Jumping on grammatical/spelling errors

[hobish]

Yes, and no. 

E-mail and Internet posts are emotionally flat.  It can be difficult to understand what the writer/poster means when their grammar and/or spelling are atrocious. 

 

That is definitely true. If something i am trying to read on the internet has such terrible spelling and grammar errors that i have to work to figure out what the person is trying to say i just won't read it. There is a forum Gish is on that i find interesting; but it is a debate, forim and i cant brung myself to try an arjue, with someon who cant evn comunicte, right. I would not jump on there and start correcting people's posts, no matter how tempting it is sometimes. Conversely, when Gish got his first supervisor position he had me edit a lot of his emails before he sent them to his team and i would correct them for him. Nothing like getting an email from your boss telling you to make sure you're paperwork is in on time.

[Lucy]

I can totally relate.

While on Thanksgiving break, I cut off part of my finger pad preparing sweet potatoes. It was a pretty deep cavity, but nothing that wouldn't heal. Anyway, I posted on my college roommate's FB wall, and since we're both total Latin dorks and had just learned the words "knife," "blood," and "finger," I told her the whole story in Latin. 

A bunch of mutual friends also in our Latin class commented on my wall post correcting the Latin mistakes that I had made.

My roommate was the only one to say, "OH MY GOSH, ARE YOU OKAY?"

So for some people...grammar can be more important than people's well-being. And that's rude.

[Twik]

I've got to admit, if someone were describing to me their accident in a newly-learned ancient language, I would assume that they felt well enough to see the humour of the situation, and might be appreciative of (even comforted by) some "back atcha!" humour as well.

I don't see the other people as rude. They were treating it with the seriousness (or lack of same) that they thought you were.

[Marisol]

I hate when people revert to using grammar and spelling to discredit someone's otherwise logical argument.  It makes me think they couldn't come up with an intelligent return to the subject in question. 

It is like a child saying "oh yeah, well YOU smell bad!" when they don't like what they just heard. 

[hobish]

I hate when people revert to using grammar and spelling to discredit someone's otherwise logical argument.  It makes me think they couldn't come up with an intelligent return to the subject in question. 

It is like a child saying "oh yeah, well YOU smell bad!" when they don't like what they just heard. 

There are times i think that is valid. If someone can't bother to learn to communicate in their own language at least somewhat properly, i am going to guess they aren't that bright in other areas, either. Don't try to argue with me about politics or evolution or any number of things that require multiple levels of comprehension if you can't string three sentences together. I won't correct your spelling and grammar; i will just know that you aren't worth my time.

[Mikayla]

I agree that general and polite comments after someone writes something that's too incoherent to follow (no initial caps, no para breaks, chatspeak, textspeak, typos and atrocious spelling) can be done in a way to gently remind the person that if they want helpful answers, they might want to see how others phrase questions.  I've seen this on mainly adult sites where teens pop up with legit questions.

Where some native English speakers have to be careful is in assuming that the writer is in the same category.  Luckily, I've never made this mistake, but I've seen people make fun of someone's writing, only to discover that the writer lives in Rome and his/her native language is Italian.  I cringe when I see this.

[Lucy]

I've got to admit, if someone were describing to me their accident in a newly-learned ancient language, I would assume that they felt well enough to see the humour of the situation, and might be appreciative of (even comforted by) some "back atcha!" humour as well.

I don't see the other people as rude. They were treating it with the seriousness (or lack of same) that they thought you were.

Oh, for sure. If I was seriously injured, I would be speaking my native tongue.   But it wasn't "back atcha!" humor at all--it was just, "You did _____ wrong." So it wasn't a matter of them treating it too lightly---it was a matter of them not treating it at all. Considering that the original message wasn't directed to them, and that the message contained a rather gory story, I just thought it was strange that they would butt in, ignore the entire story, and just correct my errors. Just thought it was an interesting example of grammar becoming more important than communicating.

[SamInTheShadows]

I try to ignore spelling/grammar mistakes, because I'm sure I make enough of them myself. I certainly never comment on them, unless the writer is a friend and then ONLY in a joking way.

Several years ago, I made a spelling mistake in a status update and a friend (a native English speaker with a Master's degree in that language, she's a teacher) pointed it out as a joke. In return, I happily pointed out that English is my second language and by the way, it's "your language skills", not "you're".

[Marisol]

I hate when people revert to using grammar and spelling to discredit someone's otherwise logical argument.  It makes me think they couldn't come up with an intelligent return to the subject in question. 

It is like a child saying "oh yeah, well YOU smell bad!" when they don't like what they just heard. 

There are times i think that is valid. If someone can't bother to learn to communicate in their own language at least somewhat properly, i am going to guess they aren't that bright in other areas, either. Don't try to argue with me about politics or evolution or any number of things that require multiple levels of comprehension if you can't string three sentences together. I won't correct your spelling and grammar; i will just know that you aren't worth my time.

Oh I agree with you! When the grammar and spelling are very bad or if the sentence is incoherent I don't even bother to read it.  But if it was just a typo or one or two misspelled words, it seems unnecessary to bring up unless you can't think of anything else to prove your own point.

[elephantschild]

I'll admit, members of a certain group of my friends do this to each other all the time in Facebook. I'm a major player in the game.    But we're all in the same communication-related field and it's all in good fun. (For example, "Hey, Scott, it's "their," not "they're" ... don't do that in your next column!" ) And I'd expect the same for myself.

I'd never dream of doing it to, say, one of my high school friends on Facebook.

[MissRose]

I know my tech support lead is big on correct grammar and spelling.  I still make the occasional mistakes but I know I've improved greatly due to some online coursework I've done.

I don't worry about grammar and spelling in internet postings.  I am used to my mother's horrid spelling and grammar mistakes to the point I can decipher what she means to say with the misspelled words.

[nrb80]

I can think of two non-work situations when I would point out poor spelling and grammar (1) where someone is accusing someone else of being / appearing stupid and (2) when someone rudely corrects the grammar and spelling of another.  My not-so-shining moment on the previous formum (years ago) was when a poster was arguing that anyone with an X accent sounded uneducated and stupid, but kept posting with atrocious spelling and grammar. I believe I told her that her use of irony was excellent.  Which led, or course, to assertions that spelling and grammar have nothing to do with how educated one appears.
At work, however, I am a stickler.  I am careful and I do not allow documents to leave the office without being triple checked.  Funny story - yesterday we were reviewing an atrocious brief from opposing counsel.  None of his causes of action are spelled properly.  Seriously considering moving to dismiss based on the fact that he makes no sense.
 

[Wittyone]

My not-so-shining moment on the previous formum (years ago) was when a poster was arguing that anyone with an X accent sounded uneducated and stupid, but kept posting with atrocious spelling and grammar. I believe I told her that her use of irony was excellent.  Which led, or course, to assertions that spelling and grammar have nothing to do with how educated one appears.
At work, however, I am a stickler.  I am careful and I do not allow documents to leave the office without being triple checked.  Funny story - yesterday we were reviewing an atrocious brief from opposing counsel.  None of his causes of action are spelled properly.  Seriously considering moving to dismiss based on the fact that he makes no sense.
 

Your use of irony is also excellent.   

[nrb80]

Brilliant!  The mobile app needs a spell check!
I think a formum is a great word for a forum with a code of silence.

Though opposing counsel deserved it.  Desperate impact theory, cited the wrong title, and misspelled the plaintiff's name.  He also "sic"ed me - which I think is unnecessarily obnoxious, and incorrect because all he needed was a tense change.