Job Discussion Forums

[The G-stringed Avenger]

So, poor grammar, punctuation and spelling offend some people. This leads them to question the intelligence and academic credentials of people on this forum. Oh, Lord, we're not worthy! All this criticism despite the well-known phenomenon of "shorthand" we regularly see in the electronic medium, which disregards most rules of grammar, spelling, syntax and so on in order to get a point across in quick time in a relaxed and informal setting where such rules really shouldn't matter and the disregard of which should not be cause for intellectual snobbery and elitism.

I can't count how many times people have begun their posts with "I know people make mistakes when typing fast and I don't care..." before lambasting these same people for perceived lack of intelligence and/or qualifications due to these errors.

This brings me to what I call the "culture of complaint" - those of us born and raised in the wealthy countries of the West, where, for example, food is plentiful and life is generally good, end up with a lot of time and energy on our hands which is often misdirected towards frivolous whining. Case in point - grammar police.

This summer I plan to go to Indonesia and do volunteer work in the tsunami-affected areas. I'm going to help people who REALLY have something to complain about and not have anything to do with soft, relatively well-off types who complain - as though it was an IMPORTANT, AFFECTING-MY-QUALITY-OF-LIFE situation - about language usage, attempting to illustrate their own superiority in English in the process.

And for God's sake, get a life, people! Don't we all have better things to do?

[Talkdoc]

[The G-stringed Avenger]

Nothing wrong with having a little fun. Besides, can a single thing anyone wrote on that thread be taken seriously?

But people devoting pages of oft-serious critique to others' grammar errors? Definition of uselessness, really.

Thanks for the good wishes, Doc - I hope to make even just a little bit of a difference there.

Hope you're enjoying your break.

The GSA

[ShapeSphere]

The irony of this all is that Myra G started this thread because she was upset by some people's criticism of the poster "British" and his unique form of grammar on the Newbie forum. She felt he was real and should be allowed to make mistakes, when it was patently clear that his syntax was pure Chinglish. "British" has since revealed that he is Chinese, something most of us spotted a long time ago.

Making tiny mistakes in English is fine, we will all do it, I just noticed one of my own - confusing it's/its. But that's the point it was a 'mistake'. I know what I did was wrong. But an 'error' is another matter - the user doesn't know what's wrong and needs correction. Otherwise it will be repeated and transmitted to the students.

In a profession involving education of the English language - we should be capable of understanding that language and its usage. Do I ask too much?

For the record, I have never corrected anybody's English on this forum. The exception was telling the impostor "British" that I knew his game.

[marblez]

Oh British! I usually do not advocate poking fun at people on messageboards - but he had a "kick me" sign on the back. Babelfish.altavista.com would have given him better ammunition.

[yaco]

Talkdoc,

I thought you were previously a therapist.