Importance of Grammar/Spelling

[Cheiromancer]

The more nitpicky grammar rules, such as ending a sentence with a preposition, I let slide.

I have never understood why this was a rule. There's a story that an editor had clumsily rearranged one of Churchill’s sentences to avoid ending it in a preposition, and the Prime Minister, very proud of his style, had scribbled this note in reply: “This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put.”

(note: google tells me that there are many variations, and it may not have been Churchill. Anyway)

I suspect that it might be an attempt to mimic the rules of Latin, kinda like the rule against splitting an infinitive. But I don't know enough Latin to know if it is bad style to end a Latin sentence with a preposition.

Here's a nice website: Common Errors in English

 

[Impeesa]

Do you have a shift key? Because your eschewment of capital letters drives me absolutely bonkers.

Remember, proper capitalization is the difference between "I helped my Uncle Jack off a horse" and "I helped my uncle jack off a horse."

--Impeesa--

 

[reveal]

Remember, proper capitalization is the difference between "I helped my Uncle Jack off a horse" and "I helped my uncle jack off a horse."

--Impeesa--

I don't get it. How are you helping uncle.... Ooooooooohhhhh.

On message boards, I don't take grammar or spelling into consideration unless a) the person is ranting or complaining about other peoples "stupidity" or b) everything Henry said. IRL, it's different because I create training material for a living. I deplore bad grammar and spelling in training material.

 

[ForceUser]

Remember, proper capitalization is the difference between "I helped my Uncle Jack off a horse" and "I helped my uncle jack off a horse."

--Impeesa--

ROFL

 

[The Shaman]

Grammar and spelling on message boards not one of my pet pevs.

Peeves.



Just kidding.

Sort of.

Do we really need to write something five times until the proper grammar and spelling is in place then have someone go over it with a red ink pen "just one last time" ?

No, but that's no excuse for just plain laziness, either.

Misspellings don't bother me as much as run-on sentences, improper capitalization, and the absence of paragraph breaks. It's like a billboard that says, "I are ignorant."

 

[MadMaxim]

Considering that English is not my native language, I still find grammar to be extremely important. After all, it's the set of rules we have for communicating and I try to adhere to those rules. However, spelling errors are the worst, but I usually don't point them out as long as I get the meaning of what the person is saying/writing. It may also be because that English is not my primary language that I pay more attention to what I'm writing to make sure that it's 100% correct.

 

[ForceUser]

I am an English tutor. Several days a week I help people who are struggling to learn the language--it is of great importance to many of the naturalized Americans that I teach that they master the GSPs (grammar/spelling/punctuation). Thus, it bugs me when I see lazy writers; less so on an informal messageboard such as this, but much moreso among professionals (CNN.com, etc.)

 

[diaglo]

Remember, proper capitalization is the difference between "I helped my Uncle Jack off a horse" and "I helped my uncle jack off a horse."

--Impeesa--

not using capitals started when i first used a typewriter. hunt and peck with 1 finger will do that for you.

then it got reinforced with chat rooms. when all caps meant yelling. and trying to keep up with others in the conversation meant taking short cuts.

i hardly ever even think about it now.

 

[Harmon]

Misspellings don't bother me as much as run-on sentences, improper capitalization, and the absence of paragraph breaks. It's like a billboard that says, "I are ignorant."

This is something that I don't really "get."

I have been working at bettering my English skills sense- well forever . When I got out of high school I had not ever red a book larger then say thirty pages. I have no idea regarding the difference in verbs, nouns, etc. When to use a ; in a sentence, I have not a clue.

Largely I am self-taught in writing, and spend hours trying to get what I write to just sound right in my head (fwiw- I have over 350 MB of material that I have written and refuse to let others read). I have been in a half dozen English classes sense HS and never been able to qualify for English 1A on that STARR test (its an English evaluation test).

Now before anyone mentions "learning disabilities" yes I have one, and I have been fighting against it for years.

When people come in nit picking my writing it does nothing for me- it just frustrates and belittles, which helps not at all.

Some of you flew through high school and college, never thinking about how quickly you read or write, or how well you comprehend what you have read. I have to read something three to six times before it sticks, and even then well its not always there.

So when you belittle someone for their writing by pointing out that they missed a comma on a BB you really aren't helping you are just making yourself appear superior. You have no clue about the struggles that some of us have gone through to be able to write a sentence or even post on a BB in a fashion that allows us to feel that we are writing well enough to be understood.

Thanks for reading this far, hope you understood what I wrote and understand that I feel you are missing other’s POV. Please don't feel this is an attack or an excuse, just a position that some people have to struggle from.

 

[Thotas]

I very much lean toward all the things Henry said early on in this thread. I appreciate it when writers try to do it correctly, though I know even professional writers have professional editors to catch their spelling, grammer and idiomatic errors -- and goofs still come through. Speaking of which, my Dungeon magazine just came in the mail on Friday. Monte! Eric! Page 94! That's not what "begging the question" means! ...

What it really all comes down to, for me, is this: to the degree a poster doesn't have enough on the ball to communicate an idea effectively, the odds increase geometricly that they don't have enough on the ball for it to be worth my while to decipher the cryptogram.

Non-native speakers are making efforts and passing through a necessary stage in development of a skill, so they are exempted. However, if you can't understand the message, communication has still failed. Polite and constructive questions and corrections can be helpful to the effort of immediate exchange and the overall learning process.