Grammar & Spelling

[Bowling Balls Australia]

Having been a very regular reader on Total Bowling for several months now, it has never ceased to amaze me as to just how bad our spelling and grammar has become.

Are the schools around Australia not teaching our students how to spell, where to use capitals, commas, full stops and exclamation marks?

I know that emails, instant messaging services and SMS are encouraging phonetic spelling and etc, but surely there comes a time on public forums where one has to post something that at least vaguely resembles a sentence making some kind of sense.

To those whom don't take the effort to use our language properly, just remember that in 10 to 20 years time, you will still be read as a teenager and be taken just as seriously.

Max

 

[Tiger]

SMS type spelling is annoying, as are people who type ten line essays without so much as a fullstop, a comma or anything else.
The rest I can handle. But yes, it doesn't look very good.
Pure laziness really.

 

[Graham]

Ive said it time and time again Max, it is bad in some parts of the forum, but check out the Junior/Youth forum and it can be so bad you can't even understand some of the things posted. They will say "wull dat's huw i pust hear!!" but I think it's a bigger problem than that. Sometimes it's they don't really know how to spell the words (if you do - why don't you use it?) and if you are posting like that in a public forum, it show pretty poorly on you.

Take a look at some of the job requests from employees seeking work in the JobSearch forum - if you received a job application with some of the spelling and grammar errors shown in there you wouldnt even get an interview!!!

 

[Carmers]

Teachers, Spell Check and Predictive Text.

 

[PeterB]

The Footy Show forums simply don't tolerate SMS style posting. We took a poll in the early days and majority of the members don't like it. The general opinion was if you can't be bothered posting in proper english then you haven't got anything worthy to say if it's difficult to understand. Posts are deleted and if they persist, the offending member follows suit.

We don't have that problem anymore.

 

[tonx]

max i Totttali agre mayte/

danm BAd speeelers.



p.s. Did you spell check your post? It would've looked totally amusing if there was poor spelling in your complaint post. Hahaha

 

[Luke D]

In another forum I go on, one person was asked why they type that way. His answer was "It saves time"...

Its not going to hurt the poster if they lose 1 or 2 seconds in total just by typing out the full word!!!

Why try and save a couple of seconds (if that) and come across to the whoever is reading the post as an illiterate lazy "special" person.

Even worse is when they tYp LiEk tHiS CuZ DeY tInK DeY Is SoOpA kEwL!!!

You can take the time to type in alternate caps, but you can't take the time to type out a word properly, or even look it up in a dictionary if you don't know how to spell it?!?! Geez...

For everyone out there, here's something that might help http://www.dictionary.com

 

[Andrew S.]

This program is really helpful for Internet Explorer. It is free and it installs into the top tool bar and can be accessed under Tools. Most serious posters have this installed.

http://www.iespell.com/

 

[Murderdoll]

Oh, seriously. Its the internet, not school. If people cant spell then thats their own problem. As long as you can understand it, then dont complain.

I agree with people wHo TaLk LyK dIs, that's really annoying.

But you type how you wanna type. Except for that and that... and that

 

[Bowling Balls Australia]

That is three quarters of the problem Murderdoll - you can't understand what some people are writing.

 

[bowlrig]

Might just be me but it takes me 5 or 6 times longer to read some posts because I have to decypher them. Most of the time I just skip to the next post.
I Must be a lazy reader.

Rob

 

[Carmers]

No I do agree Rob, it takes extra time to figure out what some people are on about.

 

[Blonde_brunette_lis]

yeah the spelling thing can get annoying, and the uPpEr-LoWeR CaSe S**t, but surely you can understand when its just people leaving out commas, etc.

 

[Bowling Balls Australia]

No, I can understand it, there is absolutely no reason for it. As some others have said, if a post is going to be too hard to read, most people will skip it and go to the next post.

If you want to be read, make sure the article can be too. It's simple and basic English.

Max
NB> By putting in the correct apostrophes, it also gives the author a bit more time to think about what he/she is writing and to make sure it makes sense. I think it is called proof reading.

 

[Feral]

Max and Graham

I agree with what you are saying but we cannot blame people for taking short cuts to make themselves understood given todays' atrocious education system. People don't need to know the powerful skills or understanding of the three "R's" anymore - they are not taught to them. Calculators have wrecked the basics of so-called "maths", and computers have wrecked using the brain to compile a sentence with proper spelling, punctuation and syntax.

That aside and on a lighter note, here is an example of what some people get paid to do. Very productive stuff!!!

I cdnoult blviee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid. Aaoccdrinig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deson’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteteer by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?

Cheers

Feral

 

[Bowling Balls Australia]

Amazing how the mind works isn't it Feral? I did note that the blurb had capital letters, commas and full stops though, lol.

Max

 

[Easy Tiger]

I know of a guy who received his Senior School Graduation Certificate, and he couldn't even spell his own name on a piece of paper.

True Story.

Maybe some people are spending too much time at Band Camp?

 

[Ash]

One of my pet hates is when people write their whole post in captials.

Very annoying, but I'm with you on the need for punctuation Max.

 

[da_cowman]

What really gives me the ****s is when people don't know which word to use when they sound similar or spelt similar. Like when someone writes now, instead of know. It's the one definate way to make sure that sentence makes no sense at all. I don't have a problem with people writing u instead of you, or r instead of are. But when they start writing the wrong word which gives a completely different meaning to sentence, it just gives me the ****s.
Simple use of the correct words is all I ask. Also, only use capitals when your supposed to, incorrect use of capitals or excessive use is almost as annoying.

Later Da Cowman!

 

[Danni]

Hey all,

The way I see it is simply put this way: If you don't understand what the person has written, don't bother trying to decipher it because all it will do is make you feel frustrated and annoyed. Some people prefer to use shortcuts because it's easier than type the whole word itself. Perhaps it's laziness but that's their choice. You can't make someone type the way you want to. It's up to them if they want to change.

Now, don't think I am defending these people, I am just stating that it's not necessary to put people down in this manner. If you are personal problem with, perhaps, you as the person being annoyed, should write a personal message to them instead displaying your frustrations on a forum. Do you ever stop to think that your response might hurt the person/s feelings when they see that no consideration is given to the way they interpret a message.

I agree with Ash that using all capitals in a message is rude as it incinuates that the person using all capitals is yelling. But, apart from that, I am okay with what people type, so long it is not offensive.

Thanks