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Hackers, Spelling, and Grammar?
Posted by
Cliff
on Thu Jun 30, 2005 04:48 PM
from the i'm-as-guilty-as-the-next-coder dept.
from the i'm-as-guilty-as-the-next-coder dept.
Strom Carlson asks: "Over the last few years, I've noticed that a surprisingly large number of native English speakers, who are otherwise very technically competent, seem to lack strong English skills. Mostly, this seems to manifest itself as varying degrees of poor spelling and grammar: 'definately' instead of 'definitely'; 'should of' instead of 'should have'; and I even see the names of products and companies misspelled from time to time. It baffles me that a culture so obsessed with technical knowledge and accuracy can demonstrate such little attention to detail when it comes to communicating that knowledge with others, and it baffles me even more that many people become enraged when you attempt to help them correct and learn from their mistakes. Do hackers and geeks just not care about communicating effectively? Do they not realize that a mediocre command of written English makes them appear less intelligent? Am I missing something here?"
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Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Interesting)
Can...open...worms... everywhere.
I for one cannot agree with you enough here, Strom. Sadly, the epidemic of poor spelling/grammar is not confined to the tech world, but is pervasive throughout just about every aspect of American culture. I was raised and educated to believe that spelling and grammar counted...that the coherent presentation of your information was at least as important as the information itself. I don't know exactly when we as a society decided that coherence was no longer important...sometime in the mid-eighties, I'd guess.
I will agree with you, however, that this problem is especially apparent in the tech world. I've known many techs that not only didn't care about the rules of the English language, they actually regarded their ignorance of such rules as a perverse badge of honor, as if mastering the intricacies of the language was somehow beneath them. I've always found it intriguing that a programmer who could master several arcane computer languages (especially since computers are notably intolerant of errors), could fail so utterly to master his own native human language.
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Funny)
The above sentence made me cry.
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Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Insightful)
I try to use the rules, but if I understand you, what else matters?
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Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, the thing about that is... proper spelling and grammar make the writer look more "grown up". A tpyo or two are one thing, but if the grammar and spelling are at an eighth-grade level, I tend to assume that the writer is in the eighth grade. I'm always on the side of the grammar nazis on slashdot (even when they get me) because really poor grammar (from an otherwise obvious native English speaker) tend to make me discount the opinion of the poster. Although the grammar nazi victim may not think this is fair, I know I'm not alone... and you'd think that the poster would want to improve his/her writing skills just to make his/her opinions, thoughts, rantings, etc. more valuable to others.
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Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Interesting)
I tihnk taht seplnilg rellay deosnt matetr at all. For exmalpe, I bet taht you can raed tihs precfcetly fnie.
I bieelve it was proevn that as lnog as the frist and lsat lettres do not chnage, our brians can aoutomtacalily rearragne tehm and we have full comhenpresion.
I cnnaot fnid the lnik rgiht now but I am srue taht tihs was psoted on salhsodt a few mnoths ago.
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Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Insightful)
What a strange logic: it's like saying "most people round 100/3 to 33, it's common usage, so when the math police die out of old age, the common usage will win out".
That's stupid because 100/3 != 33, it's completely incorrect, just like "should of" makes absolutely no sense. The only reason most people understand "should of" as "should have" is because they know the correct form is "should have".
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Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Informative)
"should of" is not the common usage.
"should've" is the common usage - which is a contraction of "should have"
However, some people, having only heard "should've" and mis-heard it as "should of", think that "should of" is the common usage.
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Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Insightful)
What is slashdot but a bunch of intellectuals (or intellectual wannabes) showing off to each other?
As for sounding like an intellectual - spelling errors can make you look like a retard. What do you prefer?
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yes (Score:5, Funny)
Definately.
Revenge of the Spelling Nazi and Grammar Troll (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone who is constantly picked on by these people, I can say that more than often, they are rude, have very little to add to any discussion, other than showing off their impressive command of the English language. I'd be more receptive if some of them made their response to the thread at hand, and did a BTW, but that's not what happens. Usually they are just have one line response that is rude, and often picking on one or two 'mistakes', and always critical of one's intelligence. I've said it before, but it's not the diction that matters, but the message. Good grammer is only helpful to get a message across. I'm not writing a fucking paper, it's an response in a damn forum.
Yes, good humor, understanding, and basic people skills.Re:Revenge of the Spelling Nazi and Grammar Troll (Score:5, Funny)
So they're just like computer geeks, but of the english language?
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Re:Revenge of the Spelling Nazi and Grammar Troll (Score:5, Interesting)
That's how I feel when I'm forced to try and make sense of a "document" written by somebody that can't make the effort to use something close to proper grammar and spelling.
Unlike some of the grammar-Nazis out there, I'm happy enough to pass over minor mistakes. However, if I have to spend extra time trying to decode your message to me, of course I'm going to correct you. That way, in the future I won't have to waste my time trying to decipher your cruddy excuse for a document again.
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Re:Revenge of the Spelling Nazi and Grammar Troll (Score:5, Interesting)
Eh, I don't know. I tend to consider the diction an integral part of the message, myself; if there are glaringly obvious errors in basic structure, spelling, or diction, and I don't know the person well enough in any other way, it's going to impact the message for me. It's just the way I roll.
My father, a successful engineer with DEC for 15+ years, is a notoriously bad speller, to the point where I sometimes have to phonetically read his letters. (Make of that what you will in regards to my comments above. :P) The fact that I know he's intelligent and a good communicator of ideas mitigates his lack of polish grammatically in my eyes. If one of his co-workers wrote to me in such a style, though, I'd wonder how he made it out of college.
I try very hard not to be a jerk about grammar or spelling, learning to roll with the punches. I've almost gotten to the point where I consider a phrase like "makes its own gravy" to be written wrong because of the missing apostrophe, because it's so common -- even in advertising copy, for pete's sake.
I sometimes wonder if I'm one of the last generations (I'm 34) who will have any solid grounding in grammar, spelling, and basic English constructs for the future.Parent
Re:Revenge of the Spelling Nazi and Grammar Troll (Score:5, Insightful)
The diction matters because it distorts the message. That's the whole point of diction - it defines the parameters for getting the message through.
Reading a post, a report or an email from someone who you know is technically adept but suffers from poor English skills is like watching a flickering television set. You know the message is there but you have to view it several times before you get through the static to what it actually means.
In addition, poor diction from someone that you are sure actually knows better is simply a matter of their being inconsiderate. It takes very little time and effort to get spelling and grammar correct and to not make at least an effort is just being contemptuous of the reader.
If anyone is "missing something", it's those that defend bad English usage. It's not acceptable, it's lazy and frankly if you can't even try communicate properly then you probably don't deserve to be heard. THAT is basic people skills, and I rarely have good humor for those that express contempt towards their readers.
Throx
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Programming and human language (Score:5, Interesting)
Technical precision requirement on programming language and human language is very different, for I am (and maybe many others are) extremely lazy and just want to get things done with as little effort as possible.
So if "return true;" works but not "ret tru", then I'm forced to use "return true;" every time.
However, if "alot" works as good as "a lot", I can use whatever comes to up mind at time of typing. When I was in highschool, few of us liked to say "os cof" in place of "of course" and it didn't affect our communication at all.
I think the main difference between a native English speaker and a foreign English user is the former heard a word before he learnt to write it, while the latter tends to learn to write and speak at the same time.
I'm shocked to see natives using "its good", "don't go their", these are mistakes that no foreigners will make.
I'm not sure why this has anything to do with hackers or geeks specificially. Racers, police and builders are all technically competent yet they can still make these kind of mistakes.
Man! (Score:5, Funny)
Engineers are bad spellers (Score:5, Funny)
Of course, it doesn't help... (Score:5, Insightful)
sms-speak (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, what really pisses me off is I bought a USB analog video capture device today. I didn't notice until I got back, but it actually says on the front: "DVD Direct Burn. No need to save in ur HDD". Seriously. I'm not sure I would have bought it if I noticed that earlier..
Problem in America... BUT (Score:5, Interesting)
But...
The question that I've *never* heard asked...
Is America the only country where the native language is so disappointingly mangled by the vast majority of native citizens?
The funny/sad thing is when an American will gripe about a foreigner verbally mangling English... yet that same American most likely can't even speak a 2nd language... let alone speak it fluently. Bah.
Re:who says we aren't communicating effectivly? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you communicate like a moron, you are treated like a moron.
If you don't like that, don't reply, since I'm acting like an arrogant, elitist bastard, but I want you to treat me like a friendly, helpful mentor.
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Re:Correct English? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Should of" is only heard more in spoken English because people mishear "should've" and so few people read anything of substance to any appreciable extent that they don't know any better.
"Should of" is not meaningful in itself; it does not "mean" what "should have" means...it doesn't MEAN anything. It is the linguistic equivalent of people who say "expresso."
So it's really easy to say that "should of" is wrong because "should have" is an adverbial expression and "should of" is not.
If someone asked you "Have you eaten?" would you reply "I of eaten."? Maybe, but you would be wrong.
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