I’m a regular on another board that’s got a fair number of posters for whom English is a second (or third) language, so I’ve learned to read past grammar and spelling mistakes if it seems that the poster is at least trying to be legible. However, if somebody’s typing at such a break-neck speed that their post is riddled with spelling and grammar mistakes, then I’m always led to wonder how well the poster thought out their response before posting it – so, I spose that good spelling/grammar doesn’t really increase a post’s credibility in my eyes, but atrocious spelling/grammar (when it seems that the mistakes are due to haste) will certainly hurt a post’s credibility in my eyes.
If somebody uses “lol” or “roflmao” (or whatever) every other sentence then I usually ignore them.
You misunderstand me if you think I suggested that sloppy grammar makes an argument invalid. I merely mean that if what you write is hard to slog through, your meaning is that much less clear. I likewise noted that if you bog your comments down with ponderous, but grammatically correct, meanderings, once again, it becomes a slog to figure out what the hell the person is talking about.
I grant that on the Board things are written hastily and I don’t expect anyone to rigorously self-edit. But I think most people do notice the mistakes, however trivial. Notice enough, and you do start wondering whether the person’s got a point.
Again, the whole purpose of language is to communicate. If you use the language poorly, the communication breaks down.
Grammar and spelling are habits like everything else. I’m in the habit of trying to be accurate in my spelling and grammar, and I like to think that is reflected in my posts. Just because this is an informal message board doesn’t mean that I’m going to slack off on something that is important to me. I want people to understand what I have taken the time to write, and I do that by making an effort to create mistake-free posts where the meanings are as clear as I can make them. It also doesn’t hurt that I’m a secretary by trade, and sending out letters for the boss with grammar and spelling errors in them reflects badly on him, and on me.
(BTW, Dread Pirate Jimbo and I met over an internet personals service - I wouldn’t have answered his emails to me if they had been full of spelling/grammar errors. These types of errors were one more indicator of how good a match we would be.)
When a person claims to be a writer, a journalist or an English teacher and refers to a family member’s chemotherapy as “kimo,” then she or he loses credibility with me.
I have no problem with “lol” or “roflmao” or laughing smilies (or whatever) when they’re used appropriately (e.g. when acknowledging/applauding something that is funny). However, they become tedious and irritating when used in excess, especially when they’re used flippantly (as always seems to be the case when they’re used excessively).
F’rinstance, scene A:
Joey Joe Joe: [relays a humorous anecdote]
Billy-Bob: roflmao, that was hilarious Joey Joe Joe…
…is an entirely appropriate use of “roflmao” in my mind. Even has Billy-Bob responded with
Billy-Bob: lol lol lol roflmao lol
it would be alright by me – Billy-Bob has used a few more "lol"s than I would, but it’s no skin off my nose.
Scene B, on the other hand:
Joey Joe Joe: [lengthy exposition on whateverthehell] …and that is why it’s better to solve the problem with Gaussian Elimination rather than by use of the matrix inverse.
Billy-Bob: lol lol lol, yeah right, you suXors, roflmao, inverses rock, lol
…is an inappropriate (i.e. irritating) use of “lol” and “roflmao.” Joey Joe Joe hasn’t made a joke, in fact hasn’t said anything remotely intended to be funny, but Billy-Bob (rather than coming up with a reasonable counter-argument, or rather than admitting that Joey Joe Joe is correct or even that he has a valid point) flippantly dismisses Joey Joe Joe’s post as though it were a joke. The “lol” counter-argument is almost worse than the “rolleyes” counter-argument in my book.
Now, I’m not ashamed to admit, I’ve been wrong before. Many times. And I will be again. But… there are entire dimensions of irrationality I have yet to explore. My god…
Clair, I think what several people, including Lib and loinburger, have said is applicable.
For the person with impairments of one sort or another, one makes allowances. My son (actually my former ward), brilliant in conversation, is dyslexic to an advanced degree, and his written work is so poor that he will ask his wife, myself, and recently his ten-year-old daughter to handle any formal written work in his behalf. Yet if this board were an IRL conversation he would be quite able to keep up his own with the best of us.
I think it is generally evident from the textual composition of the post, its “feel,” whether it was written by someone who has problems spelling or punctuating (or perhaps has a hand missing or paralyzed and must type one-handed, meaning capitalization is likely omitted) but is sincerely expressing to the best of his/her ability a well-formulated series of thoughts, or is someone responding as the spirit moves him/her with no concern for whether others are going to be able to grasp what he/she is typing.
Well, what are you waiting for? Get to work!!
I’m fortunate in having an excellent retentive memory (as opposed to on-demand recall, which sometimes leaves something to be desired), a knack for effective writing, and a sense of word usage. I don’t look down on those without those gifts – usually they’re far better than I am at something else far more important in the greater scheme of things.
This is a subject I’ve been mulling over in my head for some time. I am inclined to side with the camp that holds that poor spelling and grammar do hurt credibility.
Contrary to what many have expressed, I believe that this internet/message board medium makes it especially important to use proper spelling and grammar. Particularly on a board like this that is dedicated to exchanging factual information.
In face to face conversation, there are many social cues I have at my disposal to help me decide what weight to give to a particular person’s information. For example: if someone obviously too young to have been alive then begins telling me about the counter-culture movement of the sixties, I am likely to give less weight to their information than I would to someone older.
On the internet, most, if not all, of those cues are absent. The only tool we often have available to help us process someone’s statements are the way in which they are presented. Proper spelling and grammar often provide the appearance of someone who is more mature and better educated. While these things may not in fact be true, we are after all, talking about credibility, which is the perception of your ability.
Furthermore, poor spelling of words related to the subject indicate a lack of familiarity with what is being discussed. How can I reasonably give full weight to someone’s information about cancer when they spell treatment “kemotherapy” (to use someone else’s example)?
As far as correcting grammar goes, I am on the fence. It is usually never germane to the subject at hand, but how can people be expected to correct themselves if no one points out their error?
By considering that the theraputic effect in question doesn’t care how you spell it. To name one example. By considering that, to most people, the truth of an argument does not depend on the method of presentation (written, oral, telepathy, signed) but on the facts in question. The only fact the poster is assured to be lacking is “How one spells ‘chemotherapy’”, which, for all that, doesn’t seem pertinent at all to, “someone’s information about cancer”—that is, cancer the disease, not ‘cancer’ the word.
Well, we’re not talking about the method of presentation, but the quality of presentation.
If a student hands his teacher a sloppily scrawled note full of spelling and grammar mistakes excusing an absence, should the teacher just blithely accept it?
Would that same teacher be more likely to accept that note if it were written neatly and properly?
Like it or not, how you present yourself can reveal as much as what you actually say. I find it inconsistent when people present themselves in a sloppy manner and then demand to be taken as seriously as someone who presents themselves much better.
With a medium like the internet it is not advisable to take what people say at face value. One of the ways you glean extra context about a person and their information is how they write.
Yes; and I would be more likely to ask an attractive person out on a date. What do either of these answers tell us about the content of the note and the personality of the person?
Well, what you say here certaintly reveals something about you, though I must admit it is not the specific words you chose, nor that you spelled them correctly.
On what grounds do you find their presentation inconsistent when what they are asking you to consider is the content?
Perhaps you should cease resorting to vagaries and explain, carefully, what exactly one learns from how someone writes, and whether this factually affects the semantic content that made them write anything in the first place.
RE somebody who spells chemotherapy “kemotherapy,” it would indicate to me that the person hasn’t read much (if any) literature on cancer treatments. This itself isn’t cause enough to dismiss what they have to say (since it’s entirely possible that they received information on cancer treatments from non-written sources), but if they claimed that their information came from written sources (“I have read thousands of articles on kemotherapy so I am something of an expert on this subject”) then I’d be pretty skeptical of anything they had to say (especially if they repeatedly use “kemotherapy,” indicating that they weren’t simply making a typo but instead that they really didn’t know how to spell the word).
Even so, it wouldn’t really affect my judgment unless the person’s mispellings were pretty severe. “Kemotherapy” would cause me to doubt the person’s knowledge that they supposedly gained from written sources, but “chemotherepy” probably wouldn’t. “Sikology” would make me doubtful, “psycholagy” probably wouldn’t. Etc. It’s entirely possible to read thousands of articles on a subject and yet consistently make minor errors in spelling the term in question, but I doubt that anybody could read thousands of articles on a subject and still consistently make glaring (IMO) spelling mistakes.
Eris, I think we are passing each other in the dark.
Remember that we are talking about the credibility of a person, not the content of a post.
The way I read the OP, it is asking “does poor grammar effect credibility?” I believe credibility is subjective, and each person arrives at their determination differently.
My point is that on the internet, often all I have to go on is a)what someone has written, and b) how they have written it. I happen to give some weight to b in my personal determination on whether or not a person is credible. You are welcome to ignore it, I don’t think there is a definitive answer, just personal choice.
I’m not sure how to answer your pedantic demands, except to say of course spelling etc. does not affect the content or facts of a post, but it does affect the way I read that post and regard the person that wrote it, in the absence of more information.
On preview: I think loinburger has come up with an example of what one might learn from how someone writes.
OK. Your criteria for glaring errors, applied to posts on subjects which require the reading of thousands of articles to make points about them, inform you that the content of the post is not worth considering. Is that about right?
I agree with the first point. The second point can affect my ability to assess the first, but it does not change it, if by “what someone has written” you mean, “the point they hope to get across in writing”, which is how I approach posts in general. I refer to spelling and grammar as aids when I cannot otherwise understand. If I still cannot understand, then I say to myself that either I am having conceptual difficulty or the other person has no point.
If you wish I shall preface it thusly: to me, the credibility of a post is not determined by its spelling and grammar, it is determined by the content itself. The claim that “ghosts are in my keyboard” is no more credible than the claim that “gosts are in my keyboard”. Credibility, to me, is also determined by previous encounters with a poster. Credibility, to me, never has anything to do with spelling or grammar mistakes that do not obviously change the sense I get from the post(s).
I would say that someone’s grammar, and spelling probably affect a person’s credibility, but usually only if their grammar/spelling is particular bad, without some reason. It might make it seem that the poster doesn’t really care about the quality of their posting, or isn’t very mature. That conclusion will probably be one I keep unless they make well reasoned argument, or answer questions sensibibly. Grammar and spelling can be important factors, but not the only ones.
However, when judging someone’s posts, most of the time the important factor is the content of the post, not who wrote it. The except is really when the source of the information is the poster.
Then their credibility is important to judge whether they are telling the truth, or whether they actually know what they are talking about. There are other factors to consider in those cases, which are, if we are talking science say, whether they actually seem to know what they are talking about, or whether what they say contradicts things you are familiar with, among other things.
This doesn’t apply if the poster in question is providing reasoning for their position, or sources, or similar, where the source of information isn’t the poster, but their reasoning, or someone else entirely.
Also, the nature of whatever claim/argument s being made is of course a factor to consider in any case.
