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Pet Peeves: Mangled English

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i never look to posts in a hifi forum or ads on ebay for good english usage. stupidity, ignorance, and general cluelessness are not hard to find. the man in my avatar, mr. cormac mccarthy, a writer whom most literary people think of as one of the greatest writers in english, eschews quotation marks, has been known to write 100 word sentences (and they still make sense), and uses the holy hell out of sentence fragments.
 
Always keep a copy of Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style" nearby. :yes:

The AK EDIT button is also handy.
 
Wolverine said:
Well as an English major I should get more worked up about this topic than I most.... Spell check is a tool that is underutilized by many but what is worse is when the person accepts a suggested change from spell check that is the wrong choice. I have recieved e-mails that suggest we can "gain incite to the problem" or that I have been "adviced of the problem".
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Sorry. Can't resist doing this. r-e-c-E-I-v-e-d :D
 
"Anyone who can only think of one way to spell a word obviously lacks imagination."

Mark Twain
 
There's no substitution for actual proof-reading (and sad to say that even many editors of venerable newspapers have forgotten this practice).
 
My mother was a secretary in a junior high school in the early 70's. Mom had a high school diploma and was nervous about working around all the college educated teachers.

She later would tell stories: the Math teachers couldn't spell. The English teachers couldn't add. Mom personally taught the school counselor how to organize and pay her bills as well as balance her check book. The counselor had a Masters degree.

Everybody has their own skill. That's what makes the world go around.
 
I've moaned more than once on another forum about improper grammar, spelling and usage. Such abuse was profuse there. But my moaning made me more enemies than did any good opening anyone's eyes to the problem. Some agreed. Many others got offended.

I've given up worrying about it; a lot of people on these fora may be foreign, and then other people may have English as their native tongue, but simply have other things on their mind that they consider more important.

A prime example is the posting party that types in all-lower-case-sans-punctuation in a Dylanesque style. A local guy I know here does this. But he is still a very good and meticulous auto mechanic, and very smart. Language is simply not important to him.

I had proper syntax drummed into me as a kid--not by school teachers, but by my mom and my maternal grandfather. Other people may not be as "fortunate" as I was in this respect.

If I have doubts as to the spelling of a word just typed I will merely Google it and see if there are other suggestions. But I also admit that there are some that are never bothered by such doubts, owing perhaps to their knowing the spelling of a word without doubt, or not having doubts simply due to a lack of knowledge that would support such doubt.

While I try my best I also realize that I'm not perfect, and often my knackwurst digits engage in debauchery, betraying me at every turn in my qwertyuioperation. Oh well.... :o :D
 
shrinkboy said:
i never look to posts in a hifi forum or ads on ebay for good english usage. stupidity, ignorance, and general cluelessness are not hard to find. the man in my avatar, mr. cormac mccarthy, a writer whom most literary people think of as one of the greatest writers in english, eschews quotation marks, has been known to write 100 word sentences (and they still make sense), and uses the holy hell out of sentence fragments.
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I have to agree. Conveying information and one's train of thought is the important part. Getting stalled and frustraited on how 'proper' punctuation, adverbs, adjecitves etc, are used is your own personal limitation, not the writer/author.
Intolerence and interpretive fault finding are easy when you have a closed or nearly closed mind. A sad commentary I must say.
 
elgato8905 said:
Don't be suprised if some of the same people can work circles around you with a soldering iron
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I recognize my limitations at soldering, so I tend to stay away from it......:yes:

I understand that there will always be mistakes - typos, spelling mistakes, poor grammar and syntax: God knows I make mistakes - there are probably mistakes in this very post.

However, I have a hard time tolerating blatant, and apparently purposeful, disregard of basic capitalization and punctuation rules: How difficult is it, even for an emerging English learner or for someone with limited schooling, to figure out and practice that a sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a period? :scratch2:

Language is a tool, just like a soldering iron, and if one doesn't care or have the capabilities to learn how to use this tool correctly, or at least in line with communal standards, one may want to reconsider using it beyond the scope of one's abilities.
 
Njord Noatun said:
I recognize my limitations at soldering, so I tend to stay away from it......:yes:

I understand that there will always be mistakes - typos, spelling mistakes, poor grammar and syntax: God knows I make mistakes - there are probably mistakes in this very post.

However, I have a hard time tolerating blatant, and apparently purposeful, disregard of basic capitalization and punctuation rules: How difficult is it, even for an emerging English learner or for someone with limited schooling, to figure out and practice that a sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a period? :scratch2:

Language is a tool, just like a soldering iron, and if one doesn't care or have the capabilities to learn how to use this tool correctly, or at least in line with communal standards, one may want ro reconsider using it beyond the scope of one's abilities.
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Walk a mile in soneone else's shoes is a good way to keep proper perspective. Tools are only as good as one's ability, some have more than others plain and simple. Judging how hard one uses these abilities isn't up to me, you or anyone else but ones self.
Anyway, this forum is about audio, not proper grammer. I'm sure there are plenty of other forums on the web for this discussion.
 
I see it as laziness on the part of the writer, not to learn proper grammar. I don't care about misspelled words or typos, but when poor grammar makes it hard to read, I just move on.


Some of the poor grammar probably is to blame on the lack of reading books that most people are guilty of.
 
Though not really a grammatical error, the one I find funny (and very common) is when you see something advertised for ".25 cents" or ".89 cents," etc. So I should then be able to pay with a penny and get change back, right? I've been tempted to try it just to see the reaction I would get.
 
Speaking of that simple decimal point, have you ever heard the discussion that poor guy had with Verizon trying to get them to see the difference between .002 cents/minute and .002 DOLLARS/minute? Poor guy even started a blog on the whole ugly mess. The stupidity shown by the Verizon people is beyond human comprehension.
 
Another thing I find irritating is acronym abuse. If you're going to use one to sound hip or cool then please know what it means.

Today I was reading a car site and a guy was describing his transmission as being "foobar". What the hell does that mean? F***** over ostensibly but all right? On top of that the tranny was dead, kaput, fried, and generally only worth its weight in metal so it wasn't FUBAR. If it was running poorly and was utilizing the latest in bailing wire and duct tape technology then maybe it might be considered FUBAR.

Sorry for the rant. I only had one semester of grammar in high school and college so please forgive any mistakes.
 
RIGHT ON!!!!!! I admit that I'm not the greatest at using the english language, but I have been around many a person who thinks that because they are better at this or that it gives them the right to look down their nose at you. I think it is just a defense mechanism. We all all have our strengths and I have mine. Bottom line... judge a person by his heart. I'll take an unenlightened person with a grerat heart over an inteligent as3h0le anyday!
 
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