I’m not pointing any fingers here, I am honestly curious.
I have seen in several threads that when someone comes in here and starts typing in the “dood, you gotta check this kewl shit out…” manner, they get slammed for using bad English.
However, most regs don’t bat an eye when posters (myself included) use modifed English (ie-- yer=your, wanna = want to, etc.)
The first thing that pops into my head is the first example given is usually accompanied by mindless BS and trolling. But, do you think that if someone came in here that was seemingly otherwise articulate, but used only “kewl” speak, he get hassled? I sure do.
So what’s the difference?
C’mon, gimme yer thoughts
That movie taught me some important lessons in life. 1. I can build a robot that loves me. 2. I can reanimate my dead girlfriend by jamming bits of metal and silicon into her skull. Both are lessons I use on a daily basis…
Well, I think it’s analagous to Picasso and Pollock and Rothko proving that they can actually draw a bowl of violets before taking off into the experimentational stratosphere.
Once you can use the English language clearly and gracefully, you should feel free to play with it. But if you’re throwing paint at the canvas without knowing the history and the basics, you’re simply an idiot. By SDMB standards, anyway.
I would be genuinely interested in having someone point out to me an instance in which someone who really had something to contribute to a discussion, but who expressed himself either ungrammatically or in “kewl” talk (not sure what that is, but I don’t get out of the house much :rolleyes :), was “hassled” for his style.
Whoops, leave Bjorn out of this, OK?
Moving right along: yes, you’re right, I’ve seen “reminders” to people, or “requests”, to “please tidy up your posts”, but I don’t recall seeing anyone other than the Viking “hassled”, and we all know he’s a special case. I think you need to distinguish between being “reminded” and being “slammed”. Sometimes if someone’s being slammed, it’s a personal thing between the two posters. Maybe something that happened in another thread is just carrying over.
A lot of “hassling” does take place within the context of a flame war, but then it’s just part and parcel of the whole insult thing.
Another thing is that of course people all have different tolerance thresholds for poor grammar, spelling, etc.
Some people snipe at poor grammar just because they can’t think of anything else to say in regard to the post’s content.
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen
While I agree with what everyone has said, I must point out that there are other types of people too. Take my husband for example, he is trying to type with large fingers on a very small laptop, and he’s dyslexic to boot. And, worst of all for him (love ya honey!) is that I’m not there to proofread his posts for him. So, I expect to see numerous mistakes at first. Does this mean he doesn’t know english? No. Just that posting with proper spelling will not most likely be his strong suit. If people will look beyond such superficial stuff, they will see that he’s a very intelligent man with a strong sense of humor.
I wonder how many others on the boards would turn out to be the same way, given the chance.
I’m not talking about the obvious trolls here, just the average person who may not have liked his/her english teacher or whatever.
I have made many mistakes in my posts, I think we all have, and I cannot recall anyone being slammed much here in MPSIMS. I sure haven’t been.
You are more than a human being, you are a human becoming.
Og Mandino
That’s my name, not a description. I am neither purple nor a bear. Okay, so I’m purple.<a true Wally original!>
I think Uke expressed it pretty well, and artistically. I would like to add, however, the way you stated it, shown above, is probably acceptable to most of us. It’s when a post goes beyond that to include numerical characters and mixed case alphabetical characters. When a post becomes difficult to parse is when it crosses the line.
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265 cigarettes not smoked, saving $33.13.
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I think you need to distinguish between being “reminded” and being “slammed”. Sometimes if someone’s being slammed, it’s a personal thing between the two posters. Maybe something that happened in another thread is just carrying over.