writing skills

Kerry · 03-14-2007, 04:05 PM

At the risk of sounding like an old person, which maybe I am compared to most people on this forum, I want to mention the quality of writing lately.
It's getting more and more difficult to read the posts because of horrible grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Can this many people really be such bad writers or is it just carelessness and typos?
Some of the posts are practically unreadable.
I can understand the younger posters writing badly because kids these days write like they instant message. It's almost like another language. But anyone who is 18 or older should be able to spell "definitely" or "veterinarian" and should be able to use capital letters to begin a sentence.
Once a teacher, always a teacher...

CrzyBritNAmerica · 03-14-2007, 04:16 PM

Yeah there was another thread about this too. It annoys me to no end. Even when I text message on my phone I use capitalization, punctuation and correct spelling!

But I guess we decided on the other thread that some people on here are 1) pretty young and 2) a lot are from other countries where English is their 2nd language....I am not sure though.

I usually ignore any posts that are unreadable. A few errors are fine, but I don't read people who use no punctuation, capital letter and I hate when people put a capital letter at the beginning of every word!

RonE · 03-14-2007, 04:18 PM

There are three things that can make a post more legible:

Punctuation
Capitalization
A little white space

Ignoring all three make it really tempting to just skip it. I think it shows a lack of respect and consideration for the readers and, sometimes, just plain laziness.

There is a free spell check that's installed with the Google toolbar or one that can be installed from this forum. Neither is perfect, but they work pretty well.

I don't think I'm a grammar snob, but a forum like this is all about communicating your ideas to others.

Edit: (Sorry to be redundant. I'm accurate but VERY SLOW.)

CrzyBritNAmerica · 03-14-2007, 04:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RonE

There are three things that we can make a post more legible:

Punctuation
Capitalization
A little white space

Ignoring all three make it really tempting to just skip it. I think it shows a lack of respect and consideration for the readers and, sometimes, just plain laziness.

There is a free spell check that's installed with the Google toolbar or one that can be installed from this forum. Neither is perfect, but they work pretty well.

I don't think I'm a grammar snob, but a forum like this is all about communicating your ideas to others.

Yeah I agree with you...I am really weird about my posts too. If I notice that I misspelled something I have to edit the post to fix it.

But if I can't figure out how to spell a word then I open up a Word document and use the spell check.

iwantmypup · 03-15-2007, 04:12 PM

Sorry guys . I am guessing I am one of those people! (good sentence work yay1!)

briteday · 03-15-2007, 09:48 PM

I'm with the grammar crowd. I was taught in the 60's that if you want to do anything you have to be able to communicate properly. Some of the threads are completely........I stop reading some of them because it is too much effort to translate them! People, use capitals, punctuation, and proper English! This is not a text message site and I am not one of your IM buddies. This is a site to exchange ideas and information. Treat it as such if you want to be taken seriously.

Wimble Woof · 03-15-2007, 11:40 PM

This Is The Sort Of Posting Style That Annoys The Hell Out Of Me!
Every time I see a post like that one, I ignore it. I dont know if there is something worth reading in it or not, and frankly I dont have the patience to deal with the capitilization on every word!

I swear not only are humans slowly loosing the ability to walk ( as said on Over The Hedge) but I guess it's true that many are unable to communicate in writing anymore as well.
Was there not a study not long ago stating that computers are taking away from hand writing skills? Because I think they are also making it easier for too many "ppl" to become too lazy to actually hit all the letters in a word.
This whole rant of mine took me approximately 2 minutes to type out, spelling every word.
How much of a hurry is one in to leave vowels out of every word.
( I am most guilty of using this one though "prolly" I appologize *laughs out loud*)

Dave|Xoxide · 03-16-2007, 12:36 PM

I definately don't lead by example. I mispell and not capitalize words all the time. I never knew this upset so many people. I will definately do my best to avoid bad habits.

CrzyBritNAmerica · 03-16-2007, 01:38 PM

Yeah most people on here don't bother me with their writing, but some do.

I don't care if people don't use any capitals, as long as they use punctuation. But I do agree with Wimble Woof in that People Who Type Like This Drive Me Crazy. I'm sure it's just us being 'grammar snobs' but hey it's really not that hard to type properly.

Lorina · 03-16-2007, 03:08 PM

The People Who Type Like This are actually PEOPLE WHO TYPE LIKE THIS.

The forum software has a feature that prevents "shouting."

lovemygreys · 03-16-2007, 03:13 PM

My biggest peeve lately...Starting Each Word With A Capital Letter

Especially If They Don't Use Any Punctuation Between Sentences

Of course, I'm the queen of the "..." between thoughts. Bad habit, I know. Otherwise I think my spelling and grammar are usually pretty good. Errors are usually due to being in a rush and not proof reading before submitting.

I have to second Ron - Whitespace!!! Use it! Makes for much more readable posts!

CrzyBritNAmerica · 03-16-2007, 04:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lovemygreys

Of course, I'm the queen of the "..." between thoughts. Bad habit, I know. Otherwise I think my spelling and grammar are usually pretty good. Errors are usually due to being in a rush and not proof reading before submitting.

Yeah that's definitely my worst habit too! I do it WAY too much. Ah I just had to even stop myself from doing it now.

Elijah · 03-18-2007, 01:57 PM

I think we could all benefit by using a spell checker. I use Firefox as my browser and when I'm typing in a message and misspell a word, it underlines it in red, then I right click on that word and it gives me several options showing the true spelling. Works for me. However, if someone typed the word "cuz", being too lazy to use "because", it's not going to recommend because but rather words like,cuss, cu,Luz and cue as cuz is not close to any proper word.

nrhareiner · 03-19-2007, 01:55 PM

I really do not think age has anything to do with it. Some people are good at writing spelling and gramer and some a good at other things. I for one am very bad at the writen form however I am a very good oral comunicator and have very little problem getting my thoughts accorst. However I am very very good at math and many other things. I personaly would rather be able to do log rythums then spell it. However that is just me I am sure. I have had many many more uses for mathmatices then gramer and spelling. Even with my several degrees.

Heidi

siberian husky lover12 · 03-19-2007, 02:07 PM

Well I am 12 and I spell fine, I only use typos in IM, but not on here.

Laurelin · 03-19-2007, 07:16 PM

I don't mind typos and punctuation errors to an extent. I also don't mind occasional smilies or lols or ... etc. But when the posts are 90% chat speak, it gets old. I can't spell worth a darn, but Microsoft Word has a rather nice Spell Check that helps quite a lot. Perhaps others should try to use it if they are as lousy at spelling as I am. It makes your posts seem much more valid and lessens the likelihood that people will skip your post. Plus, I think it is just common courtesy to try to spell things properly and to make posts semi-readable.

Like I said, no one should be judgmental about a typo or two here and there- everyone makes mistakes and some of us are not grammar oriented. I make more than my fair share of grammatical mistakes. However, people should be reasonable. I can not wade through posts That Read Like This And Have No Punctuation For Sentence After Sentence Never Ending Until I Want To Claw My Eyes Out And Cry Because The Meaning Of The Post Is Entirely Lost On Me Because I Cant Tell What People Actually Mean By Their Incessant Grammatically Flawed Typing...

Punctuation is a good tool to help you get your tone across.

CrzyBritNAmerica · 03-19-2007, 07:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lorina

The People Who Type Like This are actually PEOPLE WHO TYPE LIKE THIS.

The forum software has a feature that prevents "shouting."

Really? I wondered just how long it would take someone to type with capitals at the beginning of each word! It took me ages to write just an sample.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Laurelin

I don't mind typos and punctuation errors to an extent. I also don't mind occasional smilies or lols or ... etc. But when the posts are 90% chat speak, it gets old. I can't spell worth a darn, but Microsoft Word has a rather nice Spell Check that helps quite a lot. Perhaps others should try to use it if they are as lousy at spelling as I am. It makes your posts seem much more valid and lessens the likelihood that people will skip your post. Plus, I think it is just common courtesy to try to spell things properly and to make posts semi-readable.

Like I said, no one should be judgmental about a typo or two here and there- everyone makes mistakes and some of us are not grammar oriented. I make more than my fair share of grammatical mistakes. However, people should be reasonable. I can not wade through posts That Read Like This And Have No Punctuation For Sentence After Sentence Never Ending Until I Want To Claw My Eyes Out And Cry Because The Meaning Of The Post Is Entirely Lost On Me Because I Cant Tell What People Actually Mean By Their Incessant Grammatically Flawed Typing...

Punctuation is a good tool to help you get your tone across.

I agree with you! I use lol quite a bit, but try to keep it to a minimum. I am an okay speller, but if I don't know a word I look it up instead of guessing. Of course a few mistakes here and there aren't a problem, but some of the people on here are dreadful spellers. I think they ought to type their posts in a Word (or any other program with a spell check) and then post them on here. It is a courtesy to others. If it's a few mistakes it's readable, but when every other word is mispelled, the person uses NO punctuation or all capitals its impossible to read it and I almost always skip those posts. I can't see how someone can be taken seriously in a debate when they type like that.

ScareCrow · 03-19-2007, 10:23 PM

I've noticed several posts that you almost have to decipher to understand what is being said. There are spell check tools that can be added to forums, I'm not sure if that option has been looked at before or not but a quick Google search would pull up several options. I personally use Firefox so I use a spell checker but if one of my old English teachers were to review my posts I would probably be a C- student. I don't mind the misspelled words as much as I mind sentences that have no thought put into them. When I see a sentence like that I have to remind myself that this is the internet and that not everyone speaks English as a first language. There are a few posts by people I'm pretty sure speak English though, if those people were to just read over their posts before hitting the submit reply button it would save me a lot of grief.