David Lock

Sometimes a bit of carelessness in messaging can lead to confusion!

Husband and wife had booked holiday together. Unfortunately the wife had to cancel due to business commitments so hubby went on his own. After a few days wife receives text message – “Great flight, lovely hotel, out on the town every night – wish you were her.”

Old Codger

ariel

Thanks Dl .
Bad spelling and grammar does make people look stupid and ignorant. Seems like the teaching profession let so many down to me.

Tiggs

LMAO- are some of you serious!!!! spelling is just an ability that you either have or dont have depending on background/education- it has no bearing on success in life or happiness, its simply an ability.

for example, i find the ability to stuff your face with food thus becomeing over weight quite disgusting, however, i would never bother to moan about how some of my bosses were fat and how it shouldnt be allowed and could be dangerous in a crisis!

get a lyfe!

Tiggs

Alpine

Reading the thread from top to bottom, you can see that it represents all abilities in terms of spelling and grammar. However, the common point is that EVERYONE has managed to get their point across. The written word is a form of communication and everyone here is managing to communicate and is hence using it to great effect. So where is the problem?

Personally, I take pride in my written work and never interview candidates with badly spelled CV's. NOT because I'm biased against people who can't spell, just because I believe it shows a lack of thoroughness.

Hoppy

This BBS is certainly a bit of an eye-opener. Some people have no idea of how to spell or punctuate, and I have to admit that I don't like it. But... very rarely is the meaning unclear and I can't help feeling that I'm being snobbish. I might even start using phonetics and abbreviations myself - it'll make me sound younger

What is really annoying are the abbreviations that brainy folks use in the techical sections as if you don't get them, it's usually impossible to work it out from the context. I have now discovered, after nearly two years, that there are different abbreviations for the same thing. I wonder if some people never get over the jargon-threshold and just ignore the technical stuff. If so, that's a shame as there some fantastic info in there.

Cheers,

Richard.

Alpine

Carl, I have considered your request. Bog Off!

fast bloke

To whom it may concern
I don't have a pwobwem with bad typung and crop spooling, but if you are going to slag someone off about their less than adequate education etc, do please try to get your own post correct. It makes you look like an aweful **** if you dont Gives everyone else the impression that you think you are something that you are obviously not. And can we maybe get a FAQ (thats Frequently asked questions - soz about the abb.... oops I mean sorry about the abbreviation) explaining the difference between grammer and grammar ?

Now - who knows the correct signoff for a to whom letter

Tiggs

c ya?

Brendan Hughes

Personally, I always liked Snoopy's start to a "To whom it may concern" letter.

Dear Whom,



Otherwise, I agree that the lack of spelling skills are pretty awful here. I also find it hilarious that most of the "correctors" have made mistakes too!

carl

'Yours faithfully' where you haven't specified the recipient's name in the salutation. 'Yours sincerely' where you have.

If you feel your education has been substandard, you are actually allowed to learn stuff yourself. I have tried to read every day since I was a kid, and look up words I don't know in the dictionary. I also taught myself to type when I was a kid too (don't worry, I did go out on my bike like normal kids too).

I just think that in all aspects of life presentation is important.

YMMV, etc.

carl

fb -- they don't teach that in school (at least they didn't in mine). I found it in the back of a Collins Pocket Dictionary once

Sure, the English language is illogical but that's what makes it interesting. BTW I don't know what your pronunciation is like, but I pronounce 'trough' and 'cough' the same way (troff and coff)

I think it was Bertrand Russell who came up with the idea of spelling 'fish' as 'ghoti':
'gh' like 'cough'
'o' like 'women'
'ti' like 'station'

As you appear to know programming languages, surely you realize that 80% of software design is documentation. Poorly-written documentation is the source of so many errors and so much confusion. Regardless of what you may believe as the author, a lot of stuff isn't self explanatory, so it's essential to be able to describe your thoughts in a way which others can understand.

fast bloke

The main problem with documentation is that it is generally in English. If everyone was taught to communicate in C from an early age there would be no problem. Over here in Oireland we call the thing the pigs eat out of a 'troch'

carl

Ah, that explains it

Also, have you ever encountered source code with misspelled variables? Very annoying when someone who can spell goes to do some updates

fast bloke

use assembly language - no effing about then. I have to give you that one really, but I feel that writing code which you get paid for and must work is a bit different from posting on a BBS.

p.s. Did you know that

'Also,'

is not a feasible structure in English? I am not having a go, but simply afording you the opportunity to learn from your mistake

carl

Where did you hear the bit about 'Also,' from? If you have a reference, I will certainly modify my behaviour. It was when I read Fowler's a couple of years ago that I started replacing '-ise' with '-ize' and 'connection' with 'connexion'.

fast bloke

English Teacher - Paddy Close - Garron Tower - 1987 - He used to beat the **** out of anyone who dared use 'Also,'. Not sure that makes it correct, but he seemed to know about those things

Brendan Hughes

"Sorry about the effin' afording..."

fast bloke

Bollox..... Watch your posts Brendan. I will be


Carl - looks like the same would apply to additionally. Now I know - even though my English teacher was a complete tosser, he knew what he was doing

carl

"Also, it looks like the same would apply to 'additionally'"
I think it should go:
"It also looks like the same......"
or
"It looks like the same would also apply to....."

RB170

Your having a laugh !

This is a BBS. Nines times out of ten people just want to get their thoughts down before their boss catches them on the internet.

So who cares if the spelling is poor? As long as you can understand what the post is trying to say.

Mike

Phill

RB170 - Spot on mate, i could not agree more !!!

camk

big one on here is Brakes and Breaks, does my box in when people get it rong .

Regards
Cammy

carl

And from our webbie himself "Please bare with us". I'm certainly not doing that

TelBoy

I'm with the "Spell It Correctly" corner. If i had a pound for every;

loose instead of lose
breaks brakes
to too
there their
there they're
their there

...and anything with an apostrophe! Still, it is a Scoob noticeboard, not an English language evening class after all! But do the people who habitually spell these words incorrectly really know they're doing it?
I saw a thread from a guy looking to buy a 22b the other day, and without wishing to sound like a snob, he couldn't spell basic words to save his life. Am i wrong in assuming that somebody of that financial disposition ought to have a basic grasp of written English?

Terry

carl

This is the point -- get used to spelling correctly all the time and it's second nature.

My mum went for an interview for a job at the DSS office once, and they didn't care if she had O'Level/GCSE English or Maths. Now excuse me, but for giving people advice about jobs and organizing dole payments I would have thought a basic grasp of Reading 'Riting and 'Rithmetic was essential?

carl

I have never pulled somebody up for bad spelling or grammar, I was just interested in having a discussion about it.

Actually, once I had to ask for clarification on a post with no full stops as I couldn't understand what it was on about.

Feel free to post in whichever way you find most convenient

David_Wallis

It was probably one of mine.



David

carl

(psst -- actually I think it was one of cryptwalk's)

mook

*lol* This is something that amuses and riles me a little too. Typos and 'netiquette' are okay, the former being excusable, the latter being the evolution of language mantioned above. However, some glaring grammar errors are all too common. At the top of my 'this really gets on my ****' list is people who type, 'I would of done that yesterday', when it should have been, 'I would have done that yesterday'. That's not evolution, it naff . Lazy folks not understanding that the conversational 'would've' is just that! Don't kids get taught anything these days

*lol* And I made a mistake too

[Edited by mook - 5/7/2002 3:03:34 PM]

sebastian

Little Miss WRX has made a good point - that illiterate peasants are now finding their way into managemment positions, and so there is little hope of literacy improving from the top down, so to speak.

Furthermore, the same "managers" apply their own risible standards to potential new employees, so the usual recruitment filtering mechanisms break down. Twenty years ago poor grammar and spelling would have been picked up immediately and the applicant politely shown the door. Nowadays the goons simply wouldn't recognise the errors.

State mis-education is to blame, and the death of book reading among the working class. Many homes have bookshelves full of videos, and not a single book in the house, which is very telling.

(edited for typo!)

[Edited by sebastian - 5/7/2002 7:53:37 PM]