It depends on what you are spilling, and where you are spilling it.
Dam your write.
No one has mentioned this, so I thought I’d throw my two cents in. The major reason spelling and grammar are important is that they reflect your level of knowledge and care. When someone consistently misspells/misuses a word, a reader gets the impression that the person is ignorant and sloppy. Why then should anyone trust the content of what that person has written? If you know little and don’t bother to check your work, it is likely that the substance of your comments is poorly researched and false.
I’m not talking about occasional typos or misspellings - everyone falls into that trap, especially when you can’t edit your post. I’m talking about consistent, repeated errors that reflect ignorance and/or gross negligence.
I summon the spirit of Mrs. Grundy! Great Goddess of Grammar! I call upon Strunk & White, Mirriam/Webster & Roget! Be with me in my rite of write!
There, that’s better. One thing that hasn’t been touched on; clearly expressing one’s self.
WB, if you wrote: Lincoln wrote his famous Address while traveling to Gettsyburg on the back of an envelope. in a thread that was discussing our 16th president, many people here would have 2 very different ideas about what you were talking about.
Which one is correct? Are you arguing that Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address on the back of an envelope while traveling to Gettysburg or are you saying he traveled to Gettysburg on the back of an envelope? The way the sentence is written, it could interpreted either way.
If I have to spend 5 mins. trying to decide what you’re arguing about, it makes me all the less likely to respond. And if I do respond, am I responding to the correct point?
Another, tho related, point if I have to read a sentence several times because of it’s bad grammar, I lose the train of thought of the whole arguement. Rather than deciding if I agree or disagree with you, I have to figure out what you’re saying and that’s very frustrating.
If you want a prime example, consider Dan Quayle. While Mr. Quayle is probably an intelligent individual, his inability to present his ideas clearly made him a laughing stock, especially since he was Vice President, a position that REQUIRES one to be able to present one’s ideas clearly and forthrightly!
A few spelling errors and grammatical mistakes are understandable, we’re all human. But posts full of them look silly.
I thank Mrs. Grundy and her avatars for being here. Go in peace, come at need, remain my friends.
Grammar and spelling are important for clarity of communication. I don’t pick on obvious typos, for I have certainly committed far more than my share of those. When one is writing in a white-hot blaze of passion, one often forgets to proofread, and I have been guilty of transposing letters or leaving out whole words. I am also an amazingly
poor typist.
However, if you want to be taken seriously in a debate, you need to avoid elementary errors that detract from the substance of your post. If you write “should of” instead of “should have” or confuse “your” and “you’re” more than once, I’m going to discount what you have to say. That’s not aimed at Bill, but it is more of a general comment. I have no obligation to consider the arguments of illiterates.
By the way, being a capable writer is not the same as being an “intellectual grammer nerd sucker.” [rant}One of the problems with this country is a lack of respect for intellectual achievement. Being educated does not entail a corresponding lack of social or athletic skills. The brightest guy I ever knew was a football player in my fraternity who had a 4.0 GPA and majored in Psychology. Another guy I knew in Korea had an MA in Spanish and was working on his doctoral thesis. He had major bodybuilder muscles, was a skillful rapper for a white boy, and had a beautiful Korean girlfriend. Dean was the polar opposite of a nerd, yet he was an intensely brilliant man. I suspect the nerd sterotype was invented by envious stupid people to excuse their lack of achievement.[/rant]
I didn’t think the post office liked when you put your return address on the back of the envelope…of course, when your address is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, they probably don’t care.
Part I:
Grammar and spelling may well be important for clear, effective communication, but they are in no way indicitive of intelligence. They are skills, like any other. Basic skills, to be sure, but skills nevertheless.
Basic math is another such skill. Yet, a “fear of math” is much more tolerable, and to many, understandable. Yet not being able add or subtract properly can get one into a great deal more trouble than not knowing (or caring) about the difference between “your” and “you’re”.
Some individuals perform better at math, some at writing. Some can do both well, some can do neither well. But their performance in either says nothing about their overall intelligence. Most of my friends can’t spell worth a damn. Yet they are also fairly bright people.
Part II:
Consider the following sentence:
“Your all a bunch of intellectual snobs!”
Can anyone reasonably claim that they are unaware of what that sentence means, simply because of the misuse of the first word? I think not. Yet many would rather focus on the delivery rather than the message.
Further, if a particular grammatical construct is such that it makes a given sentence indecipherable, it is just as easy to ask for clarification as it is to berate the poster.
And, of course, if it’s too much trouble to even bother, you can simply skip the offending post entirely.