I saw this exchange on the Randi Rhodes thread and thought might merit its own discussion in "Casual Convrsation."


Questions:

1. How important is proper and formal English on a board like ? What is your reasoning?

2. Are you more or less likely to read a well written post than one that is poorly written or does it matter?

3. Which is more important to you, making or reading:

a. fewer quality posts

b. or higher quantity of posts, even if they are hurridly thrown together?

1. How important is proper and formal English on a board like ? What is your reasoning?

If it can be read- it is good enough for me. I do throw my posts together in a hurry- as I do it while researching work related material. I am not penalized for this at work, considering the graphic nature of what I have to deal with- remember, I help compile reports and research of various criminal cases at a pych hospital. AD is a diversion for me from looking at pictures of victims and very, very bad stuff. It also probably lends itself to some of the anger in my posts- but, nevertheless, it is a good diversion. Spell check is too much of a hassle, and locks up on me alot here at work.

If I can read and follow it- I am cool with it. I think the only two very annoying posters dealing with this subject (NOT the content) has been net and Kivrotorrah. I am cool with Net's postings, but I wish he would break it up a bit. But, as I am as bad as him at this at times, I will not call the kettle black.

2. Are you more or less likely to read a well written post than one that is poorly written or does it matter?

yes and no. Well written doesn't mean well communicated. I will admit I will like the post a bit more, and think more thoughtfully upon the writers points. But really, the points made in the posts are far more important than syntax, grammar, spelling.

Like I said- it is "America's debate" NOT "Mrs, Crabapple's debate and english lesson"

BTW Bof- of all the people on the board- I can understand your points on this issue- being a school teacher and all, it was your profession and you have a right to be proud of it. Everyone else that harps on it has a stick up thier butt and needs to get to the point instead of worrying about the small stuff. See my sig on the rest

3. Which is more important to you, making or reading:



a. fewer quality posts

b. or higher quantity of posts, even if they are hurridly thrown together?

If they make a point- I believe most folks here aren't dedicated to the board to the point that you need an editor, or a spell check of every post. Spelling in the English language doesn't make all that much sense anyway- I think we are about the only major language where we have,um, where, were, and we're, all sound the same, spelled different. Our alphabet is too small for all the sounds of our language, and, unlike other languages, words aren't spelled how they sound. If I can read and decipher the post, without too much effort, I am cool. Typos don't raise my blood pressure at all.

I'm not talking about you, CR, but there are a few posts and posters I would prefer grading than debating, but I restrain myself.

These would be the "fly-by" posts and those so filled with bad spelling, wrong word usage, lack of proper punctuation, run on sentences, poorly constructed sentences and so on, that it takes two or three readings to figure out what in hell the person is "trying" to communicate. I have resolved to completely avoid the second category. I hope I can keep that resolve.

"Liberal elitism" must bleed over into everything I do.

BoF

Questions:

1. How important is proper and formal English on a board like ? What is your reasoning?

Not important, with online forums came a whole new method for making conversation. Literally 100's of words have been abbreviated, most popular of all the famous lol. If I can understand the sentence structure misspelled words dont bother me either. See the word (don't) in the last sentence lacks an apostrophe, honestly unless someone is really board or lacks an argument to make, why would they go out of their way to correct such an error in an environment as informal as this? I know your a teacher as well as a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to grammar BOF. I appreciate the extra effort you usually put into spelling and grammar. I'm just lazy when it comes to details that I only find important in formal situations, besides I usually ended up ahead of the class in my writing skills, while substantially behind on my spelling grades year after year. If that isn't a bit backwards. You seem to like to play the teacher role here a good bit yourself.

2. Are you more or less likely to read a well written post than one that is poorly written or does it matter?

There is a limit, I mean if I struggle to understand a sentence I may lose interest in the post.

3. Which is more important to you, making or reading:

a. fewer quality posts

b. or higher quantity of posts, even if they are hurridly thrown together?

I think quality is, but the primary thing that makes a quality post is substance, and composition, rather than perfect spelling, I believe.

Oh gawd- I just realized, the two worst offenders were the first to post.

Also edited to add:- as someone here at work pointed out- we practice "DAR" charting- which means, we are required to "chart" in a manner that does not follow accepted conventions of english rules. We also have abbreviations most here wouldn't recognize, and the spell check on the charting is automatic.

When you chart, you drop "and" and "the" and drop most puncutation.

I understand some of the internet jargon but not all of it. When folks start abbreviating things, sometimes I don't understand what they are trying to say.

As far as the spelling goes, I'm afraid that if I get careless I'll actually forget the proper spelling in much the same way that our society is forgetting the proper way to speak. When so few young people, comparatively speaking, are even managing to graduate from high school (I think the news said that Detroit high schools were graduating somewhere around 30%!--correct me if that's a higher percentage than what was reported), I think that few really know proper grammar and spelling in the first place.

Yes, CR, I am a former Registered Nurse, so I know that there are a lot of shortcuts taken when documenting on the job in a medical setting. So I'm not really addressing that. And I also understand your position that people who get all hung up on grammar and spelling miss the point and somehow have their butts on top of their shoulders, but there are some people, even here, who don't know the difference.

When the literacy rate in the United States is already low when compared to other industrialized countries, this is really sad, and we who pride ourselves on the knowledge we have retained from our public schooling feel that we need to raise the standard, not lower it. We need to do it not for the sake of some sort of elitism or classism, but to help combat the dumbing down of our society.

I must say I am a bit sensitive to the criticism, because I have been somewhat of a "wordsmith" - though in a much different category than some of the other writers here- my main outlet has always been comedy- and wordplay games do demand somewhat of a grasp of the English language and vocabulary.

Some words are quaint and fun.

Constabulary? Who uses that anymore? Sounds like something you do "if you don't stop it, I can stab you larry"

And I honestly do lean on the editors that buy my stuff- as they will craft it however they need to in order to sell the stuff.

Besides- some of the most truly dumb people I have ever known were great proof-readers.

That is where I got the quote from- a motorcycle magazine writer that goes by the name of "kickstand"- seriously P-O'd at an editor that was WAY hung up on spelling and not really looking at the content- which is what puts the bread on the table.

1. How important is proper and formal English on a board like ? What is your reasoning?

I'm okay with casual English or journalistic-styled English on Formal English tends to be stilted. You don't ever see it in popular novels. You might see it in popular nonfiction, but the best nonfiction tends to go with informalities that don't suffer over strange grammar anomalies. Some authors should have their thesaurus privileges revoked and their Oxford dictionaries burned.

2. Are you more or less likely to read a well written post than one that is poorly written or does it matter?

I tend to skip over poorly written posts, and for the same reason I cannot face marking up one more college student's paper. It's physically painful.

3. Which is more important to you, making or reading:
a. fewer quality posts
b. or higher quantity of posts, even if they are hurridly thrown together?

It's important for me to get the English right when composing, but I do make mistakes. Thus the need for editors in this world.

Maybe if someone's in a hurry, it's not the right time to write a post.

Basic principle: Quality over quantity.

Sidebar: Texting is done because cell phone keys suck for constructing real words. Blackberry thumbing sucks a little less.

Bottombar: Getting a new keyboard is like buying a new outfit. The MS Natural is my latest. Kinda sucks that it won't work with the PS2 switch, only USB.

Offroadbar: Don't need a keyboard on the backup machine very often.

1. How important is proper and formal English on a board like ? What is your reasoning?

Proper English, I think is important because it means you can be easily understood. I don't think it needs to be formal.

2. Are you more or less likely to read a well written post than one that is poorly written or does it matter?

There are some posters whose posts I won't read. I'll start and just give up. It has nothing to do with a post being shorthand, I've really yet to see that. Mainly, it's a lack of punctuation or excruciatingly horrible spelling that gets me. I understand spelling mistakes... I make them. But there is a difference between making a mistake in spelling and not knowing how to spell. There are some people who repeatedly spell the same words incorrectly and that says something about that individual - and, I admit, I take those individuals' arguments less seriously as a result.

And, I also admit, I think less of an argument if a poster can't make that argument clear through proper grammar. My thought is, if you can't construct a decent sentence, how am I to believe you can construct a decent argument?

On the other hand, there are posters (one in particular) who add flowery language in order to appear to know what their talking about - re the argument they are putting forth. I find that annoying and I won't read it. I'll scan it and if I can't make sense of that scan, I ignore it. I won't waste my time trying to go through it.

3. Which is more important to you, making or reading:

a. fewer quality posts

b. or higher quantity of posts, even if they are hurridly thrown together?

I'll go with a.

I used the words "standard," and "formal," to mean the same thing as "proper."

Proper is ok. I use contractions. Having grown up in an era when it was "didn't," not "didnt," I prefer the apostrophe. Not having it there tends to be a distraction and slows my reading if only by a fraction of a second.

1. How important is proper and formal English on a board like ad.gif ? What is your reasoning?

Not formal English or even proper English, but the care you take in constructing your posts says something about you. If you have 3000+ posts that contain 5000+ spelling and/or grammar errors, that says a lot about you. You don't care to notice basic errors in your presentation.

2. Are you more or less likely to read a well written post than one that is poorly written or does it matter?

The argument presented in a poorly phrased post is a lot less convincing. I read almost every post on although a repetitive one (which usually come from the "usual suspects") will be skimmed and not digested.

3. Which is more important to you, making or reading:

a. fewer quality posts

b. or higher quantity of posts, even if they are hurriedly thrown together?

Clearly is is option "A". Brevity is the soul of wit, according to the Bard. Take some time, show that the quality of your posts is important to you, and you will gain more respect. Throw together seemingly random, mis-spelled or overly vague words and you get nothing but laughed at.

Now, I text message fairly frequently and I use TXTspeak in that situation. I go out and I use slang and the occasional profanity. Those behaviors are not appropriate when you are trying to convey a coherent argument or trying to explain why you feel the way you do.