The only thing that really gets on my nerves is when people do not capitalize the first letter when they start a sentence or when using a certain pronoun in the first person. Every now and then, I want to start a thread called "Our Friend the Shift Key" or "You Are Not E. E. Cummings".
Wow. I've been keeping that bottled up for years. God it feels good to let it out.
Speaking as somebody who's made his living as a full time writer/editor for nearly ten years, I have the following rule in Real Life:
If they understood you, you did it right.
And not only did you do it right, but you're ahead of the game by a wide margin.
Obviously, my publishers hold me to what is alleged to be a higher standard in my work, and I do my best to hold to it when I'm getting paid to. But in the real world, communication is about communication, and if your idea was successfully communicated, then the whining of people who can't get over a spelling or punctuation (or whatever) error should be treated as the buzzing of gnats.
No offense intended to any gnats present, of course I'm one of you, sadly, for at least 50 hours a week.
Ahhh, the importance of written English in the real world. At the present moment I am in college studying to be a Programmer. One of our courses is called "The Programming Project." Part of it is the student must make a written, detailed, summary of the project. The teachers then read it over and RIP it apart. One thing they do is stop marking/reading the minute they hit a grammar error, or spelling error(hmmm, maybe I should practice a bit more often. ) So spelling and grammar are an add to communication. Especially in the real workplace.
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The pain, the pain. I think a neuron
just short circuited. *thud*
As a writer, obviously I take great pride in my work. In my area of business it is not uncommon for me to present and write a 3-5 page paper every week. Every five weeks I am typically submitting a bound proposal of 10-15 pages, w/ charts, graphs, and budgetary amounts.
Anyone who knows me, I sweat the little details, which is why if it isn't perfect, I try to get it as close as possible.
In this forum, however, I take no such pains, because, quite frankly, it isn't part of my professional job and I'm not being paid to do it.
So, I ask forgiveness if my spelling or grammer are not up to par, but as SJohn pointed out, if you've understood what I've said, then I've done my part.
So spelling and grammar are an add to communication. Especially in the real workplace.
Something you'll learn in the years to come is that very little that goes on in a college classroom has any useful relationship to anything "real."
But to address your comment: Nobody's suggesting that spelling and grammar aren't useful. For my own part, I'm simply pointing out that the emphasis some people put on it is disproportionate to its value. This is especially true in net fan culture, where insecure fans will grab at any straw they can to count coup in the great game of "He Who Accumulates the Most Raw Information Wins."
The same thing goes for Star Trek "canon," and the problems with it arise for exactly the same reason. Fen put undue emphasis on facts because facts are worth "points" in fannish society: showing off that you have them is valued by many even above common courtesy, and certainly above considerations of actual relevance.
So, if I follow your meaning, my entirely transparent anal-retentive obsessive-compulsive over-dependance on proper punctuation, grammar, and other assorted nuisances might actually mask a deeper insecurity...perhaps something about my woefully inadequate writing style, overly verbose, obtuse and convoluted, if not outright flatulent?
By Saint Raymund Nonnatus (Patron of the Falsely Accused), you're absolutely right!
So, if I follow your meaning, my entirely transparent anal-retentive obsessive-compulsive over-dependance on proper punctuation, grammar, and other assorted nuisances might actually mask a deeper insecurity...
Nah, you might just have a thing about spelling, grammar, and punctuation
But, in all seriousness, a lot of fans really do the "spouting facts to count coup" thing as described above, and it's pretty sad. For starters, it makes a lot of people less likely to contribute to public forums, for fear that the thanks they'll get for sharing ideas will be an unwarranted hail of nitpicks.
The only thing I find irritating is the widely spread habit of writing (sp?) whenever one doesn't want to bother about checking the correct spelling.
It's especially annoying with names of people and places: "i like star trek and especialy spok(sp?) and pikar(sp?)" Know what I mean
------------------ "You may get stabbed in the head with a dagger or sword/ You may be burned to death or skinned alive or worse/ But when they torture you, you will not feel the need to run/ Though you die la Resistance lives on"
Loth-org.... I think the mentioned project is more a reflection of the real world as it applies to computers.. basically if you can not write a dissertation in English, a language you have been speaking for X number of years, sans any spelling or grammer errors, how quickly do you think you will adapt to writing thousand line programs using the very specific and rigid spelling and grammer rules of, say, C++? Computers tend to look upon 'simple' errors like this very poorly.
And yes, 'points' by way of fact spouting can be very annoying, as can the use of (sp?), which incidently, I rarely use when I am not sure of the spelling and I do not want my reader to be confused by my improper use of the english language.
Enough rambling for today... lunch hour is over and its time to get back to work. ( proof reading evaluation reports.. ...
"But, in all seriousness, a lot of fans really do the "spouting facts to count coup" thing as described above, and it's pretty sad. For starters, it makes a lot of people less likely to contribute to public forums, for fear that the thanks they'll get for sharing ideas will be an unwarranted hail of nitpicks."
Excellent point Sjohn. That's one of the main reasons why I 'unsubscribed' from the Mailing List.
Back on topic to "Speling"...
What used to get my goat--before I learned to laugh at life's little twists ( )--were teachers up here in Canada who would destroy a finely typed essay with bright red "incorrect spelling" notations whenever I would write 'centre' or 'programme' or 'civilisation'. Apparently, those words are supposed to be written as 'center', 'program' and 'civilization', respectively.
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I'm one of you, sadly, for at least 50 hours a week.
) So spelling and grammar are an add to communication. Especially in the real workplace.
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