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Location: THEN: Paso Robles, Ca * NOW: Albuquerque, NM
519 posts, read 1,696,971 times
Reputation: 262
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Quote:
Originally Posted by yukon
However, lately I've been seeing job postings on craigslist with multiple grammar and spelling issues. These are postings BY the EMPLOYER, looking for an employee. I have to wonder when I see an ad like that - if they can't spell, how good will they be at calculating my paycheck?
That's a great point! I've been looking at Craig's List lately, and I cannot believe how vague postings can be. There are many job posting lacking any information about the job -- where it is, the name, the responsibilities, the pay, etc. This lack of information makes me wonder if these employers really want employees.
I can usually tell whether a person reads much, by how well they write. People who don't read much literature, generally don't write too well. They write like they talk.
I know we are off topic a bit as Towanda meant this for thread titles - but I have a friend who proofed her son's paper before he turned in for grading - and she made him re-write it because of all the 'abbreviations' in it - IMHO, OMG, BFF, IDK, etc, etc.
I have friends texting me (something I haven't gotten into) and half the time I have no idea what they are trying to tell me... no vowels! How can you write without vowels?
And nothing irks me more than a 'professional' doc going out with typos. Something like this - I don't mind so much for most of the reasons already stated but I will concede it makes it hard to read some of the posts.
I'm sorry for some of what I posted not because I believe I was wrong, but because I regret any ridicule I may have directed towards people who are grammatically challenged for whatever reason, lack of caring, lack of education or lack of intelligence. It was with some reluctance that I even looked at this thread, having feared it may have blown up. I'm happy to see that's not the case.
I'm not sure what it means to direct writing towards an academic audience. Does that mean you should intentionally dumb things down for non-academic audiences? Insert some spelling mistakes, screw up the punctuation, skip the capitalization?
There is no reason you can't use informal language, and there are ways you can include informal language in a grammatically correct way. I don't have any problem with words like "ain't" provided they're punctuated correctly, nor with abbreviations like IMO and LOL.
I guess my issue is that I'm a meticulous person and it offends my sense of order to see such dismal posts, and it's difficult for me to accept that these are due to lack of education (although I could be wrong on that). I often assume the atrocious posts are due to lack of care, to sloppiness.
And what Truckzter said, about employers' ads being full of errors? I don't understand that either. What does that say about the employer's pride in their business? Are they going to screw up your time card and pay check the same way? Maybe forget to pay the Workers Comp insurance or keep the medical insurance up to date? If all you know about a person or a business is what they have written, how can you make any other assumption than the person is an idiot or the employer is incompetent.
I just realized there is one example I can use to put it all together: Jay Leno's "Jaywalker Allstars" skit. Are these idiots appearing in the segment truly representative of our society? How can any American not know who America's first president was? Or even who the present president is?
I just don't understand how anybody can make a post (or a thread title) and totally ignore capitalization, punctuation and spelling, and expect to be taken seriously. I'm willing to make exceptions for those who weren't as fortunate as I to get a good education, but I draw the line at lazy, error filled, texting-like posts. It may be wrong for me to make this assumption, but when I see the worst of these posts I can draw no other conclusion than the person is either stupid or lazy.
I can't believe that anybody who completed a high school education cannot do better than that. Of course there's no educational requirement to be able to get on the Internet. Maybe I have a higher opinion of America's people than is deserved, maybe I'm mistaken that people in general are capable of doing better.
Well there! I hope I made my way through this post without insulting anybody.
I don't know what most of these abbreviations people use to text or use here, on CD. I recently found out DH means dear husband or dumb husband.
I don't have teenagers around so it's hard to figure this stuff out.
I agree though that some thought should be put into our spelling and grammar. We all make mistakes sometimes, I'm sure, but we should be more careful.
Canonical Abbreviation/Acronym List (http://www.astro.umd.edu/%7Emarshall/abbrev.html - broken link)
I don't mind the occasional mistake since nobody is perfect. And certainly it's alright to be informal as my use of "ya" in this post shows. My complaint is when every single sentence of a post has multiple grammatical offenses. That clearly shows the person is either poorly educated or lazy. I suspect it's the latter, but I fear it's the former.
I just don't understand how anybody can make a post (or a thread title) and totally ignore capitalization, punctuation and spelling, and expect to be taken seriously. I'm willing to make exceptions for those who weren't as fortunate as I to get a good education, but I draw the line at lazy, error filled, texting-like posts. It may be wrong for me to make this assumption, but when I see the worst of these posts I can draw no other conclusion than the person is either stupid or lazy.
You lazy ungrammatical people can communicate amongst yourselves without my participation being necessary or desired. Stupid is as stupid does.
I make a concerted effort to write in proper English whenever possible (scan through my posts if you're so inclined), but this elitist attitude frightens me much more than a person who doesn't proofread and spellcheck his posts on an informal internet forum. Sheesh...
When did the idea of corresponding and conversing in grammatically correct English become elitist? I do think the occasional typo or subject/verb disagreement can be overlooked.
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