Do grammar and spelling matter on a message board?

[Umbran]

Hit a nerve, eh?

Only in the sense that I find grammar-nazis to be more of a hindrance than a help when trying to communicate with people.

Is the suit in your allusion a tuxedo or just a matching sweatshirt and pants? Is the party BYOB-And-Get-Wasted affair or an annual company formal affair?

And anyone who pretends that I might mean "formal affair" when I say "causal" is doing both of us a disservice.

These message boards are clearly not a corporate formal dinner party. Just as clearly, neither are they Friday night fraternity drunken debauchery.

Because, yeah, appearances DO matter. You never get a second chance to make a first impression, and on the Internet, every message is someone's first impression of who you are.

Yes. That includes the impression of being a stuffed shirt with no sense of humor or flexibility for people's foibles. These boards are centered on discussion of a hobby, something one does for fun in one's spare time. While clarity is nice, requiring formalism detracts from the fun. As Wulf Rathbane mentioned, the style should be chosen to fit the audience. Does this look like a formal audience to you?

 

[Mark Chance]

Does this look like a formal audience to you?

But that's irrelevant. Style is preferable to substance. The superficial is much more important than the hidden. It is the facade that makes the building, after all.

*sniff, sniff*

Smell that?

That's sarcasm.

 

[Tom Cashel]

...and Godwin's Law is once again fulfilled. "Pedantic pricks" and "grammar-nazis." What a nasty sandbox this has become!

Thinking of EN World as a text-based environment goes a long way toward understanding what is at issue here, but not quite far enough. Remember: to exist in a text-based environment, human beings must distill the complex interactions of hand and brain into inferior material: text.

We become language in here.

We click reply and fit ourselves into little identical boxes--which are jazzed up by user titles and avatars and sigs; like slapping a few posters on the walls--and we exist as words, each coded to our respective ability.

So here's the question you have to answer:

If all you are is words, do you want to appear as a lazy, sloppy mess or do you want to come off as polished and trenchant-to-the-max? I think we both know the answer, My Friend.

Because bad grammar don't do a body no good.

 

[jgbrowning]

i responded no. i don't think grammer and spelling are important when communicating in an informal environment. as long as comprehension is not injured, that is. most of the time i'm just chatting with people, not doing business or any other such.

i write the way i write because i know i'm understandable and that's all that language was ever devised for. grammer, spelling, word-choice etc. are too often merely attempts to indicate social standing compatablity within different groups.

in professional written conversation i can write "properly." i don't think people discount what i say because of the way i write. and generally, as harsh as it is, i'm not terribly interested in the people that would discount the message because the messanger is ugly.

joe b.

(btw, i always sign joe b. as my name because long ago, i decided to try and reduce my ego. you could say it's a religious thing with me.. )

 

[Mark Chance]

We become language in here.

Not to mention terribly pretentious.

 

[Tom Cashel]

True. Extremely true.

But you're just text in a box, Mark Chance. A voice in a box, which I could choose to ignore.

But I'd never do that, Mark, because I like you.

edit: i'm terribly mixed up. good night.

 

[Mark Chance]

True. Extremely true.

But you're just text in a box, Mark Chance. A voice in a box, which I could choose to ignore.

But I'd never do that, Mark, because I like you and your Star Trek threads are fun to read each week. T'pol is hot. That is all.

I'd never ignore you either, Tom. But, I have to confess, I don't have Star Trek threads. I'm actually a bit of a heretic. The only good Star Trek episodes or movies star William Shatner.

 

[Umbran]

Hm. Sorry, Tom, but where I come from the term "grammar-Nazi" doesn't invoke Godwin's Law, because it's not a serious reference to Nazis. At least, no rational person I know of would take any grammar-issue to the point of seriously likening the person to a real-world Nazi. That's an absurd enough notion that I didn't consider it as a Godwin's Law thing. It's supposed to be a nose-tweaking reference to people who take grammar too seriously for the given situation.

I apologize if it was taken more seriously than that. T'wasn't what I intended.

 

[BVB]

Hm. Sorry, Tom, but where I come from the term "grammar-Nazi" doesn't invoke Godwin's Law, because it's not a serious reference to Nazis. At least, no rational person I know of would take any grammar-issue to the point of seriously likening the person to a real-world Nazi. That's an absurd enough notion that I didn't consider it as a Godwin's Law thing. It's supposed to be a nose-tweaking reference to people who take grammar too seriously for the given situation.

I apologize if it was taken more seriously than that. T'wasn't what I intended.

Oh, fer cryin' out --

If the word "Nazi" wasn't intended to evoke any sense of the original meaning or imagery, then there's really no reason to use the "Nazi" reference at all.

 

[Tom Cashel]

That's it, BVB--

NO POST FOR YOU! ONE YEAR!

Umbran, no simple hyphen could ever denazi Nazi.