Rantrantrant
Jun. 11th, 2002 06:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drcuriosityI just posted a big rant about grammar and spelling to the KAOS mailing list. Since it's something I do occasionally get concerned about, I thought I'd repost it here, for your comments, flames, and criticism.
Am I being too critical, and trying to hold back the tide of language change? Am I trying desperately to shore up the failings in an education system that seems to be turning out people who're incapable of composing a well-formed paragraph? Am I merely an elitist snob who's just being a big meanie, and holding his old-fashioned command of written language over others like some kind of misbegotten badge of honour?
To: ...
Subject: Re: Computer game come to life
From: Morbid Curiosity <...>
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 17:05:29 +1200
On Mon, 10 Jun 2002 12:07:35 -0700 (PDT), Dormention Northersfest
wrote:
>you know it aint that unusal for someone to have bad spelling and
>gramma, why did you bother even pointing it out? Reallly why?
>
>serriously who cares? its readable
[steps up to the crease]
This social group, especially in its electronic communications forums,
has a long history of being pedantic, and flaming people for continued
bad spelling and grammar.
Though some people (through such learning disorders as dyslexia and so
forth) have a legitimate claim to being unable to spell, there are a
lot of people who're just plain lazy. Plain and simple.
The kind of attitude that says "who cares? its readable" is _just_ as
rude as the attitude that needlessly nitpicks every last typo - a good
behaviour in editors and proofreaders, but annoying in day-to-day
conversation.
If someone is going to write in a consistently lazy fashion, it's
consistently more difficult for other people to read. Now, I don't
know about you, but I find it much easier to read well-formed,
accurately-spelled English than I do English that's been mangled
almost beyond recognition[1]. I'm fairly certain that a lot of other
people around here share that particular affliction.
If you _can_ spell well but can't be bothered putting in the extra
effort, you're shifting that extra effort that you can't be bothered
putting in to your readers. And on a mailing list, that's often quite
a lot of readers. If you can't be bothered, it shows just how much
respect you have for the people reading what you write. Now, in some
areas your readership may be such that they don't care about it one
way or another. This isn't one of those places. There are people who
care, and occasionally one of them may say so. Here, "bad spelling and
gramma" is unusual.
So, if you're using something as a sig that is badly-spelt and
consistently there for people of a pedantic bent to get annoyed by,
sooner or later someone's going to comment. It's not unusual to be
flamed by anyone (apologies to Tom Jones).
If you can't spell well, you can always consider this place good
practice. If you have a specific learning disability which makes words
seem to slip around on the screen or in your brain, then it's a bit
more difficult - on the other hand, getting a mail reader with a spell
checker - or a stand-alone spell-checker - shouldn't be too difficult,
nor too difficult to use.
>What if this reality is somebodie elses dream?
>when they awake i will no longer exist.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.
Morbid
[1] Given that I spend time on IRC on a semi-regular basis, this only
goes to show that I have a masochistic streak.
Can you read this graffiti?
Can you decode this information?
Can you work out what they're saying to you?
Can you read the signs yet?
Can you read this grafitti?
Can you decode this information?
Can you work out what they're saying to you?
Can you read the signs yet?
Can you read the signs yet? Can you read the signs?
(On a Shriekback kick again. Thanks JWZ.)
Am I being too critical, and trying to hold back the tide of language change? Am I trying desperately to shore up the failings in an education system that seems to be turning out people who're incapable of composing a well-formed paragraph? Am I merely an elitist snob who's just being a big meanie, and holding his old-fashioned command of written language over others like some kind of misbegotten badge of honour?
To: ...
Subject: Re: Computer game come to life
From: Morbid Curiosity <...>
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 17:05:29 +1200
On Mon, 10 Jun 2002 12:07:35 -0700 (PDT), Dormention Northersfest
wrote:
>you know it aint that unusal for someone to have bad spelling and
>gramma, why did you bother even pointing it out? Reallly why?
>
>serriously who cares? its readable
[steps up to the crease]
This social group, especially in its electronic communications forums,
has a long history of being pedantic, and flaming people for continued
bad spelling and grammar.
Though some people (through such learning disorders as dyslexia and so
forth) have a legitimate claim to being unable to spell, there are a
lot of people who're just plain lazy. Plain and simple.
The kind of attitude that says "who cares? its readable" is _just_ as
rude as the attitude that needlessly nitpicks every last typo - a good
behaviour in editors and proofreaders, but annoying in day-to-day
conversation.
If someone is going to write in a consistently lazy fashion, it's
consistently more difficult for other people to read. Now, I don't
know about you, but I find it much easier to read well-formed,
accurately-spelled English than I do English that's been mangled
almost beyond recognition[1]. I'm fairly certain that a lot of other
people around here share that particular affliction.
If you _can_ spell well but can't be bothered putting in the extra
effort, you're shifting that extra effort that you can't be bothered
putting in to your readers. And on a mailing list, that's often quite
a lot of readers. If you can't be bothered, it shows just how much
respect you have for the people reading what you write. Now, in some
areas your readership may be such that they don't care about it one
way or another. This isn't one of those places. There are people who
care, and occasionally one of them may say so. Here, "bad spelling and
gramma" is unusual.
So, if you're using something as a sig that is badly-spelt and
consistently there for people of a pedantic bent to get annoyed by,
sooner or later someone's going to comment. It's not unusual to be
flamed by anyone (apologies to Tom Jones).
If you can't spell well, you can always consider this place good
practice. If you have a specific learning disability which makes words
seem to slip around on the screen or in your brain, then it's a bit
more difficult - on the other hand, getting a mail reader with a spell
checker - or a stand-alone spell-checker - shouldn't be too difficult,
nor too difficult to use.
>What if this reality is somebodie elses dream?
>when they awake i will no longer exist.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.
Morbid
[1] Given that I spend time on IRC on a semi-regular basis, this only
goes to show that I have a masochistic streak.
Can you read this graffiti?
Can you decode this information?
Can you work out what they're saying to you?
Can you read the signs yet?
Can you read this grafitti?
Can you decode this information?
Can you work out what they're saying to you?
Can you read the signs yet?
Can you read the signs yet? Can you read the signs?
(On a Shriekback kick again. Thanks JWZ.)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2002-06-11 12:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-06-11 04:54 am (UTC)Well, if anyone offers me some, I'll be sure not to feign unworthiness, then ;-)
no subject
Date: 2002-06-11 02:29 am (UTC)i'm dyslexic. (i hate whoever made up that word, it's impossible to spell.)
there is no reason to hide behind a disability like that when there are spellchecks in the world.
my gramma is pretty durned good and i ain't going to deal wit people who cain't even trie.
no subject
Date: 2002-06-11 03:48 am (UTC)In mind one, I find good spelling easier to read than poor spelling. People who take care with spelling and grammar generally also take care to express themselves precisely, and hence present more cogent and interesting ideas. I'm willing to believe there are exceptions, but in my experience people with consistently poor spelling also tend to meander, and not to think much about what they write.
The same sort of thing happens with my maths students. Those who take the time to learn how to write in mathematical notation and lay out clear working generally have little trouble when the work is extended into new areas. Those who try to do everything in their heads and just write the answer generally get tripped up by every new wrinkle or extra complication, even if they are very bright.
In the other mind, English spelling is excessively complicated, and could do with some simplification. The current standardised spellings were created in a time when written English was mostly the preserve of rich white people, people who could be presumed to know some Latin, French and German, and understand the origins of some of the English language's more peculiar spellings. This is no longer the case - English is emerging as the language of a nascent global culture, and is spoken by people from a much greater range of linguistic backgrounds than it used to be. It may be time for the old spelling system to break down and be replaced with something simpler. I think this will inevitably happen in the longer term.
no subject
Date: 2002-06-11 05:48 am (UTC)That said, reforming the spelling in a language that has lots of homophones, a wide range of local accent variations and so forth would be quite difficult, I think. Some of the strange little rules and exception we have don't make much logical sense in terms of rules of language, but still help to remove ambiguity between to similar-looking or similar-sounding terms.
Actually, now that I think about it, English is like a Microsoft product: It's generally quite feature-laden, but bloated, buggy, and only the industry standard due to some clever marketing and occasionally dodgy business practices. It's fairly easy to understand the basics of it once you get around learning some of the weird letter combinations, but truly mastering it takes a long time...
no subject
oh brother. it's readable? more like an eyesore to me.
nothing like purposefully making yourself out to sound like a complete and utter moron.
i don't know about everyone else, but i'm personally turned off by that kind of attitude. stick a moron and a well spoken person in front of me, i'll strike up the convo with the smart one. i don't mean that to sound crude, but if taken that way, so be it. my patience runs short with stupid people.
so hear hear, dear morbid - behold! the bucket o' #gothick sticks™ (grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. included).
:D
no subject
Date: 2002-06-11 08:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-06-11 06:59 pm (UTC)Most entertaining ;)
no subject
Date: 2002-06-11 07:02 pm (UTC):D
no subject
Date: 2002-06-11 09:57 pm (UTC):-)
I got more Lovecraft fiction the other day to add to my pile-of-stuff-I-have-yet-to-read.
Comics Compulsion seems to get a fair bit of my disposable income...
no subject
Date: 2002-06-11 10:12 pm (UTC)Obviously the Dark Arts were never intended for those poor souls amongst us with profound speech impediments.
Just finished reading Stephen King's 'Danse Macabre', both out of interest and ecause it backed up a film genre course I'm taking very well. It's most interesting and entertaining.
no subject
Date: 2002-06-11 10:28 pm (UTC)If it's of any interest/use to you in either an academic or entertainment sense, here's the alt.horror.cthulhu FAQ section on Lovecraftian TV and movies.
I wuvs j00
Damn my pricklies... if only I could learn to cool down before I post things... by the way I think I am going to declare that Forum I was invited back to a dead cause....
Some day I will learn the folly of discussing Japanese Animations with a bunch of American, homophobic teenagers.
Marry me immediately.
Date: 2002-06-16 05:55 am (UTC)K.
Re: Marry me immediately.
Date: 2002-06-16 06:17 am (UTC)My rant on the subject was to someone who hasn't been around and on the list for a particularly long time, and who seemed relatively recalcitrant (I seem to be using that word too often, recently) about shaping up and making his posts easier for the rest of us to read.
I think the fact that people can get through to university (or even graduating high school) with so sloppy a level of written language skill is a damning indictment on the state of education curricula these days, though. While grammar may be boring and non-creative subject to some, knowing how your language works can enable much more creativity further down the line. I may be too much of a traditionalist for some, but I'd rather be an artist and craftsman with my language than meander along with meaning in a formless, postmodern any-interpretation-is-valid fashion. You can step away from foundations if you like - if that's what suits your purpose - but I'd rather have the choice to use whichever technique I thought fitting.
I usually prefer to build from a structure, rather than a ball of mud. You can put mud on a structure, and it either stays on top or runs off the sides. A structure built on mud will sink in, appearing only as though you have more mud :-)
Maybe you shouldn't read this it hasn't been proofed.
Date: 2002-06-18 10:29 pm (UTC)My opinion is based on the only thing it can be, personal experience. I can understand your opinion as you obviously are a person who spells correctly and has creative talent...but....
a/ Message boards are not a formal writing task, infact I would see the particular entry as merely phatic communication. When you write like you are talking (unless you are a Dawson's Creek character) you do tend to do so without proofing what you say and it tends to sway towards being expressed phonetically.
b/You say "but I'd rather have the choice to use whichever technique I thought fitting"...why not give others the choice?
c/People think and learn in different ways. You are most probably a visual learner, someone who is perhaps more aural or kinesthetic will undoubtably express themselves differently in their writing and/or technique. Some people learn from the top up, some from the top down.
I would like to give an example of how damaging such a traditionalistic view can be to certain children in the school system, who are not like you.
When on practise I decided to take a creative writing lesson. The emphasis was on be able to express your five senses in your writing. The only structure I insisted upon was an introduction, main body and conclusion. Upon completion of this task, one boys work was surprisingly creative - he was in the lowest groups for spelling, reading and writing. I proceeded to congratulate him on his effort. My associate teacher looked at his work and gave him an absolute earful because of all the spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Indeed his work was about 50 percent error. The associate then made him and many other children stay in, in their lunch hour to correct all their errors. I was disgusted and felt undermined and left as to avoid conflict. Children like that are not going to recieve any motivation to write well if they are always being berated for their spelling and grammar. It took him half his lunch hour and he still had only corrected a small proportion of it. I don't think he will ever make the mistake of trying to be creative again.
To validate that I am not a complete english dunce for holding this view, I did recieve scholarship marks in my English bursary exams (but perhaps that is the systems mistake not my achievement). Knowing that there are people ready to pounce at any spelling mistake you make on the mailing list does not inspire me to write anything on it...but perhaps thats OK, perhaps if you can't or don't spell perfectly you are not smart enough (or your opinions are not valid enough) to be posted anyway.
Re: Maybe you shouldn't read this it hasn't been proofed.
Date: 2002-06-19 08:47 pm (UTC)Adressing each of your points in turn:
A) Most message boards, maybe. I have seen some that have higher standards for written communication than most, and some that don't even require you to be able to string three words together coherently. This mailing list, and the BBS it evolved from, do have a traditionally higher standard of what counts as acceptable. This may have been as a result of the tendency of its members to get into long, drawn-out discussions about politics and philosophy and the like, where the participants needed to be quite precise about their meanings. Such discussions may not happen quite so often, but many of the people thereabouts still feel that way about the things that they read.
Phatic communication (apparently "Of, relating to, or being speech used to share feelings or to establish a mood of sociability rather than to communicate information or ideas" according to dictionary.com) may be all well and good, but if someone is trying to communicate information or ideas using that mode (as this person was), then people who're used to communicating in a different manner when sharing their ideas and information may find it quite difficult to understand.
Incidentally, why does it tend to sway towards being expressed phonetically? Perhaps I'm missing something. I've been told on a number of occasions that I do write the way I talk. [shrug]
B) The right tool in the right situation. Certain techniques aren't fitting to certain environments. If my way of expressing myself was unacceptable for a certain forum and I was criticised about it, then I'd either do my best to change or not express myself in that forum. Maybe that's just me.
C) Fairly even mix of visual and aural, with a little bit of kinaesthetic mixed in. I didn't learn to read/spell/whatever at school, for the most part. My method for learning was a mixture of various techniques. I learned not top-down or bottom-up, but.. well, top-and-bottom-in. Believe me, I know that different people learn in different ways.
As to your example - was that "a traditionalistic view" being damaging, or a bad teacher? Spelling and grammar weren't what the exercise was supposed to be about. I'll admit that I am quite pedantic at times, but that teacher's attitude I find simply ridiculous. I realise that not all teachers have the time, energy and other resources to teach as well as they can some times, but... I'd be disgusted, too.
For your entertainment value, this post hasn't been proofed at all - though I'll admit, I thought quite a lot about the content of what I was saying.
no subject
Date: 2002-06-19 09:46 am (UTC)Most of the time I try to restrain myself from commenting on what is often nearly unreadable spelling, grammar, typos, and left-out words in LJ and in emails I receive. It always makes me cringe, though. In almost all of my jobs I've ended up being the unofficial editor for all the documents that are generated around me because it's easy for me to zip through something and find most of the errors. I love red pens.
Thank you for explaining "Why is correct writing important?" in such a compelling manner.
Oh, and...
It's not unusual to be
flamed by anyone (apologies to Tom Jones).
***GROAN**
no subject
Date: 2002-07-30 03:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-07-30 07:10 pm (UTC)Glad you liked it. I usually write to address the topic and audience at hand, but it's definitely nice to have it enjoyed and/or found useful by a wider readership than originally intended.