Proper English
 

The disability/inability to write proper English seems to be an escalating problem for most people these days, especially on the Internet. I get the impression that people who write like this are either too lazy, too dumb or they just want to bug the hell out of other people. Personally, I hate it when people write shit-English and then expect me to be able to read it.

So here's a short conversation I had with a fellow on Soulseek. Apparently he was looking for a movie called Blow. Here's what happened;

So, how do you handle yourself in these situations? Are you bothered by the lack of grammar, punctuation, etc., or do you tag along and do your best to write even worse than your peer?

Thankfully, none of my friends type like that. It IS becoming more prevalent though and I just don't understand what the point of it is. Honesty, typing out "you" and "u" will save a person an insignificant amount of time even in the long run. Some of the words aren't even shortened versions of other words, like "wonna" as opposed to "wanna." It's a big turn off when girls do it too. My biggest pet peeve though is when people type "would of," "could of," or "should of." It's "would HAVE," "could HAVE," or "should HAVE." Using OF instead of HAVE makes NO SENSE at all.

I don't see this trend of typing like idiots stopping anytime soon and it's unfortunate. While it doesn't apply to everyone, it really is a testament to someone's intelligence so the good thing to come out of this is that you'll know who not to talk to. "Hey u wonna talk 2 m3?" Uh... no thanks.

Happens all the time on a message board I moderate. I usually shoot them down, and emphasize that you'll never get any position on a message board unless you type correctly. I've done it once already, I could do it again. :)

And they say that Americans have butchered the English language. Looks like this Brit is holding his own in that department.

I honestly don't humor conversations with people who type like that. If I HAVE to, I usually ask them why they can't type out the actual words.

If they act stupid, I block them. I don't want to deal with people who can't handle typing out a few extra letters to make their message more concise.

I've actually seen some English papers written in this kind of language. Granted, not ALL of the papers were like this, but "ppl" was used and things of that nature.

Really IRKS me.

I hate when people actually SAY "lol" when they hear something funny

It does make sense. For stupid people. ;) But I agree with you, this is by far some of the most annoying tendencies I've seen in the English language.

Well, I would have blocked him too, but I just had to see how far I could carry this. Also, I wouldn't mind helping him out, if only he were a little more susceptible to help.

"Say" as in really, actually, truly SAYING it? Like in the real world?

I've seen it done before in those PurePwnage episodes and it bothered the hell out of me, but if I heard it in person...I don't know what I'd do. That's just plain annoying.

That was damn funny.

I probably wouldn't have the patience to put up with that.

I would've used the word "inability" rather than "disability" in your initial post, which is most commonly used to describe people who are physically rather than mentally impaired. I'm just quibbling though as it's mostly a contextual thing.

I don't talk to people who can't be bothered to speak in clear English. I'm fortunate enough not to know many people who are that dumb though. I actually think it's a common issue because people want to sound cool or "with it" when it comes to texting and chatting using technology. It can't be that people are REALLY so stupid that they would spell so terribly; at least, I hope not.

That's just stupid. Writing stuff like that in English papers! I can understand people using words like that on the internet messaging to their friends or writing litttle notes, but that should be as far as it goes.

I always try to write correctly. Just writing this, I looked up the word "messaging" to see if I had spelled it correctly.

And with shortened versions of words, it doesn't make sense. I'll pass on typing shortened versions of words. Except for "lol" because that's not a word. ;)

ya i actually hear people say "lol" and "rotfl" and all the other crazy acronyms involving laughing at something

I mean if they have the mentality to type like that, they must have equal mentality to spell correctly offline and everywhere else. So what makes it any different online?

When I was in middle school, I had a few friends who used to type like that. They also wrote in both upper and lower case letters for every other letter of a word. It was a struggle to read through it all.

These days, I might use "lol," but not so much.

I caught an interesting article today addressing the question on 'How Deaf People Think'. Its not something that we all stop and consider on a daily basis, but language serves a very important role in the thought process: complex though can be formed with complex language. Its the basis behind 'new speak' as a means of control in the book 1984. A dumbed down simplistic language results in a dumbed down simplistic thought process that is easier to manipulate.

So as the article reveals, deaf people think in terms of sign language. It makes me wonder if these people who use a horribly crippled english on a daily basis also think this way. Is it like a self-inflicted form of mental retardation, or do they really not know any better?

Oh... The whole "LeT's tYpE LiKe tHiS" style... I hated that also...

So do books that use broken english to emphasize accents bother you too? Sometimes it makes reading the book harder, but then you really get to dive into that character.
I know it doesn't have a whole lot to do with this topic, but I wonder if that bothered you too.
Personally, I can deal with most typos, but having to decipher lazy typing is really annoying. I think it comes from too much cell phone texting where you pay for the letter. That really sped the butchering process up.
In a sense, it wasn't being lazy, but trying to be creative in saving a buck that spawned the fad. Just sad really.

It just seemed like it required more effort than simply typing normally. I never understood it myself.

People have the effort to type LiKe tHiS, but they don't put enough effort into making a full word... God, people are weird.

I think it came out of trying to grab attention in Ebay auction titles. ANYTHING to get noticed. All caps, no caps, lots of spaces, and the misplaced caps type.
Technology has certainly allowed many new ways of botching language!

You should have got an autograph. I think you were speaking with Ali G!

I'm really starting to hate the frequent "your/you're" thing. Also, using an apostrophe for plurals. What?

"your gonna get some chip's for me?" :boxing:

If it's on AIM, or something of that sort, I'm fine. I mean, I understand that much. If it's on a blog, or somewhere with a community, grammer/proper english is a much. I understand if English isn't your first language, but hell, it isn't mine either, so the person should at least TRY to type as..well, good as possible. I know my english isn't outstanding, but hell, I try, don't I?

I have no choice but to go along with it, my job is to accept orders for a cable company over the internet in chat rooms, and trust me Killy, some of the customers I get are just as bad as the dude you where talking to.

I always figured it started in Quake III. Something akin to KiLleR4HyRe

I am also lucky to not associate with many people that type like that.
Actually, I don't think I have ever conversed with anyone nearly that bad.

I myself use "lol" regularly. Perhaps I shouldn't. *shrugs*
Also, when I am chatting with a specific person, I will occasionally tyPe with raNdomLy caPiTalized letters, just because it annoys her so much. But all in good fun.

I am also prone to use some of the basic acronyms like "brb" or "gtg," etc.
But that is the extent of my crimes.

I usually just humor them and continue to write grammatically correct though I am a fast typer so I can write with proper grammar and spelling typically better than they can without.

Using abbreviations such as lol, brb and gtg is fine, it's not really what I was referring to when I brought this topic up. It has a certain relevance to this, but the example I posted was a rather extreme case of bad spelling & grammar, in which case brb, gtg and lol kind of fall out of the frame.

What I would like to hear though is a plausible explanation as to why he wrote 'u iz'. The more theories the merrier. Keep in mind that this guy most definitely is from the UK, making this even more interesting.

Personally, I think he's just stupid. Or he's been watching Ali G way too much.

I always try my best to write correctly. There is the occasional typo, but that's to be expected. If someone I know is not following proper grammatical or spelling guidelines, I don't correct them until I can't understand them. Most of what is typed is abbreviation or shorthand and easily understandable.

I'm also trying my best, but the reason why sometimes my English is so crappy is the fact, that I'm learning it from a German school.:ashamed:

I feel sorry for people who type uppercase and lowercase letters alternately. I think its more of a struggle for them to type than for us to read.

I still don't know how people can't tell the difference between loose and lose. Such loosers!

Funny stuff. I have a lot of friends who type like that, one of them even said "That's how you're supposed to talk online!"

I like how if he really was Scottish, you wouldnt be able to understand a word the kid typed.

I've always figured that the easiest thing is to type how you think. I think in complete sentences, so this is how it comes out on the screen. Surely, there aren't people in the world who ThInK LyK dIZ OMG WTF PLZ !!!!1!one

Why are they still alive? ;_;

I wish my grammer/English was better. I have a poor vocabulary, and terrible spelling. At least it's better than nothing.

mm, I have some issues trying to write in english, and that's due that I'm not a native english speaker :p, So If I do something wrong, let me know. I don't wanna be on that kind of people.

Killy, you're good to have sat there and attempted to understand all that garbage. I have no patience for that sort of thing. If someone makes random typos, that's fine, but every other word can't be a purposeful typo! That's just plain ridiculous! People who talk like that are lazy. Obviously they had to learn to type correctly before doing that shorthand crap.

My friend grades English papers at the university we attend. He keeps a list of his favorites grammatical gems to pull out on occasion. You would think that college students at the very least would have learned to form complete sentances by the time they are seniors.

Nope.

What the hell @ that conversation. It sounds like a pissed off childish australian.

I use proper grammar mostly, depending on what mood I'm in. It never gets to the point where people can't understand me, but I fucking hate people who immediately are all "What?" "Huh?" when you make ONE mistake.

Since we're on the topic of English, when do you use "anyone" and when do you use "anybody?" Is it a matter of preference?

It's a matter of preference. I think that "anybody" is just a more casual (bordering on slang) way of saying "anyone," but at any rate, the terms are interchangeable.

That horrible way of typing on the internet is by far the worst crap to have ever been used in all of the history of the internet. Who can read that crap when everything is like this "HaViNg UpPeRcAsE aNd LoWeRcAsE lEtTeR iS sO fRaCkInG hArD tO rEaD" as you all can see.

As Fjordor said, it's alright to use acryonyms such as "brb" and "lol". But as everything goes, there's differnt lingos for everything different field of study in the world.

Very true. What's even sadder is that when non-english speaking people get their english-texting skills from people who 'txt lyk dis 2 dem' they actually think it's the correct way to write a sentence. The proof is in their papers and they don't even know it's not grammatically correct until they get it back with a red note saying, cum is spelled come, etc.

My advice is to stay away from people who don't put in any effort to use a language in its true and beautiful form. It may influence you little by little and before you know it, you're not only writing it badly but speaking text language as well.

Damn man, better leave GFF then! *runs*
In all seriousness though, properly typing, writing, and speaking English needs to be practiced just as much as a sport or an instrument.
I have noticed myself downgrading my vocabulary while speaking at times since I've joined all of these forums.
This is the only forum that really requires me to type out complete sentences. Otherwise I'd get flamed, ignored, or disregarded faster than I could type 1337!
Of course, that's why I post here more often than, oh, say Nintendo Forums or GameFAQs.

"Anyone" is usually followed by the singular pronoun phrase "his or her."
"Anybody" is usually followed by the plural pronoun "their."

english
 

i think stewie from family guy put it quite well when he said:

'you don't neccessarily speak the language more like chew it up and spit it out!'

but the text typing does my head in, but most of the time as long as i can understand it and i know that it's english then i'm fine. it's when it starts looking like spanish or something and it's supposed to be english that i start to worry about the state of humanity:lolsign:

Nah, don't do that. Killy got it worse. I had to read the damn conversation out loud, for heaven's sake.

I'll have to admit that I'm guilty of butchering english but at the right circumstances--my msn friends' typing skills exceed my own so I have to shorten words just to keep up. Also it's cheaper here if I send a text message (instead of calling) so I have to really make do with what I have.

Ever have this type of conversation: Нěy, mëë+ üp @ $+aŕ3Uk$ 1ā+ër

That conversation would be awesome, if only it didn't take 10 minutes per message from all the ascii codes splashed in there.

Can I just point out that acronyms aren't fine? You're not going to stop people using "brb" "rofl" "lol" "kthx" as it's globally recognized now on texting and online, and there's an endless amount of acronym's like IIRC and AFAIK which are rarely used; but still seem to exist for oh god I don't know why. And the rest of that destructive garbage somehow manages to spring from nowhere.

Why, I remember when nobody knew what "sry" was. Then suddenly, on a cold and windy night in 2003, everyone's doing it. But it isn't difficult to type "hahaha" over "lol" or "rofl," people just have the attitude that it's the internet, so it doesn't matter. Who the fuck worries over grammar online, most of them think. While that's pretty much true, it depends on what you're doing.

I'm pretty much of a grammar nazi myself. Christ, when I played Ragnarok Online the amount of people who said "plz" was uncalled for. That is by far one of the most annoying acronym's I've ever encountered. It's even worse when you have foreigners use it, where you just know that they haven't the slightest clue what it means, but it gets you a heal. Follow the crowd.

The only time I feel it necessary to talk in short hand is during games. Take Starcraft. You're being zerg rushed. You're going to type wtf, not what the fuck. Times like those are perfectly appropriate as the game has a higher priority over your representation of spelling. Other times it's just annoying.

Lowercase is fine too, but a lowercase "I" just doesn't fit. Alot of people really couldn't care less about their typing, and that probably won't change. Regardless, it's one thing to describe yourself in a proper form, it's another to ruin it and continue describing.

Alittle

People here text at the speed of, well, they just text really fast. They have speed texting competitions and the like. (Yes, I know, weird.)

I know people who still think Word's spellcheck is 100% reliable. Perhaps it's not that they don't care but maybe they depend too much on the grammar nanny to fix their mistakes for them.... What do you think? =P

Whew, I guess the conversation in that post is laughable. That person write english like a toddler instead of teenager, plus he's got no manner of asking a person's assistance!

Well sometimes I shorten words like people into ppl or won't into wont, shouldn't into shouldnt etc. But I hardly abbreviate any other since I found they are troublesome and might annoy people who read.

Yeah my group of friends at school does this alot; we're all gamers and geeks, with a sense of humour about it all. We're big fans of Pure Pwnage, so we like to poke fun at this sort of speech.
When it comes to chatting, I can take a few abbreviations here and there, but for anything more formal (message boards, letters, schoolwork, websites, etc) it really bugs me.

I like how he actually took his time to go "lesson 1" "lesson 2". Just use that effort in the damn grammar rather than explaining his own language.

i find this kind of typing to annoy me a little. when people don't capitalize the first letter in the beginning of a sentence and as well as people names. makes the use of periods seem kinda dumb.

Yea I know this form was used in that conversation posted but I have to be honest. For certain online games however I am forced to dumb down my typing style because the chat bubble is so small and no use of the keyboard(just so you know I am referring to the gamecube's PSO) makes for proper spelling and grammar to take too long and the person who has a keyboard can fly through sentences. Meanwhile you feel like you're wasting thier time because it takes you about 2-3 minutes to type up a sentence if you were to use proper english.

A pet peeve of mine is when a lot is treated as one word.

From what I can gather, "anybody" is less specific to the discussed or intended persons. That is, "anybody" puts more force towards the concept of "any human," as opposed to the specificity of "anyone," which leaves more emphasis on the people themselves as opposed to their physical being.

lol I'm surprised you even continued the conversation with him. I would have kicked him out halfway through.

Anyway its surprisingly he even bothered to talk, the majority of such people here tend to basically fire out what they want in crappish English, then shut up when they get it/don't get it.

It wouldn't have gotten past the first six lines if I had to "converse" with him. If he (or anyone else for that matter) wants to talk like a dyslexic retard, he can do so to someone else.

Stupidity is popular on this internet of serious business.
Honestly, I've never seen anyone use "fink" to mean "think." What has the world come to?!

You're more tolerant than I am. Three lines in and I would have been tempted to go through my monitor and impale the person on the other side with a javelin through the eye. Anybody messages me with that crap and I give eem a few lines in before I hit the block button.

I mean really, is it too hard to typeout a coherent sentence? Nobody really gives a rats ass about a few typos here and there, but when your AIM conversations start to look like secretary shorthand somethings wrong.

What really chaps my ass though isn't necessarily internet speak (though I will admit that the example in question posted annoys the hell out of me). What REALLY chaps my ass is ebonics.

Ebonics is just f'in lazy. A few weeks ago some kid was talking to me and I had to ask him twice to repeat himself cause he darn near sounded like he was speaking in tongues.

The entire concept behind it is asinine and shamefull that kids <b>and<b> adults cant be assed to learn proper english.

I'm normally a very good typist and put effort into grammar, but when it comes to typing out something like a resume or something I instantly go to pot.
I ALWAYS make some random idiotic error on my resume, even if I revise it over and over.
Just a tip kids: Always have someone else look over your resume. For some reason some people are completely unable to do it themselves.

Ascii isn't texting.

Ascii is where you're talking l¡Ķĕ ╂ĥıŠ. It's annoying, it isn't cool, and I don't know how they manage to find the time to dig up the character codes just for a sentence. Most pointless thing alive.

Don't worry, it's happening for every language. My eyes hurt every time I read really obvious mistakes in French (my 1st language).

Technology seems to make people lazy

Hell, they've got them. They've got them like numbers on speed dial.

I guess--to get back to the point--people just have to be aware that online, other people will assume you're at some level of maturity.
I sometimes find it funny that people wnat to write an intelligent article, post it online, and I end up reading about independance, loosing something, or doing things more good...wtf...It'll be the day when someone invents 'duck tape' or 'mannaise'. Hmm. I wonder how that tastes like.

I'm glad I don't know many people who use ASCII. It takes more than a day for me to decipher it.

I, myself, am horrible with spelling and written grammar. Some say it is a sign of genius, I say I'm just stupid. Either way, I do use IM phrases like "lol" and "rofl" while IMing. I have caught myself in real life almost saying lol before. I about died when I did that. Most times I type lol because I am busy doing something else and the person that IMed me is one of those annoying people that constantly ask if you are still there if you don't talk every five seconds. It is easy and quick to type.