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Old 01-06-2012, 09:12 AM
 
10,449 posts, read 12,461,160 times
Reputation: 12597

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Quote:
Originally Posted by HurricaneDC View Post
I'm sorry but the whole misuse of things like "your" and "their" really get my goat. It's not a matter of having impeccable grammar, it's a matter of not coming off like an imbecile. My mother learned English when she was 33 and she doesn't make those mistakes, yet some idiots who have it as their native tongue still do.
They're not idiots. They just don't know or care. There's a difference.
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Old 01-06-2012, 09:13 AM
 
46,276 posts, read 27,093,964 times
Reputation: 11126
Quote:
Originally Posted by nimchimpsky View Post
I love how people are so black-and-white about grammar and style. There are plenty of grammar police out there that would argue the opposite. There are also grammar police that would say that the period is inside the quotation mark when the whole sentence is quoted, and outside when only part of the sentence is quoted. And there are grammar police that would criticize you for calling it a "quote" and not a "quotation mark". So what's your point? All this is is a game. It's about who can prove they know more, and who can be more anal retentive, etc. It has nothing to do with cognitive ability.
So, you are not going to correct Ghost? You understand he did the exact same thing, right?

Anyway, there are rules for grammar, whether you think they are correct or not, does not make you right.

Ask any English teacher where the quotes go.

An abbreviation of a word is not improper grammar.

However, I do agree with you that what a person writes on a board as this, does not make him stupid or illiterate, but it would be nice sometimes to really understand what they are talking about.
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Old 01-06-2012, 09:15 AM
 
46,276 posts, read 27,093,964 times
Reputation: 11126
Quote:
Originally Posted by nimchimpsky View Post
My guess is that most people either don't know better or don't care enough to pay attention. I can't see the squiggly lines because I read my computer through Braille and that doesn't transfer to my Braille display, but I'm more meticulous about my grammar and spelling than most posters on CD. I do it cause it makes me feel good and I do want people to assume I am intelligent, so I play into their petty little judgments.

Having impeccable grammar has its place. It's useful for a résumé, and for emails to your boss, and for papers that you hand into your professor. Writing grammatically and spelling correctly is a sure way to win many people over, and to have a better chance of having your opinions respected and your intelligence trusted.

But that is only true to the extent that people judge you. Beyond that, on the actual neurological level, memorizing and employing a set of linguistic rules is a very small slice of all the cognitive abilities humans are capable of. A lot of what someone knows or doesn't know about grammar and spelling is a result of their education and their conditioning, and has nothing to do with their in-born intelligence. Every time someone calls a person "stupid" for making a grammatical or orthographic error, they are equating conditioning and rote memory with critical thinking and intelligence.

I am lucky to have gone to a school that really drove home correct grammar and spelling. I also just have the kind of personality where I care how my words are perceived. Not everyone has the same background or personality though.
You do understand that you are going directly against your last post, right?
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Old 01-06-2012, 09:18 AM
 
10,449 posts, read 12,461,160 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chucksnee View Post
So, you are not going to correct Ghost? You understand he did the exact same thing, right?

Anyway, there are rules for grammar, whether you think they are correct or not, does not make you right.

Ask any English teacher where the quotes go.

An abbreviation of a word is not improper grammar.

However, I do agree with you that what a person writes on a board as this, does not make him stupid or illiterate, but it would be nice sometimes to really understand what they are talking about.
I can understand if someone's grammar and spelling is so garbled that it literally impedes communication. But most people who make minor mistakes are really not interfering with successful communication. An accidental "their" instead of "they're" isn't enough to make the whole entire post unintelligible. People are so dramatic about grammar, and it boils down to the fact that they judge intelligence based on grammar skills, when the two have nothing to do with one another.

I go to a school in the U.S. where almost everyone speaks English as a second language, and their English is chock-full of grammatical errors and spelling mistakes--ones that most people would never make. And yet they are getting Ph.D.'s in neuroscience and linguistics and psychology and so on. They are publishing articles about topics that would go right over most people's heads.

They are smart, but their English isn't perfect because it's not their first language. People continue to judge based on grammar usage though, and it's really sad because they miss out on a lot of opportunities of getting to know someone who really is intelligent and fun to chat with, all based on grammar.

When will people understand that intelligence and the ability to produce grammatical sentences are not one and the same?
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Old 01-06-2012, 09:23 AM
 
10,449 posts, read 12,461,160 times
Reputation: 12597
Quote:
Originally Posted by chucksnee View Post
You do understand that you are going directly against your last post, right?
How so? I am not actually trying to correct anyone's grammar cause I don't care enough, but I'm just pointing out the various ways in which a prescriptivist could try to "one-up" someone. I only responded to your post in the way I did to illustrate a point. Honestly, though, I couldn't care less where you put the period in relation to the quotation mark.
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Old 01-06-2012, 09:27 AM
 
Location: Murika
2,526 posts, read 3,004,515 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nimchimpsky View Post
People who start entire threads just based the fact that someone can't spell your/you're need to get over it. Lol.

Language doesn't deteriorate--it evolves. Humans have been using language for thousands of years and we have yet to have language deteriorate. It evolves and the people who don't like change put a negative slant on it by calling it deterioration, but it's the same change that you contributed to when your own parents and grandparents criticized you for "butchering" English (or whatever other language).

Do you realize that the fact people started replacing "thou" and "ye" with "you" was seen as language deterioration? The older generation criticized the younger generation for making a "mockery" of the language by lumping people you would "thou" in with the people you would "ye". Of course, now we use the "you" pronoun without even thinking about it. Other languages are having this same debate now, about the evolution of a formal and familiar pronoun into one pronoun for all (either the formal or the familiar). It's all part of language change. 100 years or 200 years from now, people will be using those new pronouns without even thinking about the fact that speakers today perceive the change as "deterioration".

Language is recognizable if communication happens successfully. Whether someone puts a period before or after a quotation mark does not lead to a breakdown in communication.
Point taken.
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Old 01-06-2012, 09:27 AM
 
18,381 posts, read 19,018,265 times
Reputation: 15699
Quote:
Originally Posted by nimchimpsky View Post
I can understand if someone's grammar and spelling is so garbled that it literally impedes communication. But most people who make minor mistakes are really not interfering with successful communication. An accidental "their" instead of "they're" isn't enough to make the whole entire post unintelligible. People are so dramatic about grammar, and it boils down to the fact that they judge intelligence based on grammar skills, when the two have nothing to do with one another.

I go to a school in the U.S. where almost everyone speaks English as a second language, and their English is chock-full of grammatical errors and spelling mistakes--ones that most people would never make. And yet they are getting Ph.D.'s in neuroscience and linguistics and psychology and so on. They are publishing articles about topics that would go right over most people's heads.

They are smart, but their English isn't perfect because it's not their first language. People continue to judge based on grammar usage though, and it's really sad because they miss out on a lot of opportunities of getting to know someone who really is intelligent and fun to chat with, all based on grammar.

When will people understand that intelligence and the ability to produce grammatical sentences are not one and the same?
I agree, a grammatical or spelling error here or there does not mean the person making it, doesn't know their own mind or not educated. education can be different for some people. many times you learn your most important lessons in life when you are out of school. some people didn't have much interest in school and didn't open their minds to the world till after. learning sometimes can depend on how interesting a teacher makes the subject
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Old 01-06-2012, 09:29 AM
 
3,498 posts, read 2,217,906 times
Reputation: 646
My only issue with bad grammar is with people who accuse others of being stupid and use horrendous grammar in the process.
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Old 01-06-2012, 09:33 AM
 
10,449 posts, read 12,461,160 times
Reputation: 12597
Quote:
Originally Posted by Skinny Puppy View Post
My only issue with bad grammar is with people who accuse others of being stupid and use horrendous grammar in the process.
That always cracks me up.

The period were supposed to went before the quote marke, nog after!!!!1!!!11!!1

Lol.
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Old 01-06-2012, 09:38 AM
 
Location: Dallas, TX
31,767 posts, read 28,815,462 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chucksnee View Post
Yea, and the period is supposed to be on the inside of the "end quote."
"Yea."
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