fine, damnit, be ignorant!!!

The BBQ Pit
1

i posted in imho about someone on another board who consistently misuses apostrophes. i wanted to find a nice way to explain the correct usage to her.

but i’ve concluded that the posters on this other board enjoy being ignorant and resent any corrections i provide.

someone posted an email she’d received on ways to avoid rapists. i’d seen the email on snopes a few days before and provided a link, suggesting that while some of the advice may be good, some was not, and that it may be a better idea to take advice from local law enforcement or safety professionals rather than trying to wade through something received in an email. i was told snippily that the op was only trying to help.

after being asked how to use html tags in a sig (they had asked me to moderate the board help forum), i answered that this was not possible on the board and suggested using ubb tags or keeping a copy of their sig with html and pasting it in to posts (acceptable on this board). when someone advised opening html tags for the sig in the post and never closing them, and i suggested that this might not be a good idea, i was essentially told to bugger off.

in a forum about web design (moderated by a cheesey free template designer who rips off other people’s code and sells it on her site), i mentioned that no right-click codes are not very secure protection. i explained how simple they are to get around and gave some examples of better ways to protect images (while mentioning that any image that shows up on my computer can be stolen – i don’t know any way to prevent a screen cap). the mod of that forum followed behind me and gushed about no right-click, claiming that practically no one on the 'net knows how to get around it.

recently, when i let another mod know that she was violating copyright, an administrator told me that copyright laws aren’t upheld for online documents and that copying entire documents is ok as long as a link to the source is provided. this was despite the fact that i had just cited a source on copyright information that directly contradicted this statement.

i am fucking sick and tired of being brushed off, snipped at, and told that i am wrong any time i try to eradicate a little ignorance on this board.

fine, bitches! be ignorant! go on believing everything you read in emails, refusing the help you ask for, and breaking laws you don’t think exist! screw you, and don’t expect any more from me!

2

:eek: How DARE you suggest that rapists aren’t all looking for overall-wearing women in ponytails, talking on cell phones and walking through the grocery store parking lot before breakfast?

And listen, I hold out my hands and yell, “Stay back! I’ve got pepper spray!” EVERY TIME I see a strange man coming towards me in the Kroger parking lot, and you’d be amazed at how fast they go skedaddling off in the opposite direction. So there, it works, you nattering nabob of negativism…

:smiley:

3

Well, I do see where you are coming from (especially in some of the examples you’ve given) but I think there are some times when being “corrected” sort of ruins the flow of the forum discussion. Or, the person just disagrees. I agree with you on the right-click thing – it doesn’t even work with Macs, for instance. But some people might actually be convinced that they are very effective.

Other times though, it’s just willful igorance.

I am SO with you on the apostrophe thing, though. I know my spelling and grammar are not the best (I’ve given up any pretentions that it is) but the unfettered use of apostrophes is just BEYOND annoying. But that doesn’t mean that people want to be corrected about it. Or it just depends on the circumstances, or timing.

4

Complaining about apostrophies while ignoring capitalization? Guadere’s Law I guess.

5

Thankyouverymuch!:smiley:

6

Capitalization helps readers by breaking up the flow of words. Was it done just to get a point across or is it a habit? I personally would ignore any advice from someone that writes in that fashion.

7

I write without caps for two reasons:

  1. It’s the style I write my website in; originally it was done as an homage to Love Story. Now it’s a habit.

  2. It’s difficult enough to type one handed while trying to nurse my son with the other hand without having to reach for the shift key all the time.

As you can see, I know how to use capitalization correctly. The woman on the other board does not know how to correctly use apostrophes and apparently has no idea how her writing looks.

And you must admit, it’s better than ALL CAPS or the dreaded ToGgLe CaSe!

8

P.S. mblackwell, it’s not Guadere’s Law since my lack of capitalization was intentional. A better example would be your misspelling of apostrophes.

9

There used to be a guy that migrated from one board I hang out on to my own board, and for some reason (besides his atrocious spelling), he’d use commas as his apostrophes.

:confused:

For example: It,s really not Sheila,s fault?ButYou wud, think soo?

At first a few of us ribbed him about it (mainly because he was also being an asshole and coming there just to fight), but he’d still do it after being teased, so I figured it might be some form of dyslexia or something else. After that I didn’t rag on him about that, but instead the fact that he was just an asshole to begin with.

Then I banned him.

10

I find commas sometimes slipping into my text in place of apostrophes because at work and/or school I find myself using a French-layout keyboard. This often requires a bit of hunt-and-peck to find the hidden punctuation symbols.

Not using capitals, though… That’s just wrong. Nothing screams “stream-of-consciousness rant” louder than an unused SHIFT key.

Unless you’re e.e. cummings, in which case you can get away with it.

11

Not to mention Gaudere. :wink:

12

I’m more concerned about the homage to Love Story thing. Love means saying you’re sorry when it’s appropriate, and meaning it.

13

Editing is a profession. If you want to edit BBS posts for a living, you could just post your email, and offer to edit posts for a fee. A quick total of the monthly income you gain from that endeavor would help you approximate the perceived desirability of folks willing to correct other people’s impromptu grammar.

How can you seriously think that nursing is somehow relevant to your performance of a completely perfect example of the consequences of public pedantry? If you are going to rant about grammar, you need to produce prose entirely without flaw, and why you failed to do so has exactly the same relevance as your own criticism of what other people post.

It’s a message board, not a peer review journal. Make gentle, and polite suggestions, in perfect prose, if you must comment on grammar, or shut the hell up.

Now on the point giving answers to questions asked, I find my own experience parallels yours quite well. No one wants the answer, they want to promulgate their favorite objections to the facts. It doesn’t seem to matter than you may be correct, if you don’t tell them what they already wanted to hear, they aren’t satisfied. Just move along, after you give them the hard facts. They can argue with you, but facts don’t respond to rants, or even profoundly grammatical rhetoric.

Tris

14

Kittenblue, that may be, but it’s still one of my all-time favourite books.

I just want to explain that I do not go around correcting everyone’s grammar/spelling/punctuation unless asked. I do feel that someone should help apostrophe girl, though. I know people are laughing behind her back, and she probably has no idea. I think that it’s just mean not to tell her.

Other than the rapist email, all of the other examples involved questions: How do I use html in a sig? How do I protect images on my website? Is it ok to post this entire article?

And Tris, if you don’t think that trying to hold a squirming infant to your breast makes it harder to hit two keys on the keyboard at once, I don’t think you’ve ever tried it.

15

And if you think that fact has logical applicability to the argument that a grammar slam in inaccurate grammatical style is self evidently absurd, then I don’t think you have tried logic.

Tris

16

Lacking any infant-to-breast peripherals of my own, I humbly suggest that Windows’ Accessibility Options, particularly StickyKeys (which allows you to press the Shift, CTRL, or Alt keys and then press another key instead of both at once), might be helpful in situations where one has only one free hand and a portion of one’s attention for the keyboard. I’m not sure what the equivalent option on a Mac might be.

I normally don’t have a problem with pausing my crocheting to type, but then my crocheting doesn’t squirm, so I probably have no idea what it’s like.

Corr

17

I never did say that. In fact, I never slammed her (why would I be looking for a nice way to tell her and not hurt her feelings if I was slamming her?). I just feel that it is sad and somewhat mean that her peers are content to let her look like she doesn’t know how to write and no one bothers to help her.

Luckily, I have plenty of people willing to point out my grammatical failings.

If she told me that she had a reason for adding apostrophes before every s in every word, even though she knew it was wrong, that would be different. I honestly think she doesn’t know.

I thought of something else. When the administrators wanted more posters, they asked all mods to spam other message boards, chatrooms, etc. (They themselves censor the names of all similar websites to prevent posters from leaving their site. This was part of the aforementioned copyright problem, as the mod who posted the article was unable to link the site it came from or even tell the name of the copyright holder. That, and she was reproducing the article in full without permission.)

Anyway, when this happened I was a newbie and asked if spamming wasn’t poor ettiquette. Again, told to bugger off.

18

The warning provided regarding the accuracy of the “avoid rapists” email was a responsible act, in my opinion. People need to be reminded continually that opinions are routinely presented as “fact” in web-world.

My take on the complaints of people in regard to spelling and syntax is that they should up their dose of Prozac.

19

I’ve got to deal with these punks at work. Right now, I have a temp assignment transcribing voice mail messages. Most people don’t speak in nice, neatly edited paragraps, and these people in particular are really terrible, because they use a lot of business jargon that makes the pointy-hair boss in Dilbert seem positively clear by comparison.

Because they rely on a lot of fillers like, “you know” and “sort of”, I generally leave those out, along with the "ummm"s and some false starts.

One of my cow-orkers called me on that, and said I should leave all that in, because it’s what they said, after all. I pointed out that if I left it all in, these people would sound like idiots. It’s natural to hear it, but it’s not natural to read it. Given that these transcripts are file copies, I don’t think the HR guy in Virginia really wants to sound like Porky Pig, do you?

Fortunately, the head of HR understands this, and doesn’t care if I take it out. She sounds better this way, for one thing.

Robin

20

There is no profit in trying to correct anyone, yet I find myself doing it anyway. For example. Just last night at work, I overhear a cow-orker (who BTW is new to this particular job although not to the company) tell a customer “oh, you don’t have a contract with us. It’s an agreement.” After I re-assembled my paralegal wannabe head after it exploded trying to figure out the difference between a contract and a legally binding agreement to prvide services for a fee, I explained to her that (in this regulated-by-federal-state-and-local agency business for which we work) that our customers are in fact under contract to us. She said “no, it’s not a contract, it’s an agreement, because they can get out of it.” I told her again that we in fact have CONTRACTS with our customers. She stared at me with open naked hostility that I would dare to offer her information that contradicted the 100% false bullshit wallowing around in her fool head. Fine, honey, when that customer calls again because they’ve BREACHED THEIR CONTRACT and when his attorney calls you to the stand to testify about how there was no contract between us, I’ll be in the back of the room laughing my ass off at the stupidness that is you. Meanwhile, don’t ever ask me another question about how to do your job, because you obviously already know everything there is to know. Bitch.