[RLacey]

Kiddos... you crack me up.

[Squinky]

I'm more of a grammar strumpet, myself.

[Jatsie]

I have photographic evidence of poor spelling, I must scan it and make a contribution!

It was taken in the observation deck of the World Trade Centre, of a sign that read, and I'll paraphrase: "Do not go on roof if you are afraid of hieghts [sic]"

[rlpw]

wow that is great you got pinky out like that. there's only one thing I can say to light up the GN's and pinkgothic.

WAZZZUP PINKY !!! YOUZE ROCKS DE HISOUSE GIRLY!

(SNICKER)

[SnorkleCat]

Originally Posted by After a brisk nap

I think many people for whom English is a second language take spelling and grammar more seriously than native speakers, because we actually depend on the rules to help us write and read, while natives rely more on intuition. In contrast, I was never explicitly taught English punctuation. So not only do I place commas by gut feel myself, but if others punctuate incorrectly it doesn't bother me nearly as much. (Punctuation is quite flexible in British English, anyway--although somewhat more rigid in American.)

Whether one depends on the actual rules or on intuition, wrong is wrong. If one's intuition is wrong, then perhaps one ought to go back to school and learn the rules. Most people speak incorrectly, so if a person- especially a child- never reads well-written literature, he will not be able to write very well, and in my opinion, that's the problem. People need to read more and watch less television. As a native speaker, poor grammar and spelling bother me terribly. We have rules of spelling and grammar so that meaning will be clear. I'm tired of people saying "oh you know what I meant." Sometimes I don't. Here's an example. I'm a journalist. Without fail, when going through police logs, I find the phrase "cited for following to close. Suspect adviced" The first time, it took me a few minutes of head scratching to decipher that the officer meant that the person was tailgating.
I would argue that there are plenty of native speakers who take proper grammar and punctuation seriously and attempt to follow the rules (within reason of course).
Also, what do you mean about American punctuation being more stringent than British punctuation?

[jacog]

Originally Posted by Squinky

... more of a grammar strumpet ...

does that mean you grammar for money?

[Squinky]

Any old grammar will do.

[Lee in Limbo]

Originally Posted by Squinky

I'm more of a grammar strumpet, myself.

*thrills at the prospect of being corrected*

[Sage]

Eh, I'm on the fence on the grammar/punctuation/spelling issue.

On the one hand these issues do grate on my nerves a bit, but on the other hand two of my favorite forumites consistently use little or no punctuation and one of those two is far from being the world's greatest speller. I've come to accept these minor foibles as part of their charm and simply the way they express themselves.

However, I cannot resist correcting their spelling and punctuation whenever I quote something they've said although I don't draw attention to the fact that I've done so.

[rlpw]

Originally Posted by SnorkleCat

Whether one depends on the actual rules or on intuition, wrong is wrong. If one's intuition is wrong, then perhaps one ought to go back to school and learn the rules. Most people speak incorrectly, so if a person- especially a child- never reads well-written literature, he will not be able to write very well, and in my opinion, that's the problem. People need to read more and watch less television. As a native speaker, poor grammar and spelling bother me terribly. We have rules of spelling and grammar so that meaning will be clear. I'm tired of people saying "oh you know what I meant." Sometimes I don't. Here's an example. I'm a journalist. Without fail, when going through police logs, I find the phrase "cited for following to close. Suspect adviced" The first time, it took me a few minutes of head scratching to decipher that the officer meant that the person was tailgating.
I would argue that there are plenty of native speakers who take proper grammar and punctuation seriously and attempt to follow the rules (within reason of course).
Also, what do you mean about American punctuation being more stringent than British punctuation?

As a native speaker of the English language I find it that most of us 'native EN' speakers tend to add our local 'color' to our writing style while journalists lean more to the standardized English.
I also want to add that if you do not stay in constant practice of spelling and grammar after finishing school you have a tendency to slip. If you go to any of my posts you will find how mush this is true. I am one of the worst at spelling phonetically instead of correctly.

[After a brisk nap]

Originally Posted by SnorkleCat

Whether one depends on the actual rules or on intuition, wrong is wrong. If one's intuition is wrong, then perhaps one ought to go back to school and learn the rules.

Sure, but my point is that someone who depends on intuition to construct and interpret written text may have less need for ortographic correctness.

Also, what do you mean about American punctuation being more stringent than British punctuation?

I have read that American punctuation (specifically the placing of commas) tends to follow the grammatical construction of a sentence, while British punctuation tends more to follow spoken rhythm. Because rhythm can be varied, the British style allows more flexibility as to whether or not to use a comma at a particular position.

For instance, take this aside from a review of Eats, Shoots & Leaves:

The supreme peculiarity of this peculiar publishing phenomenon is that the British are less rigid about punctuation and related matters, such as footnote and bibliographic form, than Americans are. An Englishwoman lecturing Americans on semicolons is a little like an American lecturing the French on sauces. Some of Truss’s departures from punctuation norms are just British laxness.

Not knowing the exact rules of American punctuation, it is hard for me to evaluate these claims.

[Jeysie]

Like most things about me, it depends.

In regards to myself, I generally take care to utilize proper spelling and grammar, even when chatting in IRC or IM (although spelling is my much better skill). I also try to be precise and consistent with my word choices.

However, I tend to have some problems with proper comma placement and run-on sentences at times. I also am not bothered with the thought of using some common 'Net acronyms like BRB or IIRC (although I dislike excessive Netspeak). Finally, when chatting in IRC, I have the bizarre tendency to sometimes omit words in my sentences. It's as if the words somehow get lost somewhere between my brain and the keyboard.

In regards to others, it depends on the person in question.

If I know the person is not a native speaker of English, I'm generally pretty lenient. As long as I can understand what they're trying to say, I usually won't comment on any mistakes. After all, they can write at least two languages; all I really know is English.

I tend to be a lot harder on people I know are native speakers, however. I especially get very irritated when people say that they don't think certain types of communication (like forums or chatting) are "worthy" of the effort of using proper language usage.

As far as I'm concerned, if a given conversation is worth having at all, it's worth making sure that your point as made as accurately as possible. Also, the more often you make the effort to use proper language usage, the more instinctive and less effort it becomes.

Finally, I think that not being able to use your own language properly reflects very badly on you and your fellow native speakers, especially when there are people who are native speakers of other languages who can use your own language better than you can.

Having said all that, I generally am not obsessive about correcting improper grammar and spelling. Although I do have a love of joking around whenever someone makes a goof that changes the meaning of what they were trying to say, especially if said new meaning is humorous.

Case in point: We have an in-joke now in my roleplaying group that sprung from when we were trying to impersonate health inspectors to sneak into a building, and the GameMaster made a rather ambiguous choice of phrasing:

***

GM, in-character: "Oh, no ya don't. 'Da Boss told me to keep an eye out for this sort of 'ting. See? It says right here on da blacklist... 'No fake health inspectors without da correct paperwork'."

Me, in-character: "There's correct paperwork for being a fake health inspector?"

Other player: "Dang, you are faster than me tonight."

Me: "Is that what you were going to ask?"

Other player: "Pretty much. I was going to say that we would be right back with the fake health inspector paperwork. Dang, I would have loved to have that Maintenance memo right then."

Me: "Shoulda thought of that before I coated it with paint."

Other player: "I know. It still would have been funny to hand him that paper, have him puzzle over it, and decide it was fake. Then I'd respond with, 'Of course it's fake. I'm a fake health inspector, aren't I? So, just be a good fellow and let me in, since I have the proper paperwork for a fake health inspector.'"

***

So, now, whenever says something or makes a typo that has several possible interpretations due to ambiguous phrasing/punctuation, we joke about "correct fake health inspector paperwork".

Peace & Luv, Liz

[omloflump]

Originally Posted by Jazhara7

Pinksie (Pinkgothic) is the local spelling nazi.

The funny thing is, Tibsie is the only native speaker of English, while Pinksie and I are both German.

Um...

[Jazhara7]

Originally Posted by Sage

Eh, I'm on the fence on the grammar/punctuation/spelling issue.

On the one hand these issues do grate on my nerves a bit, but on the other hand two of my favorite forumites consistently use little or no punctuation and one of those two is far from being the world's greatest speller. I've come to accept these minor foibles as part of their charm and simply the way they express themselves.

However, I cannot resist correcting their spelling and punctuation whenever I quote something they've said although I don't draw attention to the fact that I've done so.

I know what you mean. I often don't bother to actually correct people. This job just requires my presence so that I can occasionally correct something that is so horribly wrong that the meaning of the sentence is not determinable. Most of the time I just enjoy the diversity.

Or sometimes when I'm in a bad mood, I borrow my evil twin's mallet and punish the miscreants personally, after having first corrected their grammar.

>>>Yeah, I hate when she does that.<<<

Originally Posted by omloflump

Um...

Of us Grammar/Spelling Nazis, I mean.



-

[Trumgottist]

Everybody makes mistakes, of course. But I do get annoyed at language mistakes when they're made intentionally for no reason (other than to annoy or to be lazy). Particularly when combined with a lack of capitalization. As has been pointed out earlier in this thread, it makes the post harder to read, and even more so for us non-natives.

Ok, that wasn't entirely truthful. I dislike stupid language errors a bit in Swedish, too. (Short hairy sick nurse, anyone?) Sometimes, proofreading doesn't seem to exist anymore. That's bad.

[Aj_]

I find as long as people make an attempt at spelling and using grammar correctly I don't mind at all if they make mistakes. When people add breaks so paragraphs
don't wrap
in my
browser,
use too much colour, WRITE IN ALL CAPS, or Capitalize Every Word In A Sentence, then it's quite frustrating, because it's hard to read. I'm all right at spelling, proof-reading is quite hard for me, and I'm not the best at grammar.

[undeaf]

Oh yeah, I've noticed superflous line breaks too occasionally, and they never made sense to me.

When people use them,
it looks like
they're trying to be
poetic.

[Squinky]

Something silly I wrote a few years ago:

This
is not poetry.
This
is just a bunch
of scattered words
on a page.
Just
because the ENTER key
on this computer
has a mind of its
own
doesn't mean
that this
assortment of scattered words
on a page
is a work of
art.
What is
the world coming
to when
every single
pointless
insignificant
piece
of
nonsense
can be considered
beauty?
Please,
do
tell
m
e
.
.

[AFGNCAAP]

Ironically, I thought ^that was a great poem. Especially the beginning. (The verses do start to break a bit too randomly to my liking in the second half.)

And I'd love to think that every single pointless insignificant piece of nonsense could be (potentially) considered beauty. Does the beauty have to be serious, or useful?

[rlpw]

I'm beautiful and never serious !