Online grammar

[tomster2300]

I believe there's been studies on this, but I've always wondered why people across the internet (not just here on the mech forums) continue to use incorrect grammar online.

Is it a maturity / age issue (younger kids do it more or do it less), a socioeconomic deal (some gain a better education than others / lower income homes lack emphasis on grammar), is it faster in general, or could the media (and our society) be promoting it as the norm for a select age group?

I've come across some posts that are so awful they're nearly illegible.

Hopefully this won't offend someone; my intentions are for a healthy discussion on the issue.

(I don't believe I'm breaking any mech rules either - please tell me if I am).

[HAL9000]

I know what you mean... I know sometimes, I abbreviate things... like "tho" instead of "though", but generally, I keep full words in my sentences... not like at work where sometimes we are limited on how many characters can be placed in a note, so they often look like this.

Cld hm# lmwp for ch to clbk re msng crd fnd at merch, rec trns ap ok, tmp blk in pl.

[tomster2300]

Work jargon and abbreviations are fine, but when you're asking someone for help or trying to prove a point, writing poorly never helps.

I think I'm mainly talking about people who's misspelling and grammatical ignorance is so blatantly obvious that it can only be pure laziness on their part to not fix it.

This must be the Journalism student coming out of me.

[TimPoet]

Originally Posted by HAL9000 Cld hm# lmwp for ch to clbk re msng crd fnd at merch, rec trns ap ok, tmp blk in pl.

Omg, Hal, you've brought back queasy memories of my 4 years working customer care on the phones for a large international credit card bank....

Let's see here, do I still have it?

Called home number, left message with p? for cardholder to call back regarding missing card found at merchant, recent transactions appear okay, temporary block in place.

How did I do?

[Marke522]

Holy cow, I thought that was some kind of spy code. But you seem to have hacked it.

Back to the topic, I COMPLETELY understand where you're coming from. I've always been one to type everything out, AND use proper punctuation, and capital letters. If I didn't know, I looked it up real quick on Google. Just now for instance, I couldn't remember if the "capital" I needed was capital or capitol. So I looked it up. I think I lost maybe 5 seconds of my life, but in return, I gained a little more knowledge, so that the next I need to use that word, I'll know what I want.

I too have seen posts or emails from friends and family that were very difficult to understand. Sometimes you can tell if they are being lazy, or if they simply do not know any better. My mom and sister simply say it takes too much time to be correct. But really how much more time could it take to use the Shift button when talking about a proper noun.

The obvious abbreviations I don't mind: brb, afk, ttyl, imho, ... but when people start trying to make their own in order to be "cool", then I can barely stand to communicate with them.

[Force Flow]

The younger generation that grew up on IM is lazy, and typing everything out is an effort, so they take shortcuts.

As they've gotten a bit older, I've noticed that they start typing words out more and using abbreviations less as their vocabulary and grammer skills grew.

I've never really used much of the chat lingo..it's like learning another language. I can read it alright, but writing it? Yikes.

its rly a diff wy 2 tlk! l8r!

[kamikazi_tom]

Hey! I'm 16 n I h8 ppl tht tlk lyke dat. Dem hommies crzy ya mean?



.... =]

[mbossman2]

acronyms and short cuts aside, in my working career, I have seen a steady decline in the overall quality of written communication skills.

I am not sure as to why.

[GOD]

I do it ALLLL the time. On certain forums i will try not to do it so much (especially if there are older people no offense) But they seem to get annoyed by it. Personally i feel if im not being graded on it and what i say is understandable. Such as using U over YOU. Im just a lazy typer is all. I take short cuts.


Simple as this. Im lazy

[EzyStvy]

I hate run-on sentences where the poster just doesn't use any punctuation to breakup their thoughts and they keep on typing which makes it very difficult to read and if you point it out to them they say just skip my thread or become really deffensive about it like their worold will come to an end or something and they have the nerve to PM asking if you can help anyway which in turn..........

[GOD]

Originally Posted by EzyStvy I hate run-on sentences where the poster just doesn't use any punctuation to breakup their thoughts and they keep on typing which makes it very difficult to read and if you point it out to them they say just skip my thread or become really deffensive about it like their worold will come to an end or something and they have the nerve to PM asking if you can help anyway which in turn..........

I did that a lot in english in school. lol i still pretty much do it. Or i do this a lot......to seperate it...dunno why just have for a long time now. I never use commas...not unless its a professional letter or im being graded

[Lespaul20]

My 26 year old sister with a Masters degree likes to text me in the high school text speak. I won't respond to any message like that. I'm always surprised to see how many people don't use T9 input(or the equivalent) to text with. My grammar sucks but usually try to make a decent sentence. I think is shows lack of intelligence when there is no reason to not use English or at least try and the same goes for using curse words for every other word. I used to work construction and some of the guys could hardly talk and the f-word was half their vocabulary.

[Kuch]

I always get a kick out of it when people say, “Oh, I just do that online. If it was important I would do it correctly.” Sure you would. You wouldn’t even remember how.

Personally, when I read a post from someone who can’t/won’t use any type of sentence structure or punctuation I assume they are a little deficient in the arena of academics.

[GOD]

Originally Posted by Kuch I always get a kick out of it when people say, “Oh, I just do that online. If it was important I would do it correctly.” Sure you would. You wouldn’t even remember how. Personally, when I read a post from someone who can’t/won’t use any type of sentence structure or punctuation I assume they are a little deficient in the arena of academics.

Your totally wrong.

[tomster2300]

I don't like when people use homophones instead of the actual word. Examples: Here / hear, no / know, etc. It makes me angry!

[David M]

The bottom line is if who your targeting your message towards understands what you mean.

Who cares if those who your message is not intended for understand what the heck you are saying?

If you want to impress people then sure, write in perfect English all the time. Quite frequently though, writing in perfect English is not the quickest way of communicating a message...nor is it the most accurate way of communicating the meaning behind a message such as when you use slang in order for the receiver to get a sense of less formality.

Overall, sometimes people get a little uptight about using perfect grammar all the time when in some situations using less than perfect grammar can be advantageous.

[Kareeser]

Originally Posted by GOD Your totally wrong.

I disagree. This might be a little inflammatory, but when your username is "GOD" (in caps), and you misspell "you are", it's pretty clear what readers would think of you.

[jer888]

Originally Posted by Kareeser I disagree. This might be a little inflammatory, but when your username is "GOD" (in caps), and you misspell "you are", it's pretty clear what readers would think of you.

Yeah... Usernames / Screenames can be another thing that make people look bad from the start.

[alanebro82]

My personal pet peeve is when people use "bai bai" instead of "bye bye". I don't really know why it makes me so angry, but I literally want to reach through the internet and punch them for it.

[Cricket]

Wow...GOD is a member of PC Mech. Will Jesus be joining too?

Cricket

[novie]

i dont mind it too much as im not one to use apostrophes and proper capitalization, but i do like to see thoughts that are well articulated in one way or another. i think david m had it right—its one thing to rapid fire a txt message on your mobile or to respond quickly in a chat with a buddy or while gaming perhaps. on forums theres less reason to compress everything. so i suppose it all comes down to the audience and the medium. i came of age with an ibm pc at and an atari 400, i dont know if new dialects are truly being formed now or not but its an interesting idea. even if you look at marketing typefaces and layouts, they are much less readable than in yesteryear—i would hope that this all means that we are much more sophisticated and that the basics are behind us because they are basic, but clearly this isnt the case for us all.

[AnotherMuggle]

Originally Posted by Kuch Personally, when I read a post from someone who can’t/won’t use any type of sentence structure or punctuation I assume they are a little deficient in the arena of academics.

I feel the same!

I even use correct spelling and grammar in text messages, regardless of whether or not I flow into a 2nd or 3rd message.

And yes....there / their / they're.. etc etc... are very irritating.

[LeftyAce]

i would hope that this all means that we are much more sophisticated

Now there's an interesting angle. Are we getting smart enough that we can decipher less standardized language? I tend to lean towards the 'communication is cheap and fast, so people have gotten lazy' end of this debate, but novie's take is a little more positive :-)

[bailey]

well, I got into the habit from operating on amateur radio with morse code, belive me, we use a lot of short cuts there, I just developed the habit of doing it.
I have learned to read between the lines too, that helps a lot.

[LeftyAce]

Now cw is a different matter. You've got some real benefits from condensing stuff there.
Heck, morse code has some abbreviations that don't even make sense (QTH = location, QSO = conversation, etc) just to speed things along.

73, de n3wo.

[blue60007]

Figuring out abbreviations for everything is more work than just typing it out...

[glc]

Whether you agree with my attitude or not, I don't really care - but I am a LOT more likely to try to help people HERE who use good grammar and spelling..........I take the time to use good spelling and grammar, if you don't bother I'm not going to waste my time on you.

[blue60007]

I know exactly what you mean. I don't want to work to understand what you are saying. I've came across some posts that were literally one big sentence and just moved on...

[mairving]

Originally Posted by Cricket Wow...GOD is a member of PC Mech. Will Jesus be joining too? Cricket

GOD has ...left the building shall we say.

[sgtspector]

On the subject of grammar this article appeared in the local newspaper yesterday. Basically it was about schools spending more time on English and math so they satisfy the "No child left behind" mandate and less on social studies and the arts. As usual the writer gets the opinion of an education expert and he is quoted as saying "These are important fundamental skills that everyone needs, but that don't make a whole person." If this is the type or person influencing policy for our schools we are in deeper trouble than I thought.