What do people have against spelling and grammar?

It’s part of a culture of people whose parents go by a new name: AIM and MSN messenger

What really bothers me is when people type shit like “how r u.” That is just being lazy. But, I don’t mind if someone incorrectly spells Mississippi or transposes “we” with “me”.

u must not hve a iPhone it faster…

I am answering this from my iPhone. It is easy to type once you get the hang of it. Don’t use that as an excuse. We have a full qwerty keyboard for a reason.

trends set language changes often and people feel compelled to follow trends to fit in. It can also be a form of protest whether intentional or not to change spelling or pronounciations. There’s also the factor of it being faster or easier to abbriviate or change spelling when typing on a mobile device. I agree, however, that it is annoying and improper.

@dopelope: I have an iPhone and I don’t “text” type.

well, I guess I was wrong. I’m so sorry I hurt you. From now I will make sure I don’t make you cry like a little two year old girl.

First off thanks for the answers; secondly the ipod touch and iphone have built in word suggestion for a reason, and thirdly don’t resort to insulting people over fluther.

I’m also wondering how many Fluther users are not native English speakers and are just struggling with the language. Many of the usage/grammar/spelling problems we keep seeing (I hope) could be chalked up to that.

I’m a two year old girl and I NEVER cry

At movies I cry like a two year old little girl, and on rides it’s usually the two year olds that are laughing at me. I’m comfortable with this because I know I am at least mature enough not to reduce a statement, like Perchik’s, to hyper-sensitivity and a lack of any healthy evaluation.

Thank you GD Kimble I did take that into account an i hope nobody takes this question the wrong way because English is their second language.

like johnpowell said its not so much the people that have little errors when they are trying to type the language if its not their native one. iTz wh3N U TYPE l1k3 tHiS tHAT bothas peeps.

yes you right, and as usual johnpowell has the answer to our many questions

I can’t spell to save my life. I have a dictionary app I use from time to time, to help with the big boy words that I have no clue on how to spell. Its the punctuation and other gramatical errors that get me. Put a period for a sentence, question mark for question, and so on. On the spelling though, I can’t say anything, cuz I suck. I do try though…

what’s up with all these people trying to tell others how to write? This isn’t a spelling bee and nobody is judging you on your grammar and punctuation. I agree with uberbatman about how ridiculous spelling like that looks and that should stop, but I see nothing wrong with writing “how r u”

Mostly it’s just annoying. It’s not that its hard to read, it’s just hard to have an intelligent discourse with someone typing like that. I can’t take anyone seriously who types like that. I think thats where a lot of people are coming from.

@vanelokz—I beg to differ. I routinely judge people on their grammar and punctuation. For instance, am I the only one who noticed that the questioner only once capitalized the pronoun “I” (as in irony)?

Since I can’t see the people I’m interacting with over the internet, I can’t judge them by the way they look. So I have the grammers and the punkshuashuns.

Well said Perchik.

If I am confronted with two answers to a question. Lets say:

Response #1: “Small amounts of urine won’t damage your houseplant.”
Response #2: “it be kewl to tke leek on ur plant”

I will trust the first response. I understand the second one but I certainly wouldn’t listen to it without confirmation.

@dopelope, I read your first quip here as a joke: satirical statement on what appears to be common iPhone usage. In that context, thought it was pretty funny.

—

@all, I know some people who consider any electronic format communication to be less than formal… even to the point that they just don’t care about spelling, punctuation, spacing, anything. I have a hard time understanding that perspective when I can’t think of the last time I wrote a letter with oxblood and papyrus.

Electronic communication is the only face I have here. Writing correctly is therefore important. Throw in some occasional shorthand for flava, as many here have done just for fun, and it’s a good time.

When you don’t fix a mistake on your iPhone, you’re saying that the extra few seconds it saves you because you aren’t bothering to get it right are far more important than the hundreds of seconds it takes for all the people reading your post to figure out what you meant with that misspelled word.

Aside from that, some people just don’t know any better. The decline in education predates AIM and MSN Messenger, and a lot of well-meaning teachers decided it was better for students to express themselves freely than to express themselves correctly. As a result, you have high school graduates who not only can’t write correct English, they don’t know what correct English is.

@vaneloks: People do judge you on your grammar and spelling. You can write correctly, or you can look like an ignoramus. Your call.

Sloppy writing is harder to understand. I imagine the absence of awareness of that (and of practice) is a common cause of sloppy unclear writing. Responding to sloppy writing by clearly asking what they mean can help them see how they’re coming across.

I think it’s interesting that this issue comes up again and again (I have noticed a few other questions on this topic as well).

Personally, I don’t have a problem with receiving a text message from a friend that includes the phrase, “c u soon,” especially if they’re working on a numbered cell phone key pad, and if their text function has a character limit. Plus, I know them already so I’m not basing any part of my opinion of them on their ability to spell. BUT, this is not a two-second text we’re talking about. I agree with what’s been said already—that we’re trying to engage in mature dialogue and because of that, we should take pride in what we write. Personally, I would be less likely to look at (and therefore, less likely to respond to) questions that come in the form of “whats ur fave song someone wrote about their child” versus “What is your favorite song someone wrote about their own child?”

I do recognize that there are plenty of people who are very intelligent and articulate in speech who have problems with the written word. Dyslexia, or other learning disabilities, or being new to the English language, or something else might be the cause in these situations. But I think there’s a difference between making a concerted effort and using lazy text/AIM phrases.

You wouldn’t turn in a resume or cover letter that’s riddled with spelling and grammatical errors. We can’t actually speak to you, so your words are all that we have.

I mentioned this anecdote a few days ago on a private Fluther comment but I think it is appropriate here.
Many years ago, in what is probably the prehistoric past for most participants on Fluther, the 70’s, I was in graduate school working towards my MBA. My auditing professor, who was generally a bit of windbag, made one comment that has stuck with me for 32 <sigh> years.

He was talking about the early years of a career in public accounting but this holds true throughout the business world and other venues in the job market. He said: it’s not how much you know that will get you ahead in accounting – you can substitute whatever your career or vocation might be – the guys that get ahead are the ones who can WRITE clearly, concisely and persuasively”. Sorry for the sexist comment but in the early 70’s public accounting was still heavily male.

This comment from an otherwise really mediocre professor holds true in so many circumstances and I still find it odd that he came up with this statement.

SRM

@srmorgan—I’ve repeatedly been told the same thing by many mentors regarding my military career.

@poser – I can believe that. The military is so formal and structured and runs on reports and reviews and tactical plans, all of which must be in writing.
About 8 years ago, I hired a retired Marine Sgt, as an accounting intern. Everyone, including me, called him “Gunny” and not his real first name. I needed someone to summarize, update and codify many of the ‘de facto” policies and procedures that had evolved at my company and were not properly documented.

He knew what he was doing, organized data, flow charts, he wrote pretty well although some of it needed editing to suit my preferences.

Good hire for the semester.

Good luck in the service.

Yeah, those Marines do their jobs well. A little too gung-ho for my taste, but to each his own.

well my bad. You need to stop being such perfectionists, seriously. You all take yourselves too seriously

Maybe you don’t take yourself seriously enough?

@vanelokz: the question is not whether we take ourselves seriously, but whether we should take you seriously. Shoddy writing is a clear indication that we shouldn’t.

@vanelokz—I have to deal with a billing clerk who works for one of my suppliers. This clerk is a lovely person on the phone, helpful, courteous, really knows her job, a pleasure to deal with most of the time. The only problem is when she sends me or someone in my department an e-mail trying to explain what happened to a shipment or why their production fell behind. She can’t write a coherent two line e-mail.

This woman is native born. She has a high school education and about 20 years of work experience and she knows her job as well as anyone. She can intercede for us as customers and work miracles when the loonies in her production department screw things up. She has a great head for business and based on her innate intelligence could do a lot more and earn a lot more if not for this one handicap. She can’t write a damn thing that you can understand.

If she calls to explain a problem, she gets right to the point. and you are off the phone in 45 seconds and she has told you all you need to know. If I get a fax or an e-mail, I have to go to one of my assistants to get a second opinion as to what she is trying to tell us.

There is nothing wrong with this woman’s performance but this one deficiency has cost her promotions and probably over a thirty year career, a whole bunch of money.

Think about it.

@smorgan: I had a boss like that once. She couldn’t write a clear sentence to save herself, and she insisted on writing lengthy “functional specifications” for all the software changes we had to make. Most of the time, we just did what we thought was right, because we couldn’t figure out what she was trying to tell us.

And she negotiated most of the deals for our department via email. There was a reason we kept on getting screwed, and the confusion was always blamed on the people on the other end.

@srmorgan: I giggled like a little girl at that story.

@johnpowell: How could anyone misspell Mississippi? Is it not ingrained into each of our heads since primary school? All the other kids on the yard would beam with pride as they boasted of their incredible spelling feat.

My theory is:
Our society is degenerating from a literary tradition back to an oral tradition.
Television, talk radio, and books on tape make it easy to neglect spelling and grammar. Hey, it sounds all right when you say it!
I still type out text messages longhand.

I’m a grammar snob. I can’t stand it when people abbreviate texts or posts. When I misspell something, it’s usually because it’s late or I’m in a hurry. @iamthemob will usually remind me that I’ve messed up. :) I can’t really vouch for how language arts is being taught in schools today, but I think some of the way people write now is due to texting and social media sites.

Can you imagine where the road would have lead (led) if the qwerty keyboards had not been integrated into cell phones?