# Have you noticed every other message board is populated by idiots? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 15, 2006, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-noticed-every-other-message-board-is-populated-by-idiots/380542 "2006-11-15T16:38:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-noticed-every-other-message-board-is-populated-by-idiots/380542/81 "2006-11-17T03:27:36Z")
I have a rule, and it has yet to steer me wrong: if it’s not grammatically correct, it’s not worth reading. People who put little-to-no effort into the presentation of their ideas usually put little-to-no effort into the ideas themselves. ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-noticed-every-other-message-board-is-populated-by-idiots/380542/82 "2006-11-17T03:34:23Z")
You want bad posting? Go to a forum for video gaming and/or computer modding. Yeesh! I mostly lurk at one of the medium-sized modding forums, and from other forums I have seen on the same topic, it’s one of the better ones as far as grammar go, and it still grates on my nerves most of the time. Of ocurse, being a modding board, it allows pictures (to show off your sweety mods, of course,) but lordy oh lordy how that feature can get abused. If they just barred pictures from the ‘general discussion’ forums, it wouldn’t be bad, sicne then all the pictures would just be of people’s cases, or new hardware, and what have you. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-noticed-every-other-message-board-is-populated-by-idiots/380542/83 "2006-11-17T07:18:54Z")
[QUOTE=Ignatz] And then there are those who (or is that whom?) split infinitives. [/QUOTE] I know this is a joke, but it touches on two of the stupidest nonsense rules ever perpetrated on those who learn the English language: [ul] [li]Splitting infinitives is perfectly correct. Everyone does it. Why? Because that’s how English works. The prohibition is a rule from Latin, a language where splitting infinitives is _impossible_, applied to English, where it is obligatory, by people who wouldn’t be competent to teach a chimp how to pick termites off his own ass.[/li][li]‘Whom’ is a perfectly useless word. It has no reason whatsoever for being, and nobody even comes close to using it consistently anyway. Even if there were people who use it according to the imaginary rules invented by ignorant schoolmarms, who cares? It adds no information to the sentence we don’t already have.[/li][/ul]Bah! Geek mad! GEEK SMASH STUPID RULES! [Great Language Log post on the death of ‘whom’.](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001437.html) > [@Geoffrey K. Pullum](#): > > Using whom for who isn’t regularization. It’s a desperately insecure clutching after a form that people no longer know where to use or how to control. Whom is like some strange object — a Krummhorn, a unicycle, a wax cylinder recorder — found in grandpa’s attic: people don’t want to throw it out, but neither do they know what to do with it. So they keep it around, sticking an m on the end of who every now and then when it seems like an important occasion. Columbus Day, for example, or when trying to impress a grammarian or a maitre d’hotel (whom will be our waiter tonight?). [This is even more fundamental.](http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001803.html) > [@Geoffrey K. Pullum](#): > > The first thing to say is that the only possible way to settle a question of grammar or style is to look at relevant evidence. I suppose there really are people who believe the rules of grammar come down from some authority on high, an authority that has no connection with the people who speak and write English; but those people have got to be deranged. How could there possibly be a rule of grammar that had nothing with the way the language is used or has been used by the sort of people who are most admired for their skill with it? What motive could there possibly be for following some rule if it had no connection to the actual practice of the sort of people you would like to be counted among, or regarded as similar to, with regard to the use of the language? Face it: a rule of English grammar that doesn’t have a basis in the way expert writers deploy the English language (or the way expert speakers speak it when at their best) is a rule that has no basis at all. Don’t get me started about the morons who decry double negatives. Shakespeare used double negatives, and he wasn’t no dummy! ---
**Author:** ![mr.jp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-noticed-every-other-message-board-is-populated-by-idiots/380542/84 "2006-11-17T09:07:54Z")
[QUOTE=Derleth] Don’t get me started about the morons who decry double negatives. Shakespeare used double negatives, and he wasn’t no dummy! [/QUOTE] Now, I don’t know if you are joking or not. Double negatives are stupid, they can introduce ambiguity to the language. “There isn’t nobody home” If I say that, it means that it isn’t the case that noone is home. But if a double negativer says it, it means that there is nobody home. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-noticed-every-other-message-board-is-populated-by-idiots/380542/85 "2006-11-17T09:48:59Z")
[QUOTE=Una Persson] No, not every other message board. [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Chez Guevara] No, not every other message board. [/QUOTE] Cite? ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-noticed-every-other-message-board-is-populated-by-idiots/380542/86 "2006-11-17T10:38:06Z")
[QUOTE=Derleth] [li]‘Whom’ is a perfectly useless word. It has no reason whatsoever for being, and nobody even comes close to using it consistently anyway. Even if there were people who use it according to the imaginary rules invented by ignorant schoolmarms, who cares? It adds no information to the sentence we don’t already have.[/li][/QUOTE] Sez whom? ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-noticed-every-other-message-board-is-populated-by-idiots/380542/87 "2006-11-17T10:55:51Z")
[QUOTE=Scissorjack] Sez whom? [/QUOTE] No, no, you’ve got it all wrong. Whom’s on first. ---
**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-noticed-every-other-message-board-is-populated-by-idiots/380542/88 "2006-11-17T13:38:31Z")
> [@](#): > > Have you noticed every other message board is populated by idiots? Yeah, I said this on another board I belong to… Si ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-noticed-every-other-message-board-is-populated-by-idiots/380542/89 "2006-11-17T14:57:02Z")
[QUOTE=Rigamarole] No, no, you’ve got it all wrong. Whom’s on first. [/QUOTE] I don’t not know. ---
**Author:** ![garius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e19b73/32.png) [@garius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garius)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-noticed-every-other-message-board-is-populated-by-idiots/380542/90 "2006-11-17T15:14:18Z")
[NADS](http://nadsters.com/nads) is generally pretty good as well, but then that original started as an offshoot of this place anyway. To be honest i think its generally closely tied to subject matter. ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-noticed-every-other-message-board-is-populated-by-idiots/380542/91 "2006-11-17T15:30:38Z")
[QUOTE=Rigamarole] Cite? [/QUOTE] Just checking. You are requesting a cite for a message board, other than this one, which is not populated by idiots. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-noticed-every-other-message-board-is-populated-by-idiots/380542/92 "2006-11-17T15:39:09Z")
Folks, simmer down. “Whom” is no more useless than “him” or “me” instead of “he” or “I” – which, not coincidentally, is how you remember when to say “whom” (whenever you would say “him.” See, you can tell because they both end with m!) > [@Triskadekamus](#): > > I don’t know why, but the Internet seems to be a pernicious influence on English. Is that true for other languages? Is there fractured Japanese on the web? Do French kids say the equivalent of l33t speak? On my metro forum (French language), yes, yes they do. I tell you, when a kid is using no caps and no punctuation and typing the phonetic equivalent of thick joual, it can become damn near impossible to understand. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-noticed-every-other-message-board-is-populated-by-idiots/380542/93 "2006-11-17T15:43:08Z")
[QUOTE=BiblioCat] There’s A Message Board I Frequent Where Some Posters Type Like This. It Makes My Eyes Hurt. [/QUOTE] Ow. Almost as bad is random capitalization of Nouns, usually those the writer wishes given emphasis or respect, such as Football, the Saxophone, or one’s Supervisor at Work. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-noticed-every-other-message-board-is-populated-by-idiots/380542/94 "2006-11-17T16:11:56Z")
[QUOTE=Beware of Doug] Ow. Almost as bad is random capitalization of Nouns, usually those the writer wishes given emphasis or respect, such as Football, the Saxophone, or one’s Supervisor at Work. [/QUOTE] Darn, another one I am guilty of. I am working on this one currently. I picked up the habit in my supporting tech writing. This is extremely common for Cobol & RPG programmers to capitalize words in the middle of a sentence. Jim ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-noticed-every-other-message-board-is-populated-by-idiots/380542/95 "2006-11-17T18:23:10Z")
[QUOTE=Chez Guevara] Just checking. You are requesting a cite for a message board, other than this one, which is not populated by idiots. [/QUOTE] Yes. When you say “No, this is not the only one” and provide no further details it’s kind of annoying and pointless. ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-noticed-every-other-message-board-is-populated-by-idiots/380542/96 "2006-11-17T18:25:31Z")
[QUOTE=Beware of Doug] Ow. Almost as bad is random capitalization of Nouns, usually those the writer wishes given emphasis or respect, such as Football, the Saxophone, or one’s Supervisor at Work. [/QUOTE] Add to this rogues’ gallery of shitty syntax the use of quotation marks for no apparent reason. You know, when you’re “surfing the” internet and there are message boards with “lots” of things in quotes? :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Misnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misnomer/32/14897_2.png) [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-noticed-every-other-message-board-is-populated-by-idiots/380542/97 "2006-11-17T18:33:19Z")
[QUOTE=Triskadecamus] I don’t know why, but the Internet seems to be a pernicious influence on English. [/QUOTE] You know, I’ve been toying with the idea of writing my master’s degree thesis on that topic: what effect e-mail, text messages, and instant messages have had on the quality of business/professional writing. Hmm. [QUOTE=OneCentStamp] Add to this rogues’ gallery of shitty syntax the use of quotation marks for no apparent reason. [/QUOTE] What are you “trying” to say? :dubious: 😛 (Sorry, couldn’t resist!) ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-noticed-every-other-message-board-is-populated-by-idiots/380542/98 "2006-11-17T18:34:47Z")
[QUOTE=bouv] You want bad posting? Go to a forum for video gaming and/or computer modding. [/QUOTE] I think it’s because the market is absolutely saturated for that kind of board, and there’s fewer prospective quality members to go around. It’s hard to establish a new forum now, but there are still come categories where the phrase “build it and they will come” applies: video gaming, computer modding, car modding and tuning, MMORPGs, and anime. It seems like there can never be enough anime or car tuning boards. ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2006, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-noticed-every-other-message-board-is-populated-by-idiots/380542/99 "2006-11-18T00:57:09Z")
[QUOTE=Rigamarole] Yes. When you say “No, this is not the only one” and provide no further details it’s kind of annoying and pointless. [/QUOTE] Fair enough. I can’t say for certain which message board, if any, **Una Persson** had in mind but my choice, among others, would be the aptly named Unaboard. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2006, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-noticed-every-other-message-board-is-populated-by-idiots/380542/100 "2006-11-18T04:01:26Z")
[QUOTE=matt\_mcl] Folks, simmer down. “Whom” is no more useless than “him” or “me” instead of “he” or “I” [/QUOTE] Then tell us all what extra information it provides to the sentence. Keep in mind that it is slowly dying out in normal conversational and written English, even in sentences produced by intelligent and educated speakers, and is not even useful as a class marker anymore. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-noticed-every-other-message-board-is-populated-by-idiots/380542.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-you-noticed-every-other-message-board-is-populated-by-idiots/380542.md?page=6)