Why has the grammatical standard of questions on Fluther deteriorated recently?

School is out for the summer. Nobody can be expected to be grammatical when they’re not in school, can they?

Because it is part of the internet.<—phrase, an incomplete statement.

@YARNLADY Maybe so. I keep forgetting about the Northern Hemisphere, sorry!
@derekpaperscissors That does not explain deterioration, only poor quality. Fluther used to be much better, and I have only been a member since March or April. I am asking what has changed.

I certainly hope not. Were that the case, what would set us apart from the omg ur so my bff sites?

And @derekpaperscissors, if you are convinced that one of the hallmarks of the Internet is poor grammar, then it will be so. Welcome to Fluther – Shoot higher.

Anyway, there has been an influx of new members lately (from two other sites). Bad habits migrate. It’ll level off soon enough as those that stay figure out the lay of the land. Meanwhile the rest will move on to other pastures.

@cprevite I hope not too. This site’s largely intelligent and well spoken members are one of its greatest features, in my opinion.

I was unaware of the cause of the influx. Which two sites were these?

It may well be due to the recent influx of “freethinkers” .

I haven’t noticed any deterioration lately in the form of said grammatical maladies. I have, however, noticed a recent deterioration in my observation skills and that might account for my poor attention to detail in witnessing the supposed linguistical malfunctions that are currently plaguing the Fluther website. As to why these events are occurring, I have no basis for fact in presenting an informed opinion on the aforementioned tagmemic failures.

@Bluefreedom: Now you’re just showing off. ;^)

@cprevite…I was just going to ask what the hell you doing up so late but it dawned on me it’s after 7AM there but only 4AM here in L.A., so I guess the question is what the hell am I doing up? Like you, just watching @Bluefreedom show off! The guy sure has a way with words, doesn’t he?

@whatthefluther: I assume as an MP he just talks perps into submission. :^)

@cprevite & @whatthefluther. You guys crack me up….lol. Seriously though, I do talk my suspects into submission. >:-)

@Bluefreedom….Well, I’d commit a minor crime just for the honor of being interrogated by you…and I would not give in quickly. You’ll need to earn my submission!
PS: Hey, you’re in N.M. or Arizona…what the hell are you doing up? MP shifts, huh?

Wut ar yu tawkin abowt? I ain’t notust nottin diffrent.

What are some examples of this?

Many people (and I’m not sure it is unique to fluther) change usage. These are traditionally not verbs but are used as such here.

To sex
To orgasm
To suicide
To journal
To impact (that one may be a lost cause.)

Changing idioms;

I graduated HS or college; i graduated from college is standard English.
Me and her have been dating for two months.
Him and me have been dating ” ” ”.
This is where it’s at.
And this: It is not too difficult of a question. Of is unnecessary.

And the unnecessary qualifiers.

Kind of
Sort of
Like

The umbrella words that have lost their meaning.

Awesome
Cool
My friend

Well I’m so glad “To orgasm” hasn’t made it down to the last category yet.

@gailcalled

“To impact” is considered entirely standard in terms of the dictionary. I’ve never even heard “to suicide”. I’m going to suicide my ass if I ever hear anyone say that.

@FireMadeFlesh This has been a really interesting phenomenon I’ve been observing, since quality of the site is what gives me insomnia.

The interesting to me is that I’ve also been getting reports from long-time users that quality has been up during that same period. My hypothesis is that there’s a three month honeymoon with Fluther—since when you join there’s a real joy in discovering the collective (looks like we did something right). I think as time wears on, though, your tolerance for quality increases, and around 3 months it feels like the quality is for shit.

Now, I’m not trying to belittle your feeling, I think it’s totally valid. However, as someone who has seen over 95% of the questions ever asked on Fluther, who looks at every moderated question, and who checks the site 10–15 times a day, I can’t say that I’ve seen a large decrease in quality over the last few months.

I’d even have to say I’m pretty impressed with the quality of the questions during this current news hit, since we’ve quadrupled our daily question rate and increased our daily join rate 10x.

@andrew: That’s like, awesome. Your message impacted I so much that I won’t opt out.

@DominicX: I mentioned that the issue of impact used as a verb is a lost cause. Impact used to be considered a noun; the suitable verb was “affect.” So many people confuse that with effect, however. What to do?

It’s the frikin’ internet, not an English seminar.

The issue some take with grammar and spelling, and the need to point it out, is one of the main things that would make me leave fluther.

Argh!

@tinyfaery- frikkin’ should be spelled with two kays.
:)

@tinyfaery

Even I agree and I’m a future linguistics major… :P

Since when does fuck have to k’s?

I don’t think it should be an “English seminar” either, but most folks on Fluther at least make a decent effort toward proper grammar (either intentionally or instinctually).

Either way, I think we’d all agree that no one wants to read through paragraphs of txtspk or a ridiculous amount of slang (some slang is always welcome). No?

@cprevite

People aren’t doing that, though; I asked for someone to provide examples and yet no one does.

@DominicX: I know. I was speaking mostly-hypothetically. I have no idea what the OP had in mind.

@FireMadeFlesh: Examples for Mr. @DominicX per favor.

@YARNLADY, I highly disagree. It’s that kind of thinking that is lowering the standards of grammar everywhere.

@Hatsumiko I find that “schools out” attitude disagreable also. I have overheard many people using that excuse to be lazy. There are many users here who would just throw away the entire grammar rule book, but I am not one of them.

I’d have to entirely agree with you on that, @YARNLADY.

i haven’t noticed any dramatic grammatical changes. i think that the majority of folks on here use acceptable grammar; it may not be perfect, but it’s nowhere near incomprehensible.
so i can’t think of a fathomable reason.

on grammar in general: i think that people should have a decent handle on grammar. i am very interested in english, etc, but i don’t think everyone needs to perfect every little punctuation mark, and if you spell something wrong here or there, big deal! it’s the internet. i don’t want to see people typin lyk disz, but i’m not going to bitch when there’s a comma out of place

@andrew Maybe you’re right, thanks.

@tinyfaery I’m not trying to be pedantic here, I save that for my own contributions. It just makes tedious reading looking through disjointed questions and trying to deceipher what they mean. Looking through questions since I asked this one, it seems the quality is still very good. I think I might have just seen a dozen or so before asking this question.

Sadly, I think the standard has been lowered everywhere. Proper grammar and manners just aren’t very popular anymore. I think it’s a shame.