Pat, I'd like to buy a shift key ...

See that? You *can *find the shift key when it suits you.

Looks more like Caps Lock to me.

This thread is not all that long. Perhaps you could be bothered to read the fucking thing before commenting. Is that too much to ask?

See above. I never claimed to have a perfect writing style. And a tu quoque argument is really quite weak. Try harder next time.

It wasn’t a complaint. It was an observation offered as a response to a question.

See Fallacy, Logical, e.g.* tu qoque.*

You have no idea what I want. Actually, you might have some idea. I asked you to prove that what I said with respect to some people preferring proper capitalization and punctuation to be wrong. I’m still waiting, so I suppose I want you to have a go at that. It seems fruitless, but no doubt you will be able to make something up.

In the interest of getting full data and not further derailing this thread, I’ve posed this question [post=539837]as a poll.[/post]

That doesn’t mean what you think it means.

I yell at others for killing people.
I myself fail to kill people.
You gonna poke me, too?

[/snipe]

That was an Extentialist play, right?

and you seem to be able to read (and understand) my posts even if the first letter is not capitalized and there is no period at the end of the sentence

THIS is A message BOARD

it IS not A business LETTER or A doctoral THESIS

pull the dangling participle [FONT=“Verdana”]out of your ass and open your narrow mind[/FONT]

and please keep your snotty, ignorant remarks such as “I concur. Using the shift key is really not all that burdensome, and if you’re too lazy to do that, I’m not inclined to give much weight to your Deep Thoughts” TO YOURSELF

that statement is so stupid it makes me WANT TO TYPE IN ALL CAPS

Perhaps you could be bothered to actually read the response in context, in which case you’d realize that it’s mocking you for saying *makes *where you should have said make (subject/verb agreement).

Oh, I’ll readily admit I’m making an ad hom. But that’s exactly my point: you’re a bunch of fucking hypocrites. You demand that people should adhere to an objective standard when writing but fail to adhere to that standard yourself. I find that amusing, so I point it out. Repeatedly.

If you still don’t get it, I could draw you a diagram. The longer this goes on, though, the more likely the drawing is going to consist of the words “RETARD” and “YOU” with an arrow connecting them.

It was a very peevish, confrontational response, which strongly implied that failing to use “proper punctuation and capitalization” caused problems for you. (Note the use of the word “fucking.”) I choose to call that “bitching,” because it strikes me as a complaint, even if you didn’t literally say, word for word, “I hate it when people do that.” You may choose to disagree.

Correct. I should have said, “You yell at others for failing to do what you yourself fail to do.” But I’m not being a bitchy prescriptivist. :smiley:

Was I sleeping, while the others suffered? Am I… sleeping now? Tomorrow, when I wake, or think I do, what shall I say of today? That with Polycarp my friend, at this place, until the mods lock the thread, I waited for Gaudere?

Again, I think you’re missing the point about the actual purpose of this pitting. Neither Contrapuntal nor anybody else came in here decrying “youth today” for making a good-faith effort to use standard orthography but inadvertently committing a few errors now and then.

If any of us did that, it would indeed be hypocritical, because all of us inadvertently commit a few errors in orthography now and then, and we certainly shouldn’t sneer at young people for screwing up in the same way we do.

That doesn’t in any way disqualify us from expressing justified disdain for self-absorbed lazy little wankers who can’t even be bothered to try to use proper orthography in the first place.

If you really don’t understand the difference between making an occasional error in composing Standard Written American English and flatly declaring that you’re not even going to attempt to follow the rules of Standard Written American English, then you need to read this whole thread more carefully.

If you do understand that difference but are just trying to pretend that it doesn’t exist so you can keep gloating about a possibly misplaced comma and ignoring the real topic of the thread, then you’re simply dishonest and trollish.

And by your own admission, option B looks more likely here:

I think you must have meant to say either “doing what they themselves do” or “failing to do what they themselves fail to do”. Because of course, there’s not actually anything logically or ethically inconsistent in yelling at others for doing something that you yourself don’t do.

Assuming that you did mean to convey that you were stick-poking Contrapuntal and others here for inconsistency or hypocrisy, you completely missed your aim. Because what the OP and his sympathizers here are “yelling at others” for is their flat-out refusal to even try to follow the standards of written English, not for making occasional mistakes in written English. So there is nothing inconsistent or hypocritical about their complaints.

And if you could be arsed to read the thread you would realize that the question has been asked and answered. Instead, your juices are flowing so much at the prospect of poking folks with sticks that you go off half cocked.

Well, there’s failure and there’s failure. At the very least, I am attempting to write clearly and simply as a show of respect to the reader. Any failure reflects my ability, not my intentions. This can be contrasted with those who insist that whatever makes it easier on them is the best way to go, and the reader be damned.

And then there is total failure, as in your total failure to answer the question I have asked you twice now.

Pithy.

See above with respect to reading the thread. Go back to the post I was answering, and note the use of the word “fucking.” Got it?

Well, you are, but only for stick-poking purposes, not because you really are a prescriptivist.

What you really are is either stupid or a troll, or both.

Are you sure that link is right?

Third time may be a charm.

They post astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more.

Here ya go.

It’s not just you. I’ve had to hide my niece and nephew and younger cousins on Facebook because I can’t deal with status updates that look like they let a cat wander along the keyboard.

No, I meant your link from this thread to that one, not the other way around. You screwed up both, somehow.

Somehow would be by repeatedly writing the BB code for post when I meant thread. However, by the time I had made it all better for this thread, Contrapunctal had kindly rescued me - thanks.

I hide my head in shame.

Hmm, I suppose that remark could be considered snotty, especially to an illiterate oaf, but I disagree that it’s ignorant.

Style *is *content. It conveys information. Yours conveys that you are an oaf. Perhaps reasonably literate, but with a chip on your shoulder so heavy it makes your knuckles drag.