I don’t get this – on other messageboards, people seem to delight in abusing the English language. They’ll do so even in threads discussing their brilliant children “My child be a jeenyus”.
Apparently, even intelligent people do this at times, leaving off simple punctuation just for fun. Why would this constitute “fun”?
Bugs the crap outta me. They sound like idiots.
I’m not sure I’ve really seen what you’re talking about, except perhaps occasionally in ironic jokes. But one related thing I’ve seen is people deliberately using babytalk versions of words. In another thread today (and I’m not going to bother to look it up; no offense intended to the poster, whoever it was, because I’m sure you’re delightful in every other respect) someone used “skettie” in place of “spaghetti”. I just find that extremely irritating. The logical extreme is when you meet one of those grown women (I’ve only ever seen it in women) who actually routinely speak in babytalk. Holy hell! How can anyone stand to be around you, woman?
You do recognize that "Bugs the crap outta me. " is merely a fragment and your treating it as a complete sentence constitutes less than ideal grammar? (mostly kidding…)
As to other messageboards, it seems many of them operate almost like chat rooms, where the attitude of the participants is much more real-time than here. As such, typing quickly & hitting send without careful preview/spell check is more the norm as users vie for space in a continuously evolving real-time conversation.
Here there seems to a real understanding that the conversation is not real-time and your comments will have more weight when read 3 days from now if you’ve used complete sentences & standard spelling, punctuation, etc.
Frankly, not everyone who uses the internet is a well-educated person, nor a skilled writer. Some boards are going to be populated by yahoos, others by pedants. IMHO the SDMB tends towards the pedantic end of the on-line spectrum.
There’s things I’d write in a formal letter which I’d never say out loud. There’s things I’d say out loud in an informal situation which I’d never say at work. There’s things I’d type which I’d never say, nor write with a pen. Apart from the formal letter, none will follow all the rules of grammar. Deal with it.
I’ll talk silly now and then, because it amuses me. But I’ll only do that among friends; it’s not something I’d try with my boss. I’ve done it on here now and then, usually because I think it’s a funny way to respond to something. Of course, I may be the only one in the world to think I’m funny, but there you have it. I’ve never met anyone who spoke that way on purpose all the time, though, and I think I would find it off-putting.
GorillaMan, it’s not the idiomatic speech that distracts me (or the various errors and imperfections; Og knows I’m not perfect). Its wen their talking about how smart theyre kids are & how dum there teachers. are. Ugh!
I think you must be correct, LSLGuy; it’s probably a real-time mentality vs. the atmosphere here. ::sigh:: There’s nothing quite like a well-crafted sentence to make me take someone seriously.
I don’t do smilies, either.
That’s one of my minor peeves ’ There’s things…’
Nothing against you at all GorillaMan. It just bad grammar is all. And everyone be doin’ it. 
Anybody who uses “preggers” deserves to be stabbed through the eyes with a soldering iron.
If you’re having a baby, you’re pregnant.
How about “prolly” for probably? And “dunno” needs no explanation.
They should be made to walk the perp walk, and then summarily executed.
Is too.
Now ordinarily, I take pride in my good use of English. But I have a slight, and perhaps occupational, handicap: I’m a part-time jazz musician who occasionally hangs out with classical musicians. Do this and you’ll get a first-hand taste of what can happen to the tone of language when it’s used in a formal, stilted manner. Because I gotta tell ya, some of those people don’t dare relax.
So I don’t shy from the occasional colloquial, nonstandard, or even substandard usage.
I didn’t get the impression that that was what fessie was discussing, or I would have given a boring lecture on how it’s irrational and logically indefensible to deride normal language uses as “bad grammar” - in short, if a usage exists for some population of English speakers, it’s (kinda obviously) part of their grammar; the fact that it might not be part of the standard English grammar doesn’t somehow make it worse or “substandard”.
I got the impression fessie was talking about deliberately using speech that was ungrammatical (presumably, for the speaker, and perhaps for all English speakers) as a cutesy joke. That’s what moved me to cite babytalk pronunciations of words (which, in my book, seem like a deliberate and deliberately pwecious little affectation, as opposed to pronunciations or word choices that are simply stigmatized but perfectly natural within some populations.)
So maybe I was reading it wrong, but I wouldn’t apply what fessie said to simple use of slang or non-standard grammar like what you described.
I guess I missed the cutesy angle and just thought the criticism was of deliberate usage of BG.
Most of my usage of BG is deliberate. I hope none of it is cutesy.
The one the bugs me the most is one that I see on the SDMB a lot but almost no where else:
“Sammitch.” :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:
Jesus Fuckrist! That just makes me want to give my self a Super Glue enema!!
How dare you take the name of Jesus Fuckrist in vain. :dubious:
That and I Love Me, Vol. I’s “sammich” are the two words that really get to me. Nothing else immediately comes to mind but those two are like nails on a chalkboard.
I’ve seen that one other places on the internet.
I take it as proof that many people on the net really are every bit as socially retarded and incapable of normal human behavior as all the stereotypes suggest.
The first place I heard that was on Rachel Ray’s 30 Minute Meals. That, plus her EVOO just bugs the hell out of me. When I hear people say it aloud, I have to contain my budding flame of rage before it blow into a full on inferno and I become death, destroyer of worlds.
Maybe it does. This former English teacher used “dunno” in a post within the last fifteen minutes. It’s the wee small hours of the morning here and I’m in a mood to write casually.
I think I picked up the “dunno” habit from having Tom Sawyer read aloud to me when I was a child. Although I would never have used it in my classroom, I do not consider it bad grammar. It is a way of spelling “don’t know” as it might be pronounced informally in some dialects.
Hey! The white-hot, burning, searing rage I feel at cutesy-poo language is shared by others! Neat! Want to go commit some justifiable homicides?