Merged spelling/grammar threads

[EricNoah]

I think a lot of folks end up writing like they hear people talk or based on what they read, so reading a lot of well-written books will probably help quite a bit. Propper grammar lessons aren't as necessary to most folks unless you want to have a shared vocabulary for discussing language itself, but a good background in English grammar can help prepare you to learn a foreign language (and learning a language can help you learn more about English grammar, too!).

 

[The It's Man]

Actually, it's far more important that the masses are taught the correct use of "its" and "it's". Please make this your life's work....

I agree .

 

[William Ronald]

It might be advisable for more of our members to use the spellcheck button on the post reply screen. I have made a few spelling errors in some of my posts from time to time. (I have edited some posts because of spelling errors.) However, I think good spelling and grammar can improve communication. Sometimes it seems people talk at each other and not to each other. (This seemed to reach almost epidemic proportions in some of the D&D 3.5 threads. Kudos to the moderators for keeping these boards relatively sane and calm.)

I do not have a problem with smilies. They help with one of the problems of online communication: difficulty in displaying emotion. So, I will try to use smiles and tags such as [Humor] to indicate when I am trying to be funny and when I am trying to be serious.

 

[krunchyfrogg]

 

[Derulbaskul]

(snip) but a good background in English grammar can help prepare you to learn a foreign language (and learning a language can help you learn more about English grammar, too!).

I agree. I learned more about grammar during the five years that I stuided Japanese than I did from the preceeding years in which I studied English grammar.

I made the point above about the misuse of "it's" and I understand that the majority of people who post on messageboards simply do not care about getting this right, but it really aggravates every pedantic bone in my body when I see the error in professionally published material, whether a corporate web page or even a review.

Then again, there are worse things in life.... <= please forgive the smiley

 

[Tom Cashel]

Gutenberg has one "t". He's not going to stop using the smilies until you get his name right. That's what he told me.

 

[Sixchan]

What really bugs me is people mixing up 'lose' and 'loose'.

 

[Olive]

Unless, of course, you're William Shakespeare. Or you think that if he did it, it's ok for you to do it.

edit: And thus I offend two pedants in one post. Truly, my Annoy Fu is great.

Not being a Shakespeare fan, but being a big believer that language has to evolve and therefore we whould just accept the use of their as a gender neutral term now that a large number of people want to have gender neutral terminology, I'd love a reference for this Buttercup. It'll allow me to pull it out on people who disagree with me.

In general, I mispell things a fair bit, and I'd be a wee bit hypocritical if I went around calling people on this stuff. So I don't. And generally if you can understand it, then I think you should just leave well enough alone.

As long as no one trys to tell me to leave my 'u's out of armour and colour on the board run by an englishman, I think we'll all be fine.

 

[Buttercup]

Not being a Shakespeare fan, but being a big believer that language has to evolve and therefore we whould just accept the use of their as a gender neutral term now that a large number of people want to have gender neutral terminology, I'd love a reference for this Buttercup. It'll allow me to pull it out on people who disagree with me.

No prob. It wasn't only the Bard of Avon, but respected authors including Chaucer, Thackery, George Bernard Shaw & Jane Austen. Here are some citations from the OED. I suppose I don't have to say that it doesn't get any more authoritative than that.

Simply put, if a person tries to insist that "they" is not rightly used as a singular pronoun, they don't have a leg to stand on.

 

[reapersaurus]

What really bugs me is people mixing up 'lose' and 'loose'.

HALLELUJAH!

Someone else noticed this.

It's amazing to me how many people actually don't know how to spell 'lose'.
And the phrase is NOT "loose your temper."

I don't mind typos - heck, i think they can endear a post, and make the writing more casual, but when you misspell something, and it makes the sentence read differently, than you have a serious communication problem, based on simple spelling errors/misunderstanding of words.