. I'm guessing the wiz decided he was being attacked or something, and decided to empty out the content of all of his posts. I think it is quite a shame that he decided to do so, because had initiated a very thoughtful and interesting discussion.

 

[Icycle]

lol as a reader/writer I can tell you now that it doesn't bother me in the least. I know I don't use proper punctuation and my spelling sometimes has a lot to be desired. But I can look beyond that because I'm a writer. And I do have editors that help my words become clearer. Here's my story. When I was a bean sprout myself I didn't know how to read or spell. Now look at me. Two published novels, two magazines published my MTJ and a few more in the works. People should look beyond the mistakes and look at what's being written. A lot of people don't realize how damaging it is when people point out your mistakes like that. "Oh I'm not bothering to read your points, no matter how valid they may be. You forgot to capitalize the first word in your sentence." Sounds petty to me and weak that someone would do that. Looking past someone’s mistakes shows real character.

I agree with you and the original poster that publicly pointing out someone's writing errors rarely does anything to contribute to the discussion, and usually amounts to little more than an ad hominem attack.

And I'm not saying that people shouldn't look past writing mistakes. Of course they should. Just like in real life people should look past race, gender, age, sexual orientation, disability, etc. But just as it is difficult to ignore the race and gender of someone in face to face interactions, it is difficult to ignore the writing style of someone in written communications.

When people see consistent kinds of writing errors from someone online, that will consciously or subconsciously affect how they perceive that person and his ideas. Just like we talked about in Lindy's sig pics thread, how we choose to present ourselves online contributes to how we are perceived.

I feel like many of the errors that people make in the their writing are a choice. The rules of capitalization and punctuation are simple. Spell checkers are ubiquitous. And proof reading what you've written takes but a tiny fraction of the time it takes to write it in the first place.

Posting a message with the kinds of errors that can be fixed by simple measures available to everyone with a fourth grade education reflects poorly on the author. It's a lot like going out in real life with an untucked shirt, uncombed hair, unshaved face, and stinky armpits. Sure, it's your right to do so if you wish, but your choice of presentation will have a negative impact on your message.

 

[kis123]

Some people rarely break up their postings into paragraphs, or use paragraphs that are far too long. This makes their postings look and dense and hard to read. I'll often just skim them or skip them entirely. Each paragraph should have a single, simple idea. When in doubt, break your paragraph up.

You talkin' 'bout me????

No, I'm only kidding! I tend to be very wordy and I know it gets on people's nerves! But it's the way I think and I type it exactly the way I think it through.

But poor spelling, internet speak, and some of the other things I've had to decipher just gets to me sometimes! Call me picky!

 

[tcklft]

I agree with you and the original poster that publicly pointing out someone's writing errors rarely does anything to contribute to the discussion, and usually amounts to little more than an ad hominem attack.

And I'm not saying that people shouldn't look past writing mistakes. Of course they should. Just like in real life people should look past race, gender, age, sexual orientation, disability, etc. But just as it is difficult to ignore the race and gender of someone in face to face interactions, it is difficult to ignore the writing style of someone in written communications.

When people see consistent kinds of writing errors from someone online, that will consciously or subconsciously affect how I perceive that person and his ideas. Just like we talked about in Lindy's sig pics thread, how we choose to present ourselves online contributes to how we are perceived.

I feel like many of the errors that people make in the their writing are a choice. The rules of capitalization and punctuation are simple. Spell checkers are ubiquitous. And proof reading what you've written takes but a tiny fraction of the time it takes to write it in the first place.

Posting a message with the kinds of errors that can be fixed by simple measures available to everyone with a fourth grade education reflects poorly on the author. It's a lot like going out in real life with an untucked shirt, uncombed hair, unshaved face, and a stinky armpits. Sure, it's your right to do so if you wish, but your choice of presentation will have a negative impact on your message.

Well said.

 

[alwayssilver]

Well you say some of these errors are choice, but that's also assuming it is. It's assuming that makes some people act out against others because of these errors. Sure writing 'u' instead of 'you' is lazy in my eyes. But If were talking about that versus misspelling words or using incorrect punctuation than that's completely different. I don't always use correct punctuation. I do find it annoying that people don't use periods in their paragraphs, but if I'm trying to understand every point of a conversation than I look past it. Though I do call the guy an idiot under my breath....

I agree with you and the original poster that publicly pointing out someone's writing errors rarely does anything to contribute to the discussion, and usually amounts to little more than an ad hominem attack.

And I'm not saying that people shouldn't look past writing mistakes. Of course they should. Just like in real life people should look past race, gender, age, sexual orientation, disability, etc. But just as it is difficult to ignore the race and gender of someone in face to face interactions, it is difficult to ignore the writing style of someone in written communications.

When people see consistent kinds of writing errors from someone online, that will consciously or subconsciously affect how they perceive that person and his ideas. Just like we talked about in Lindy's sig pics thread, how we choose to present ourselves online contributes to how we are perceived.

I feel like many of the errors that people make in the their writing are a choice. The rules of capitalization and punctuation are simple. Spell checkers are ubiquitous. And proof reading what you've written takes but a tiny fraction of the time it takes to write it in the first place.

Posting a message with the kinds of errors that can be fixed by simple measures available to everyone with a fourth grade education reflects poorly on the author. It's a lot like going out in real life with an untucked shirt, uncombed hair, unshaved face, and stinky armpits. Sure, it's your right to do so if you wish, but your choice of presentation will have a negative impact on your message.

 

[alwayssilver]

Personally I can't stand using a lot of internet lingo. I can stand LOL. But LMAO or those long LMAOWOTF is just stupid. LOL is ok, but the word PWNOWNED or whatever they use just gets so annoying. It's like going back to high school. I rememeber this guy constantly said 'dude' but wouldn't say the entire word. He would say 'DU' and that's it! He sounded like he was on the can when he attempted the word.

Mistakes are one thing and, sure, they can be overlooked - to a point. Some posters' contributions are so full of them, though, that they're, as LeeAllure said, almost painful to read - especially in a long post.

Refusing to use proper spelling is another issue, one I can't bring myself to overlook. If someone can't be bothered to type "you" (OMG, it's two extra letters!), I usually don't bother with whatever points they're making.

 

[alwayssilver]

Well when I was talking about an editor I was talking about my novels. I should have been clearer. People will misunderstand others on the internet no matter how well they structure a paragraph or how well they spell.

"HEY!" If I write that one person could think I was saying, "HEY! How's it going?" And another could take it as me yelling hey. See people will misunderstand you no matter what.

People have made me feel uncomfortable on forums before because they look at a misspelled word versus what I was saying. They would point it out and laugh about it and ignore what I was saying. I find it very disrespectful to do that because most of the time you can catch them misspelling a word.

But if you really feel the way you do than maybe I should point out this post here. I mean there are a few mistakes some people would find very annoying and painful.

As a voracious reader, it's almost PAINFUL to read something which is not
well spelled, has improper capitalization, doesn't use proper punctuation, etc.

Can you imagine if Einstein's writing was so terrible that he was unable to
get e=mc(2) written out properly? He would have had a far harder time getting
people to take him seriously as a scientist and businessman.

Many of the people you wrote about had EDITORS, something few people at
the TMF seem to have (or even want to use - I get a little line under a word
the spell checker on here doesn't seem to understand.

I find that people might misunderstand what someone meant by just reading
their words online, but more people are not going to understand at all, or simply
won't read, if there is one large paragraph filled with misspellings, made up words,
shortened words, etc.

Reading something well written is a pleasure. I choose to occasionally correct
the spelling of someone else (and I correct myself) so that instead of anger
or frustration when reading what they write, I get joy.

If someone can't learn to spell and write better, I just ignore them, but I have
several friends who now are MUCH better writers after taking the things I say
(or write) to them about their writing to heart instead of being defensive and
essentially saying "I like looking like an idiot, and I choose to not learn the
proper way to do things in order to remain an idiot"

That being said, I can easily overlook the occasional typo, as opposed to the
continuous misspelling, poor grammar, etc, which so often characterises
many people's online presentation of themselves.

Lee

 

[LindyHopper]

IMHO, clarity of writing indicates a clarity of thinking that I very much appreciate in a post that I've taken the time to read. In my experience, carelessly written posts tend to be carelessly thought-out as well. More often than well-written ones, they seem to contain errors in topicality, logic, or just plain-old fact.

For example:

Well you say some of these errors are choice, but that's also assuming it is. It's assuming that makes some people act out against others because of these errors. Sure writing 'u' instead of 'you' is lazy in my eyes. But If were talking about that versus misspelling words or using incorrect punctuation than that's completely different. I don't always use correct punctuation. I do find it annoying that people don't use periods in their paragraphs, but if I'm trying to understand every point of a conversation than I look past it. Though I do call the guy an idiot under my breath....

I'm not trying to mean here, but I'm having a difficult time understanding exactly what your opinion it, and what you're trying to say. This is far from the most egregious example I've ever seen (not specifically of yours, but on the TMF in general). Since surfing the TMF is a leisure activity for me, there's only so much mental energy I'm willing to expend to make sense of someone's worse-than-average writing.

But if you really feel the way you do than maybe I should point out this post here. I mean there are a few mistakes some people would find very annoying and painful.

Oh come on - I seriously doubt that LeeAllure's post would reach anyone's standard for "painful." If you want to see "painful," I'd be happy to provide you some links. 😛

In any case, no one on this thread has advocated the practice of criticizing someone's spelling or grammar to score points in an argument, nor has anyone engaged in that practice on this thread... until just now. Congratulations on being the first. 😉

 

[LeeAllure]

But if you really feel the way you do than maybe I should point out this post here. I mean there are a few mistakes some people would find very annoying and painful.

I do tend to mix English spellings/meanings of words (colour, favourite, boot, using "s"
instead of "z") when I write in with American ones. Other than that, what are you referring to?

Also, I agree with LindyHopper on this - I can certainly show you far more painful posts.

Lee

 

[nostradamas]

*groan*

This entire thread is painful.

Maybe "anal" is a better term.


It's like hangin' with a bunch of snotty English majors.



As Bill Murray said, "I wanna party with you, cowboy!"

 

[tcklft]

I'm not trying to mean here, but I'm having a difficult time understanding exactly what your opinion it,

Ahem....

 

[LindyHopper]

Ahem....

😱 OH NOEZ!!!!! I hang my head in shame.

 

[alwayssilver]

IMHO, clarity of writing indicates a clarity of thinking that I very much appreciate in a post that I've taken the time to read. In my experience, carelessly written posts tend to be carelessly thought-out as well. More often than well-written ones, they seem to contain errors in topicality, logic, or just plain-old fact.

For example:


I'm not trying to mean here, but I'm having a difficult time understanding exactly what your opinion it, and what you're trying to say. This is far from the most egregious example I've ever seen (not specifically of yours, but on the TMF in general). Since surfing the TMF is a leisure activity for me, there's only so much mental energy I'm willing to expend to make sense of someone's worse-than-average writing.



Oh come on - I seriously doubt that LeeAllure's post would reach anyone's standard for "painful." If you want to see "painful," I'd be happy to provide you some links. 😛

In any case, no one on this thread has advocated the practice of criticizing someone's spelling or grammar to score points in an argument, nor has anyone engaged in that practice on this thread... until just now. Congratulations on being the first. 😉

Lindy I think my opinion is clearly written out there. Unless you have a difficult time deciphering it's meaning than I'll be clearer just for you. If someone misspells a word than it's not always on purpose. Don't assume it is. If someone’s too lazy to write 'u' instead of you than they are just lazy. Now Lindy I'm going to be as mean as possible here... I doubt you search every single post in this forum to make sure no one criticizes another for there grammar. I doubt that's never happen and I doubt I'm the first. Never accuse me of it again.

 

[LindyHopper]

Lindy I think my opinion is clearly written out there. Unless you have a difficult time deciphering it's meaning than I'll be clearer just for you. If someone misspells a word than it's not always on purpose. Don't assume it is. If someone’s too lazy to write 'u' instead of you than they are just lazy.

That is more clear - the brevity and improved organization were very helpful. Thank you. 🙂

Now Lindy I'm going to be as mean as possible here... I doubt you search every single post in this forum to make sure no one criticizes another for there grammar. I doubt that's never happen and I doubt I'm the first. Never accuse me of it again.

I did not accuse you of being the first person on this forum to criticize another's grammar. It actually happens quite often in discussion threads, and I was happy to see that on this thread, at least, we'd managed to stay away from that unproductive practice. What I actually said was:

... nor has anyone engaged in that practice on this thread... until just now. Congratulations on being the first. 😉

As far as I can tell, this statement is factually correct.

Like I said before, in my experience, careful writing tends to accompany careful thinking, and I appreciate both. 🙂