Unpopular opinions go here

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Anybody who judges another person based on their personal spelling, grammar, and/or pronunciation, is not to be trusted.

In particular, spelling, as a skill, has about as much use in the modern day as cursive, which is to say, barely at all.

Yes, but ... people with a cavalier attitude about their spelling and grammar are giving up the right to be frustrated when they're misunderstood.

 

[Gradine]

Yes, but ... people with a cavalier attitude about their spelling and grammar are giving up the right to be frustrated when they're misunderstood.

Sure, but there are certainly folks with a cavalier attitude about all spelling and grammar who will choose to misunderstand even when the meaning is clear.

"I don't know, can you?" is the ur-example but it's frustratingly common.

 

[CleverNickName]

Anybody who judges another person based on their personal spelling, grammar, and/or pronunciation, is not to be trusted.

In particular, spelling, as a skill, has about as much use in the modern day as cursive, which is to say, barely at all.

For the way my brain works and my ability to understand someone's writing, a person's word choices and handwriting are much more important than their spelling, grammar, and punctuation. But I'm not passing judgment, I just have a hard time parsing written information. I don't do well with slang, acronyms, and jargon.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

"I don't know, can you?" is the ur-example but it's frustratingly common.

Those people should be pushed into oncoming traffic.

 

[Reynard]

For the way my brain works and my ability to understand someone's writing, a person's word choices and handwriting are much more important than their spelling, grammar, and punctuation. But I'm not passing judgment, I just have a hard time parsing written information. I don't do well with slang, acronyms, and jargon.

I spend some time on reddit, mostly to get perspectives of folks other than my fellow olds, and sometimes I have a very difficult time parsing meaning because of rather cavalier attitudes about spelling, grammar and punctuation. And I mean this separate from folks for whom English is not their native language.

 

[Faolyn]

I write for a living and I agree with @J.Quondam: Everyone should unclench a lot when talking about writing. (Especially about the Oxford comma, lordy.)

You can take my Oxford comma when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

You can take my Oxford comma when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

No one wants to take your Oxford comma. But insisting it must be used in all sentences at all times is like insisting that cayenne pepper be used in all dishes at all time. It's a tool to be used where appropriate and not fetishized when it's not.

 

[overgeeked]

I write for a living and I agree with @J.Quondam: Everyone should unclench a lot when talking about writing. (Especially about the Oxford comma, lordy.)

I write and edit for a living and I kind of agree with both of you.

It mostly depends on context. If we're talking about the general internet, no, it doesn't really matter. If we're talking about context where effective communication matters, like say in professional writing of any kind, then it absolutely does really matter.

Things like the Oxford comma are style choices, not rules of grammar. I agree that the Oxford comma adds clarity, but it generally doesn't hinder clarity if absent. The few examples floating around are designed to push one side over the other, they're not the kind of thing you see in the wild.

 

[MGibster]

The longer a media property goes on, the less creative it tends to get, as a desire for canon and continuity mean it mostly turns in on itself, detailing what were once bold broad ideas, rather than new bold ideas being added to the mix. The "new stuff" eventually just becomes endless remixes of what came before, when the property was not constrained the way it is now.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

View attachment 291140

Spock's previously unknown human foster sister says "hello!"