Poor english

[Shultzy]

Strangely my spelling and grammar have improved since I joined this forum. Maybe its because I'm the type of person who hates the though of somebody looking at my posts and "tut-tutting" at incorrect spelling and bad grammar. Perhaps it's the same thoughts that make me make sure that my woodworking projects are made to the best of my ability even if I don't always succeed.

 

[Tusses]

Strangely my spelling and grammar have improved since I joined this forum. Maybe its because I'm the type of person who hates the though of somebody looking at my posts and "tut-tutting" at incorrect spelling and bad grammar. Perhaps it's the same thoughts that make me make sure that my woodworking projects are made to the best of my ability even if I don't always succeed.

Hates the though :?:

:lol:

talk about tempting fate

 

[Jake]

There's nothing wrong with striving, but little positive about sneering.

 

[Digit]

Whilst rejecting utterly any suggestion that anybody should refrain from posting here because of poor grammar etc here is an example of a post from the pro archy I spoke of earlier.

Hi all im back did you miss me lol .
Will pop in again soon i have a paper due out in two weeks so after desert for couple of weeks now stuck typing for a couple more of well lol.
Didnt find any rock boats but there again didnt look to hard lol.

Would you care to read through many pages of a learned paper on Australian Aboriginal culture prepared in this manner?

Roy.

 

[MrJay]

its changing...

Trust me, it isn't.

 

[Tusses]

its changing...

Trust me.

?? are you a Doctor ??

 

[Jake]

Whilst rejecting utterly any suggestion that anybody should refrain from posting here because of poor grammar etc here is an example of a post from the pro archy I spoke of earlier.

Hi all im back did you miss me lol .
Will pop in again soon i have a paper due out in two weeks so after desert for couple of weeks now stuck typing for a couple more of well lol.
Didnt find any rock boats but there again didnt look to hard lol.

Would you care to read through many pages of a learned paper on Australian Aboriginal culture prepared in this manner?

Roy.

Everything's relative, man.

From my point of view (with the benefit of being able to be slightly judgemental as I believe in some absolutes) there's a distinction between slack-jawed lazyness like that, and people (all of us) who are somewhere on the scale of speaking and writing English between perfectly and perfectly imperfectly.

Not so easy for you, as it's all subjective - as the writer thinks it's OK, what's your ground for complaint?

 

[MrJay]

I guess the difference is that the person posting 'that' isn't so confident and is making up for it in cuteness; whereas the rest of us just can't write straight.

 

[Gill]

Doncha (sorry) just love it when a lawyer spells 'judgmental' wrong in a thread such as this?

Thanks for the giggle, Jake; I'm sure it was intentional :lol: .

Gill

 

[Digit]

Trying to make some sense of it Jake. I have seen some of this gentleman's efforts that defy translation.
As an ex engineer trained in the aviation industry can you imagine the devastation that poor English could cause in, for example, the maintenance sheet of a passenger aircraft?
Why for example is so much legal language still in an archaic form? Because it is understood with complete accuracy and has not been corrupted by common usage. There are times when the accuracy of individual words may be very important.
When Charles 11 first entered St Paul's cathedral he described it as awful, meaning that it filled him with awe.
How would you like to be stuck with a set of deeds such as those of my last home that were first written in 1792 if the legal language had changed as much as in that example I have just given with King Charles? Confusion would reign would it not?

Roy.

 

[Jake]

Doncha (sorry) just love it when a lawyer spells 'judgmental' wrong in a thread such as this?

Thanks for the giggle, Jake; I'm sure it was intentional :lol: .

Gill

Gosh, do I sniff some of that ... whatcha call it, spearioty?

It's usually judgement(al) in proper english, unless it's a judge's judgment.

 

[Gill]

I'm luxuriating in pomposity again!

:lol:

Gill

 

[Jake]

Sorry to prick your bubble.

I am so trained to remove the 'e', that I have to think about it.

 

[Jake]

Confusion would reign would it not?

Aye - what's wrong with that? :lol:

 

[Digit]

Nothing, if you're a lawyer, they make money out of it.

Roy.

 

[Jake]

Quite, so cheer up - their perspective is as good as any.

 

[Mark68]

I hate posts like this, i think its just snobbery, i can spell better than you so i must be better than you!! The same as a person who drives a rolls royce looking down their nose at someone who drives a ford, thats all it is..
Does it make a person any better if they spell words correctly,,in the same,does it make a person a lesser person because they cannot spell as good...
I'm not that good at grammar,the same i would imagine as others on here,,and reading a post like this,really does make me mad.
Maybe it should be like hundreds of years ago,,only the rich learned to read and write,,keep the peasant's down!!!!

I use to work with a old bloke years ago who was always calling the youth of that time thick, because according to him they could not read or write.
Then he use to start saying really long words and telling everyone how to spell them,,people soon told him what to do with his words..

Anyway,,all i think it is, is sheer snobbery when people start having a go at other people over their spelling...

My two pence worth..

 

[BradNaylor]

It's nothing to do with snobbery - it's about having pride in whatever one does.

I just cannot understand the attitude of ' I'm no good at spelling or grammar and anyone who thinks that this is important is a snob'.

In a woodworking context this is exactly the same as saying 'I'm no good at dovetails so you'll just have to put up with crap drawers on this cabinet I've made for you.'

Sounds pretty arrogant, doesn't it?

Of course, you wouldn't say that. You would make the effort to get better at cutting dovetails until they were of an acceptable standard - or better. What's more, you would feel good about improving your abilities.

So why should aspiring to use the English language properly be any different?

Cheers
Dan

 

[dennis]

As this is a woodworking forum I would think that everyone would aspire to be good at woodwork,admittedly it would help if everyone was perfect with their grammar regarding posts,but who would set the bar and at what level would grammar be deemed as acceptable, I would think that there are very few people on this forum who use it perfectly.Grammar is far from the top of my priorities and if it was higher I would join a forum on it. As I have pointed out before a lot of people find it difficult enough posting without having the fear of being rebuked for incorrect grammar.In the time that I have been following this forum I have only had difficulty understanding the intended meaning of a couple of posts, and anyone who does have difficulty understanding a particular post could ask for clarification instead of getting high and mighty and rebuking the poster and possibly putting them off posting again.I may be the odd one out on this forum but I tend to get annoyed about poverty,abuse,all criminallity,wrong doing and all other hardships in the world,and the fact of wether someone cannot spell correctly does not mean a lot to me.

Dennis

 

[Argee]

........ instead of getting high and mighty and rebuking the poster and possibly putting them off posting again.

There have been very few examples of this, surely? The OP was giving an example of what I took to be an oral communication anyway, which then led to a few "pet peeves" being aired. Unfortunately, in this thread, this seems impossible to do without polarising attitudes and being less than polite in some cases.

Ray.