# How difficult do you find it to comprehend this 'love my manager' OP?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-do-you-find-it-to-comprehend-this-love-my-manager-op/700361
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [October 4, 2014, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-do-you-find-it-to-comprehend-this-love-my-manager-op/700361 "2014-10-04T06:15:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@MrsTime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrsTime)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2014, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-do-you-find-it-to-comprehend-this-love-my-manager-op/700361/21 "2014-10-04T15:00:01Z")
Sorry but I didn’t vote…you had no choice of “don’t give a damn”.
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### Author:  [@kiz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kiz)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2014, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-do-you-find-it-to-comprehend-this-love-my-manager-op/700361/22 "2014-10-04T15:04:07Z")
> [@Maastricht](#):
>
> Short sentences. Subject is either typing on a phone with a small screen, or subject is not intelligent enough to make longer structured sentences.
I vote for small screen. She used a lot of textspeak. I’m on the fence as to whether English isn’t her first language or she deliberately wrote it like that just to see what the rest of us would say.
> [@](#):
>
> The practiced use of the ellips (…) instead of a regular period at the end of the sentence, suggests the latter. Studies show people who use ellipses … instead of a period to string sentences together, are vague airheads.
I don’t know about that…I use a lot of ellipses and I don’t think anyone considers me a vague airhead. I use them because I write as though I’m talking. Ellipses, for me, are the written equivalent of either a pause or the middle of a thought.
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2014, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-do-you-find-it-to-comprehend-this-love-my-manager-op/700361/23 "2014-10-04T15:53:52Z")
I’m not really sure which poll option to select. I find the text mildly incomprehensible, but cant seem to summon up the will to expend any effort on it.
If something is obscure, but worthwhile, I’ll make the effort - so I have spent countless hours sweating over difficult instruction documents, troubleshooting guides, etc, because the end result when I finally understand it, is beneficial to me. There’s an incentive.
If, on the other hand, the intent of the text is a plea for help, then it had damn well better be as readable and comprehensible as possible. I’m happy to help or advise people to the extent I can, but don’t make me solve a fucking puzzle before I start. It’s a similar level of annoyance as when someone asks for a solution to some problem, but is evasive about the detail (which also happens more than it should)
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### Author:  [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2014, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-do-you-find-it-to-comprehend-this-love-my-manager-op/700361/24 "2014-10-04T16:07:34Z")
I voted _Extreme amounts of effort required._ Extreme is relative, but since I gave up after a line or two, I figured that was the appropriate response here.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2014, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-do-you-find-it-to-comprehend-this-love-my-manager-op/700361/25 "2014-10-04T16:10:20Z")
It was pretty easy to read, if not quite as easy as standard English. As I said in that thread, it seemed to be a strange mixture of a native, but youngish, English speaker and a non-native speaker, depending on which part you were reading. I was guess the person was East Asian.
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### Author:  [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2014, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-do-you-find-it-to-comprehend-this-love-my-manager-op/700361/26 "2014-10-04T17:27:33Z")
I voted “Difficult but comprehensible.” Pick any one sentence out of that mess, and I can decode it. But two sentences in, I had to summon considerable willpower to keep going. That’s where the “difficult” comes in. It’s like speaking Spanish (for me) - I can do it, but after about an hour, I’m mentally exhausted. But with learning a foreign language, I think there’s some long-term gain. Here, not so much.
On first reading, I gave up after about two sentences. In this thread, I might have made it through three before giving up.
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### Author:  [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2014, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-do-you-find-it-to-comprehend-this-love-my-manager-op/700361/27 "2014-10-04T17:28:37Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> It was pretty easy to read, if not quite as easy as standard English. As I said in that thread, it seemed to be a strange mixture of a native, but youngish, English speaker and a non-native speaker, depending on which part you were reading. I was guess the person was East Asian.
I was guess you not native english talker neither?
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2014, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-do-you-find-it-to-comprehend-this-love-my-manager-op/700361/28 "2014-10-04T17:35:35Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#):
>
> Once I glued my eyes to it and forced myself to read it, I was able to extract the meaning, but it took extra effort. People read words (or even short phrases), so text that uses a lot of non-words (whether simple typos like “jever” or “bow” or horrendously butchered things like “odrwise” and “wts”) is more difficult to read. The almost complete lack of capital letters just makes it worse. There were a few things that took me extra time, like “wts,” which I thought was an initialism until I sounded it out like a kindergartner learning to read.
>
> But without extra prompting, I would have just dismissed it as gibberish and went on.
>
> Words are what people read, so their comprising a mere majority of a text is not really satisfactory. There are _so_ many things other than words in that paragraph that it really is difficult to read normally. It’s fine to use “y r u” or maybe even “wts” in a one-sentence text message (I’m not sure I can compromise on “odrwise”). But once you get to the paragraph level, it needs to be written to read, not to sound out.
Agree. When I read “proper” English, like for example the post I’m quoting here, the meaning pretty much jumps through my eyes into my brain without any noticeable effort on my part at all. It’s not that the text quoted in the OP required _extra_ effort as that it requires _effort_, and it may not be worth the effort to me to take the trouble to read it.
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### Author:  [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2014, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-do-you-find-it-to-comprehend-this-love-my-manager-op/700361/29 "2014-10-04T18:36:34Z")
It was like reading Polish. I can technically read it, but I am not fluent, and so the need to translate makes it more effort than the information is usually worth.
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### Author:  [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2014, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-do-you-find-it-to-comprehend-this-love-my-manager-op/700361/30 "2014-10-04T19:53:27Z")
Like most competent readers, my eyes pause so that I can process a multi-word cluster before moving to the next group of words. I cannot do that with the OP in question. I have to slow down to 1st-grader reading speed and look at each word. I recall opening this thread, moving my eyes across the OP as I normally would, and coming back with…nothing. Ctrl-F4.
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### Author:  [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2014, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-do-you-find-it-to-comprehend-this-love-my-manager-op/700361/31 "2014-10-04T19:56:52Z")
I don’t mind reading a 140-character text like that but I simply don’t find it worth it to slog through a whole extended paragraph of that crap.
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### Author:  [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2014, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-do-you-find-it-to-comprehend-this-love-my-manager-op/700361/32 "2014-10-04T20:38:19Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#):
>
> Why?
>
> I understood it perfectly.
It used a lot of shortcuts that aren’t familiar to me. I had to stop to work out “coz f him,” just as one example. I did understand it, but it took extra work.
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### Author:  [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2014, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-do-you-find-it-to-comprehend-this-love-my-manager-op/700361/33 "2014-10-04T20:41:39Z")
I’m more or less OK with it until it gets to this point: “_n that day i told him dat ders nthn i cn tell hm coz i myself m confused and i told hm dat all i want is for him to b safe coz a few days back he had an accident and that oeft me way tooo scared_”
That’s the point at which I stopped being able to simply read it. I had to stop and reconstruct each word, then read my mental reconstruction. It also doesn’t help that it contradicts itself (“nothing I can tell him” is followed by “I told him”) so that I’m left doubting my reconstruction.
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### Author:  [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2014, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-do-you-find-it-to-comprehend-this-love-my-manager-op/700361/34 "2014-10-04T20:55:53Z")
> [@dracoi](#):
>
> I’m more or less OK with it until it gets to this point: “_n that day i told him dat ders nthn i cn tell hm coz i myself m confused and i told hm dat all i want is for him to b safe coz a few days back he had an accident and that oeft me way tooo scared_”
>
> That’s the point at which I stopped being able to simply read it. I had to stop and reconstruct each word, then read my mental reconstruction. It also doesn’t help that it contradicts itself (“nothing I can tell him” is followed by “I told him”) so that I’m left doubting my reconstruction.
I suspect your reconstruction is literally accurate. It contains the sentence, “I told him that there’s nothing I can tell him”, which is a bit of a contradiction if you parse it literally. It’s fair to assume the author did not intend it that way. How the author _did_ intend it is beyond me.
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### Author:  [@ernest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ernest)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2014, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-do-you-find-it-to-comprehend-this-love-my-manager-op/700361/35 "2014-10-04T21:16:17Z")
I write rather badly due to coma for several weeks and other issues. But write some very beautiful poems I have been told. When writing something you got to consider your targeted market. Women,Men,children,Age groups culture or every one. Bottom line is what and how you write something make’s it marketable or Trash. Your OP as you call it sounds like a romance novel. But reads as a sexually frustrated person who indecisive about there next move. Personally I wouldn’t read it because it reads like my ex wife. To much drama and not enough romance. As for how something spelled try stanza grouping to make certain parts stand out or easier to read. As for spelling in general most people these days are nit pickers. They catch mistakes rather than content. If your a writer focus on writing. You can always get some one else to edit it later down the road or edit as you make changes. Don’t worry about the nit pickers. To me when I write a poem I speak it out loud. If it doesn’t sound pleasant to the ears then I don’t care how good you spell its not written right. Now if this isn’t a book but a personal work relationship with your boss. I suggest off the clock ask him out for some drink and whisper in his ear what your intentions are and if he not with it. Tell him to stop the touchy filly stuff. Because that can be consider sexual harassment unless its what you want. As for work place sexual harassment not a lawyer but I have been told bye people from the government at job site’s I have worked at its not consider harassment unless you ask them to stop and they don’t or your position is affected bye rejection of the attention they impose. But if a book due to sexual harassment in the work place these days you may want to consider a different subject matter.
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### Author:  [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2014, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-do-you-find-it-to-comprehend-this-love-my-manager-op/700361/36 "2014-10-04T23:02:25Z")
Uh… Ok.
I voted extreme. The text-speak was one thing, but the wall of text takes it up to an 8.75 on the difficulty scale for me.
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### Author:  [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2014, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-do-you-find-it-to-comprehend-this-love-my-manager-op/700361/37 "2014-10-04T23:13:04Z")
I read a few sentences, and gave up. I am not usually interested in long screeds from newbies, and the effort to understand it wouldn’t be worth it to me. If it was some kind of scientific information I would make the effort, just not for a love me/ loves me not story.
> [@](#):
>
> Originally Posted by Kiz
>
> Originally Posted by Maastricht View Post
> Short sentences. Subject is either typing on a phone with a small screen, or subject is not intelligent enough to make longer structured sentences.
> I vote for small screen. She used a lot of textspeak. I’m on the fence as to whether English isn’t her first language or she deliberately wrote it like that just to see what the rest of us would say.
>
> Quote:
> The practiced use of the ellips (…) instead of a regular period at the end of the sentence, suggests the latter. Studies show people who use ellipses … instead of a period to string sentences together, are vague airheads.
>
> I don’t know about that…I use a lot of ellipses and I don’t think anyone considers me a vague airhead. I use them because I write as though I’m talking. Ellipses, for me, are the written equivalent of either a pause or the middle of a thought.
I use a lot of ellipses too… I naturally pause and gesticulate when I am talking, or trail off, or…string loosely connected sentences together. I do it in letters, and stream of consciousness-type writing, which may be the OP 's intent. Either that, or sloppy punctuation; one cannot rule this out. (Gaudere, I am quite certain I am invoking you. But that is fine, I am not asking for writing to be perfect, just somewhat comprehensible.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2014, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-do-you-find-it-to-comprehend-this-love-my-manager-op/700361/38 "2014-10-05T00:02:06Z")
Another vote for readable, but far more trouble than it appeared to be worth. When it first appeared I actually read about 2 lines & passed my eyes diagonally the rest of the wall of text. Nothing but a couple of keywords jumped out at me, so Ctrl-F4 was next.
Clearly we at SDMB have a style we prefer. We prefer writing written as writing. Not writing that is merely stream-of-consciousness speaking transcribed into keystrokes. And certainly not a wall of txt message stuff. We also prefer the vocabulary & sentence structure of folks who did well in high school and graduated 10+ years ago. IOW, we’re fogeys.
So our OP is massively guilty of not understanding her audience and communicating to them in their accustomed & preferred style. As such she’s not going to get much effort out of me.
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### Author:  [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2014, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-do-you-find-it-to-comprehend-this-love-my-manager-op/700361/39 "2014-10-05T02:48:37Z")
> [@bldysabba](#):
>
> I think those are probably typos. jever is never but bow is now. And both j and b are right next to n.
I guess I’m more accustomed to textspeak (and specifically drunk textspeak) than most of you, but I’ve definitely received communications of that sort before.
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### Author:  [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2014, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-do-you-find-it-to-comprehend-this-love-my-manager-op/700361/40 "2014-10-05T02:54:30Z")
I can understand it with a little effort, but I regularly read ‘Yahoo Answers’. Compared to some of the gems there, the text quoted in the OP is straight out of ‘The Elements Of Style’.
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