Now that you mention it, maybe those spell-checkers aren’t so bad after all.
It’s okay, blowero. Dantheman managed to sneak in between my two posts, so it may have caused confusion.
sailor - I understand your peeve, but isn’t the “is” just a “sloppy” shortening of “has”? The “h” drops out, and the “a” becomes schwa. Granted, a TV person should have better locution, but many of my friends also say things like:
“President Bush ez visited a school yesterday”
But when writing it out, they would certainly use “has.”
Psst! Cranky!
Or as Cypress Hill put it so Eloquently,
“Catch a ho, and another ho, Merry Christmas”.
Oh Christ, like any of us would trust the authority of a Quebecois dictionary. You’re all so damned contrary up there anyway!
Like an entire populace of Yosemite Sams.
Woe hoe.
Not sure where you heard that, Arnold. It’s definitely not true for Québecois French, at least.
You don’t even know what we’re discussing, do you?
Le Petit Larousse. Larousse, 21, rue du Montparnasse, 75283 Paris.
Okay, now I feel dumb. See, I saw Arnold’s post the other day, but I wanted to check with Elenfair to make sure I was right, and matt posted before me. All’s well that ends well, I suppose.
I can’t believe no one picked this nit… or was I whooshed?
Well, I’ll back up Arnold cuz when we learned French in high school, I distinctly remember there never being any accents over capitals, for what it’s worth.
pulykamell, not to sound rude or anything, but I’m afraid I trust matt_mcl and Elenfair (a francophone) over you on affairs of French grammar.
Anyway, for the fun of it, here’s the Montreal metro map, complete with accents on the capital letters.
Oh. Well. I see. chastened
My generalized insult towards Quebec still stands, though! Dagnabbit!
There are accents on capital letters en francais.
An “accent grave” on an A at the beginning of a sentence can make all the difference in the world. I’m told that it sometimes didn’t appear in print, a while back, because there was no allocation made for accented capital letters in software.
And yes, I’m a francophone, went to school in French, including at the Lycee.
Maybe it’s just the “cheap high-school textbooks” rule. When I took high school French, they definitely told us that accents were not used on capital letters in printing, and that’s how the textbook did it.
Otherwise, they’re outrageous and silly.
I know, Polycarp. 
Normally, I’d find too much of that to be irritating. I certainly don’t use dialect much, if at all. (unless you’re talking approximate phonetic pronunciations of certain Chinese terms)
As for the “accents over capital letters” thing in French, when I took high school French, they told us that you shouldn’t use accents over capital letters, as a rule. You could use them, but generally they weren’t to be used. am I making any sense here? probably not…
F_X
I think ehehehehehehe is Beavis and Butthead. But I could be wrong.
LaurAnge - You misunderstood my post. I did not at all mean to say that it’s correct not to accent capitals. I have no authority whatsoever in the French language. I meant to say that, like Arnold, I too was at one time taught not to accent capitals in French, just to let everyone know that he’s not the only one to have heard this rule. Apparently Flamsterette was also taught this rule.
I am forced to do this in the spirit of the SDMB, to fight ignorance. What I have used since my earliest days on the Internet …
The Gorgon Heap Rules of Laughter Writing
Many of the below may be typed in differing fashions, but the meanings are the same unless otherwise noted.
he he he - is indeed a sly chuckle.
heh heh heh - is “I’m a dirty old man thinking about what’s under your skirt.”
ho ho ho - is general jollyness, whether happy or lewd.
ha ha ha - is regular laughter.
BWA HA HA (Bwa Ha Ha) - is diabolical “I’m going to conquer the Mushroom Kingdom” laughter.
Tee Hee (teehee) - is teenage gils laughing at an inside joke.
Tee hee hee - is to aknowledge a childish, silly joke or comment.
Har har har (Har Har Har) - depending on the situation, can be either loud, boistrous laughter or just the laughter of a pirate.
Muahahahaha - the clever evil laugh.
Tra la la - this is not a laught. Ever.
You are all now in the know, and have no further reason to debate the laughter issue, though you will probably want to continue arguing about grammar.
Peace! 
And here I thought the correct term was “hoo-haa”… which I don’t suppose should be confused with (some) military branch’s exclamation “Hooah!”.
Anyway, I’ll just be over here dunking my Ho-Ho in this 'ere Yoo-Hoo. . .