English grammar
 

This topic trouble me so. First off, I don't understand how anyone can go through schooling and not know how to spell properly. How does that happen? Are you people not required to write in school? Are all your classes oral? Do you not read books? I'm speaking from a viewpoint of a foreigner who took English twice a week (yes, that means I was required to speak or read in English only an hour and a half a week) and yet it appears that my grammar is better than 70% of the native English speakers...are you people not embarrassed of this fact? Admittedly, my grammar and spelling are far from perfect, but if I can manage to construct a coherent sentence in a foreign language, how is it that so many native English speakers fail to do the same? Really...I'm curious to know. What are your excuses? How do the rest of you, the (seeming) minority that has a handle on their own language, explain this phenomenon?

I explain this phenomenon by saying that a lot of people (especially Americans) are lazy idiots who feel it's better to save time in writing whatever they're writing than to make their sentence coherent. Sorry if that was incoherent.

Quoted for tr00f.

Curiosity marijan, are you basing this off from encounters with teenage americans on forums? Because thats a terrible thing to base it off. Since the majority of teens on the internet think its okay to type like they're writing a text message.

Teenage Americans make me want to laugh and then choke myself with a cereal bar.

So you're saying that in real life they're quite capable of spelling normally?

d00d it s nat mi foult i dun carr, i liek 2 busy txtn to do the sentuncos.

****, i put a comma in there >.<

you'd be surprised at how bad some kids are at genral reading and writing comprehension at my school, but mainly it's because it doesn't have an immediate benefit and its rather time consuming at first, making kids not want to push themselves to get better at it.

i blame microsoft word >:[

I find most of them are quite capable, they're just lazy.

I don't accept that as a valid excuse. No one is that lazy.

You'd be amazed, i've called people out on it hear and they all tell me this isn't school.

*here

5/10 see me!

I blame the educational system.

In my day the curriculum was much more demanding than it is nowadays.

It's not that most people do not know how to speak and write correctly, but rather most people choosing to spell incorrectly and speak like their 4 years old.



its just that ebonic lexicon eloquence, baby.

this thread offends me

Your neglect of punctuation and capitalization offends me.

I don't know, to answer the OP, I'm often just slapping up posts in between whatever else I'm doing. I'm sure you feel as if I'm making up some **** but I'm not so incredibly focused on what people think of my sloppy posts here, especially since the time I do put in some effort I still get "I'm not sure I get you."

Other times I'm usually so pissed off at some stupid prevailing opinion that I'm writing a mile (lets say 1200 meters) a minute and don't even stop to think about grammar, I just want to slash at an argument.

...

I'm not sure I get you.

Mon jus ralax it nun ov ur busnis how i spel on de internt. I cun spel in real livfe so y shud i spel curectly here, hu? Godz im glad i gut dat of mi chest.

^**** you.

Yeah, it's laziness.

Texting is no excuse either! Spell properly! A lot of people dismiss apparently uneducated posts, BECAUSE OF THE WAY THEY'RE WRITTEN!!! I know I do sometimes. It's hard to convince yourself you're talking to an intelligent person when they spell worse than your 6 year old nephew who still wets the bed.

Thats really your loss then, isn't it. Awfully mad for someone who seems to be dismissive of the whole thing. Almost as if you're mad you can't read through. If you don't like poor spelling, perhaps you should leave the internet.

Those perturbed by poor spelling might find yourselves in a bit of hypocrisy down the road. I'd be less virtuous on my stand against it. Those slighted by this post may see fit to redeem themselves by exposing a more harsh reality. Half of you that do spell correctly have very little if anything interesting to say. You chant simple maxims and common mantras that are as conformed as your spelling.

I use to be of the mind that I would give you some sympathies in your complaint, because occasionally its valid, but I find that you're closed minded in most of your views and your failure to compromise is just as ignorant, if not more so that poor grammar.

Spelling can be fixed (just like erroneous opinions might I add), poor intellect and intellectual bankruptcy cannot. You all have your flaws. Taking a righteous stand against someone else's flaw might be bad for business in your internet popularity game. And my use of righteous isn't haphazard, people who continue to have this stance will be referred to, at least by me, as oojayhadists.

I know I crack myself up, but seriously, not since Napoleon have the political insults been that well crafted. I mean come on, thats right up there with "idealouges."

o u r so riet. i men, if ppl cnt un-D-stan u dats dare folt. spelingz ova ratted enywayz. i don git ppl hoo bich abot it, cnt thay raed?

Oh no, hyperbole to prove me wrong! whatever will i do? I mean honestly, you're looking like Crowquill in the "Why rap" thread.

If someone writes like that, its a lot different than someone who just can't spell words. English isn't exactly phonetic, and our use of 5+ languages makes it more than a little understandable that people might not spell ridiculous, tsunami, proboscis, or kindergarten correctly every time. We've all used l33t speak, so we're all guilty of the crime you're condemning. The easy and populist argument.

Settle down man. if you'd just climb down from that high-chair you'd realize we are not talking about bigger individual words.

ur jst h8n cuz of mi ubr 1337 $|<1||z.

First of all. Settle down is a sure shot sign of a weak argument. People say "settle down" when they are losing an argument. tell me, did I use too many capital letters? Maybe too many exclamation points? Perhaps it was my irate font color?

If you read my argument you'd know that my point in using those words was that none of them are English in origin. Therefore, they way they are pronounced are different and it prevents English from having a phonetically standard way of spelling words. Letters in French don't make the same sounds as German, or Japanese.

Spelling in English isn't something everyone one is going to do perfectly.

EDIT: From reading the thread, I understand your point. Well, People just treat this no differently to msn... There really should be no problem with this.

Lol, you rock.

Adidasss; It's just not as embarrassing to the Western world anymore, to spell like complete morons. In 1990 if you spelt like crap, people would call you on it and you'd probably call yourself dumb. In 2007, you're rarely called on it, and if you are, you're excuse is that it's cool, you're modern, and everyone's doing it.

Most people still like to spell properly so as not to come across as complete tossers but the variance is pretty huge compared to 20 years ago, or even 10.

[QUOTE=TheBig3KilledMyRainDog;368830]First of all. Settle down is a sure shot sign of a weak argument. People say "settle down" when they are losing an argument.QUOTE]

Really? I didn't know those words were only used together in losing arguments. People also say "settle down" when someone is getting worked up.

Believe it or not, I didn't have you in mind when I made this tread. More like people like 6655321. I'm sure that if you took the time to actually read your posts before posting them you could spell as well as the next person.:D

Exactly! Although, I'm not so sure that the people who do that actually care if their opinions loose validity simply because they're spelled badly. We're basically talking about complete morons here, which is still rather puzzling because one would think that such people had difficulty finishing their schooling.

You're fooling yourself if you think that appearance is irrelevant as opposed to content. Many will disregard the latter if it isn't packaged in standardized English.

I'm not saying everyone should have a vocabulary that equals that of Joyce, but when someone can't write basic thoughts in their own language I start to wonder how that can happen.

Weak argument. It's your own language, it's not only your duty to know it, it's a necessity (or at least it should be, but seeing as how most of the people that can't spell worth a damn have gone through a certain period of schooling, it may not actually be necessary to know how to write in English to survive).

It's not like we chose the language so contrary to itself. We were merely born.

Us Canucks are Natural Born Spellers, once it becomes an Olympic sport we will have at least a chance at a Gold Medal

In England there are 2 types of spellers.
Those that can and them wot carnt.

Hmmm, tis the internet, and i can see misspellings such as reversed letters do to a fast hand, or overlooking. I of course am guilty of that type of error, but basically, I know how to write correctly, being in college level English all your life teaches you such, but I,m not going to bother with such nonsense as fragments, run-ons, clauses, and participles, on a message board.

Yeah but you could bother with coherency.

no, it is. It's the misplaced letters that throw you off most likely.

I cannot speak for our American cousins-but here in U.K we can be pretty lazy about spelling and punctuation.

There is also a huge amount of accents and colloquialisms here (slang basically-just showing off with a big word!), which has a bearing on our speech-people living no more than fifty miles apart can have different words for different things.

E.G-Chewing Gum is Chuddy where I come from.

When English is not your first language you are going to learn it correctly-whereas a lot of English kids know the lingo (slang!) and so; cannot be bothered.

Adidasss-I am very impressed with your English. An erstwhile work colleague of mine who has since become a good friend, is Slovakian and her English is excellent considering she has had such a short time to learn.

Half of those commas were un needed =\.

Try nearly all of them.

The percent of illiterate English speakers has been lowered to make it seem like they are more intelligent than people who speak other languages when in fact the standard for being considered illiterate has only been lowered.

Hi, let's try to put aside the rather obnoxious opening post and use this thread to correct other people's mistakes. Maybe we'll all learn a thing or two.

For example:
This is something I see a lot so let's try and clear up a few things;

their - that which belongs to them. Examples: their accomplishments; their home town.

there - At or in that place. Examples: Sit over there. Wouldn't go there again...

they're - Contraction of "they are". Examples: They're so big. They're coming.

Also:

your - of, belonging to, or associated with you. Examples: Your book. Your bad taste in music.

you're - Contraction of "you are". Examples: You're a twat. You're not allowed to misspell this again.

K, thank you, that is all, you may go now...

Don't forget to chastise the Americans with their miss-use of the word then instead of than.

Despite a traditional Grammar School education, I've always had problems with your and you're.
In fact, it wasn't till a few months ago that the penny finally dropped. :o: