Hackers, Spelling, and Grammar? 2360
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?"
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)
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Funny)
The above sentence made me cry.
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Funny)
"I dislike the French because because they do not speak English, but I abhor the Americans because they speak English badly."
-Winston Churchill.
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Insightful)
In Shakespeare's day, nobody worried about English spelling in large part because serious people wrote serious things in Latin, where the spelling was thoroughly standardized. Because Latin was the language of the educated, nobody had bothered to standardize the spelling of the vernacular.
Since that time, English spelling has been standardized, and very few of us have reliance on Latin as an excuse today. English spelling isn't difficult: it follows two sets of simple rules. We have a set of rules for the words adopted from Latin (about half the language) and another set for the words derived from Anglo-Saxon. Foreign borrowings generally retain their foreign spellings. See my English spelling [geocities.com] page for some pointers to resources for learning how simple it really is.
Those worried over form, miss content.
Those who don't worry over form obscure their content, and ensure that it will be missed or misconstrued. It's just plain rude to deliberately or carelessly use bad grammar and orthography: it shows contempt for your ideas and for your audience.
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Insightful)
The easy way to think about it is to consider "his, hers, its". When using "it's" you should be able to replace it with "it is", "it has" or similar and the sentence should still make sense.
its == 1 word
it's == 2 words
If you're unsure about which to use, see if "it is" works in the same place. If it doesn't, you should probably be using "its".It's a fairly simple construct, but I've seen English teachers get it wrong, and worse, teach the exact opposite.
It does seem to break the general rule of "an apostrophe indicates possession", but it's easy to think of "its" as a more specific rule that should supersede the use of "it's", if you're so inclined.
On a completely different note, does anyone find themselves previewing maybe a dozen times when posting about spelling or grammar? (And probably missing a half-dozen errors?)
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Interesting)
The posessive is a leftover from the days when English had more noun declensions. For example, we still have "I", "me", and "my" as examples of the Nominative (Subject), Accusative (Object), and Genitive (Possessive) cases. Currently, a person's name would be represented as eg. "John", "John", "John's". But at one time, the Genitive case had an "i" in it, so it would've been "John", "John", "Johnis". You still occasionally see this in old place names. For example, the Spotswood hotel near here has embedded into its concrete "Spottiswoode".
People who prefer to avoid language history usually remember the apostrophe indication posessive as a secondary rule to the one about a letter being left out.
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Informative)
This article (PDF) [american.edu] suggests that the genitive ending was -es in Old English, and -ies or -ys in Middle English, and that the apostrophe was introduced as a replacement for omitted vowels.
However, he also describes an alternative view: that the apostrophe was originally used because of the mistaken assumption that the genitive ending was already a contraction of "his". Apparently even Shakespeare made this mistake...
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:4, Interesting)
We should throw out the old spelling. Knight is spelled the way it is because it used to be pronounced kuh-nig-it (yes, just like monty python). All it does is confuse everyone. With its odd mix of Latin and Anglo-Saxon words and grammar rules it's complicated enough as it is without weirdo spellings that are unrelated to pronunciation.
That being said though, the above sentence made me cry as well.
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:4, Interesting)
You're confusing evolution with change. Languages change , they don't "evolve". Theres no natural selection going on with the most efficient word usage etc. If there were then english would never have come out of the far more logical (grammatically and with spelling) anglo-saxon tongue. They simply change by random drift depending on the prevailing societal conditions and fashions at any given time.
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Funny)
Source: Mark Twain (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Informative)
Words usually do not exist all by themselves but are members of a "word family" (and yes that is the technical term). Word families are made up of forms of the same word which feature little to no extra learning burden to master given knowledge of one of the other forms. These relationships are best represented by fixed spelling of the morphemes, even when there are pronunciation differences.
Something like Japanese (kanji, not the hiragana and katakana syllabaries) or Chinese puts all their eggs in the morphology basket, and none in the phonetic. Words are comprised of morphemes which are represented by particular graphemes (kanji/hanzi). This is great once you learn all the morpheme/grapheme pairs, but at 15,000 for Chinese, the system requires a large initial investment of time and cognitive burden.
English splits the difference between a morpheme-centric and phonetic orthographic system, wherein spellings of morphemes are relatively regular, but they are also phonetic enough that anyone with a basic understanding of the phoneme-grapheme pairings of the English use of the Roman alphabet can at least make an excellent guess at the pronunciation.
And to the many lazy and weak-minded individuals who whine about how everything should be phonetic, I would like to point out that there is an entire alphabet designed for this: the International Phonetic Alphabet. Learn this and try reading some text in it. See if it's really easier. A morpheme-centered orthographic system allows for faster processing of text because it allows the reader to bypass the sound production phase entirely, linking written words directly to their meanings (resident in the brain).
So stop whining, whiners, and learn the system. It's just a system to aid in the transfer of information. It's there to help you, not keep you down, man.
And BTW, although Noah Webster gave birth to the modern science of lexicography, dictionaries did indeed exist before his tome. They were used as spelling lists, mostly. The phase in which the English didn't care about spelling to which you are referring was up to the introduction of the printing press. Once more reading material was available to the masses it was very rightly decided that spelling should be standardized throughout the industry (he wrote with the arguably NON-standard, American spelling of "standardised). Furthermore, the "gh" that's left over in many words, including "knight" was a voiced velar fricative, not a
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Obligatory Tom Stoppard Quote (Score:5, Funny)
Rosencrantz: Do you think Death could possibly be a boat?
Guildenstern: No, no, no... Death is "not." Death isn't. Take my meaning? Death is the ultimate negative. Not-being. You can't not be on a boat.
Rosencrantz: I've frequently not been on boats.
Guildenstern: No, no... What you've been is not on boats.
-Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.
Re:Obligatory Tom Stoppard Quote (Score:5, Informative)
The moment I posted that, I remembered an even more appropriate quote:
Guildenstern: The old man thinks he's in love with his daughter.
Rosencrantz: Good God. We're out of our depths here.
Guildenstern: No, no, no! He hasn't got a daughter! The old man thinks he's in love with his daughter.
Rosencrantz: The old man is?
Guildenstern: Hamlet... in love... with the old man's daughter... the old man... thinks.
Rosencrantz: Ah.
I wonder what Stoppard would make of the debate here? Something amusing, probably.
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Insightful)
In order to understand English spelling, you first need to understand English (assembly of Japanese motorcycle requires great peace of mind).
All words in English are derived from words in other languages. The way words are spelt in English is determined by the language they came from, so when you learn a new word, you need to learn its etymology. Fortunately, this is in the dictionary (The Oxford University dictionary. Others don't count).
Unfortunately, the etymology is not entirely correct in many cases - most etymologists know their Latin, Greek, and French, and can read German text books, but know nothing of Arabic or Chinese or various Indian, and possibly African languages that may have been the origins of common English words, so they are rarely credited. Nothing is perfect except God.
Why is the preterite of run ran, yet the preterite of shun is shunned?I do not know the actual answer to this question, but there are normally two explanations for this, both working together. The change of vowel sound: run->ran is generally derived from Arabic, while the change of ending is a European (Greek, Latin) technique. The reason the difference is retained is generally to maximise the linguistic difference from words which might be confused in the same context. Context being both gramatical (similar positions in a sentence), and semantic (words with similar meaning). It may also be that this is specific to certain environments: the similarity might only occur in a classroom, printing house, or some other significant work environment. It might be to make the word easily distinguished from background noise in an environment where it was common.
English has developed in a darwinian manner, and the fact that you cannot tell the spelling from your local pronounciation is not necessarily a snag. Your accent is likely very different to mine. Within my family, we pronounce "there", "their" and "the're" recognisably differently. My wife's family pronouce "ear" and "hair" indistingushably.
I once worked on a speech synthesiser using a National Semis phonym based synthesiser chip. Unfortunately, although the users could easily tell which parts were programmed by me (with a Cambride accent) and which by my colleague (With a Newcastle accent) no one could understand what the damn thing was actually saying.
The problem is more complex than you think: People actually recognise English words by different features in different places. Yoruba speakers are used to a pitch language, and will always pronounce English words with the same pitch setting. They readily understand each other speaking English, but often find it hard to recognise English spoken by English people who use changes in pitch for emphasis.
Before the Internet was common, we had Fidonet. We found out on Fidonet that: If you obey the established spelling rules, people who are not native english speakers have a chance of understanding what you mean, even if they have to look up every word in the dictionary. If you don't, and try to write phonetically, then people outside your local area won't have a clue what you are talking about.
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Interesting)
HAH! exactly what is logical about the semi-random assignment of gender to nouns (die-das-der)?
The Tale of the Fishwife and its Sad Fate:(as literally translated into English)
"It is a bleak Day. Hear the Rain, how he pours, and the Hail, how he rattles; and see the Snow, how he drifts along, and of the Mud, how deep he is! Ah the poor Fishwife, it is stuck fast in the Mire; it has dropped its Basket of Fishes; and its Hands have been cut by the Scales as it seized some of the falling Creatures; and one Scale has even got into its Eye, and it cannot get her out. It opens its Mouth to cry for Help; but if any Sound comes out of him, alas he is drowned by the raging of the Storm. And now a Tomcat has got one of the Fishes and she will surely escape with him. No, she bites off a Fin, she holds her in her Mouth -- will she swallow her? No, the Fishwife's brave Mother-dog deserts his Puppies and rescues the Fin -- which he eats, himself, as his Reward. O, horror, the Lightning has struck the Fish-basket; he sets him on Fire; see the Flame, how she licks the doomed Utensil with her red and angry Tongue; now she attacks the helpless Fishwife's Foot -- she burns him up, all but the big Toe, and even she is partly consumed; and still she spreads, still she waves her fiery Tongues; she attacks the Fishwife's Leg and destroys it; she attacks its Hand and destroys her also; she attacks the Fishwife's Leg and destroys her also; she attacks its Body and consumes him; she wreathes herself about its Heart and it is consumed; next about its Breast, and in a Moment she is a Cinder; now she reaches its Neck -- he goes; now its Chin -- it goes; now its Nose -- she goes. In another Moment, except Help come, the Fishwife will be no more. Time presses -- is there none to succor and save? Yes! Joy, joy, with flying Feet the she-Englishwoman comes! But alas, the generous she-Female is too late: where now is the fated Fishwife? It has ceased from its Sufferings, it has gone to a better Land; all that is left of it for its loved Ones to lament over, is this poor smoldering Ash-heap. Ah, woeful, woeful Ash-heap! Let us take him up tenderly, reverently, upon the lowly Shovel, and bear him to his long Rest, with the Prayer that when he rises again it will be a Realm where he will have one good square responsible Sex, and have it all to himself, instead of having a mangy lot of assorted Sexes scattered all over him in Spots."
-Mark Twain
For the full laundry list of the difficulties of the German language see The Awful German Language [utah.edu], by Mark Twain
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:3, Interesting)
Me personally? I never could spell, and with spellcheck it's just getting worse...
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:3, Interesting)
Most people don't care if the person they are chatting with is using perfect English... and they certainly don't care about "minor" things like correct spelling and grammar; all that really matter
How to learn spelling (Score:5, Informative)
The reverse is true. Hang around sites like
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:4, Interesting)
When I am posting here, I am giving my opinion on a topic. The content is what is important. I feel this is the wrong forum for your 'corrections' and 'suggestions.' It breaks the flow of the discussion. It has nothing to do with the topic being discussed, and makes you sound like a show off intellectual.
Frankly, I really dont want your critique of my grammar and spelling skills. If the post is intelligible or the error changes the meaning of the post significantly, then there's your time to jump in with your corrections. Otherwise, it just seems arrogant that folks like you feel free to offer your unsolicited advice and expect me to appreciate it.
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?
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Informative)
Here's another thing that bothers me about common usage.
The abbreviation "i.e." does not mean "for example."
Repeat after me:
The abbreviation "i.e." does not mean "for example."
The abbreviation "i.e." does not mean "for example."
The abbreviation "i.e." does not mean "for example."
The abbreviation to use if you mean "for example" is "e.g.". The abbreviation "i.e." stands for (the Latin of) "that is."
I.e., "i.e." is used when you are rephrasing, clarifying, etc. what was already said. The sentence "i.e. A report for work", if taken literally, means that the only documents that matter to you are reports for work.
For more information, see, e.g., http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/8707/52862 [suite101.com], http://www.planetoid.org/grammar_for_geeks/ie_vs_
(Sorry, I go on this rant periodically. Don't take it personally.)
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Informative)
i.e. - in explanation
e.g. - example given
ObGetShorty (Score:5, Funny)
Bullshit! That's short for "ergo"!
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:4, Informative)
i.e. - id est (that is)
e.g. - exempli gratia (for [the sake of an] example)
Once I learned what they actually stood for, I never got them confused again. You don't have to speak Latin to know which is which. It amazes me how many people use these every day and don't know what they stand for. Also, they should usually be followed by a comma when used in a sentence, just like the phrases "for example" and "that is" are.
Trivia: in German, instead of e.g., they use z.B. which stands for "zum Beispiel".
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Funny)
Pax tecum.
I agree. There's a proper forum for corrections (Score:5, Insightful)
Unsolicited correction of someone's English on the web is like stepping up to fellow customers in a clothes store and suggesting ways to improve their current wardrobe. Sure, you might be more fashion-savvy, but you'd still be arrogant.
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Insightful)
Your text is your voice. It doesn't convey information about what you said, it conveys information about you --- it's the equivalent of your accent. If you write sloppily, you'll sound as if you're speaking sloppily, which means that people will associate what you said with sloppiness, which is probably not what you want if you want to be taken seriously...
I know it shouldn't happen, but it does, in just the same way that people associated educated accents with intelligence and working-class accents with stupidity.
Personally, I don't think you have a problem --- you come across coherently and precisely and you're not slurring at all. However, uh... I think in that last sentence you might have meant 'unintelligable'...
their .vs. there, etc (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, Slashdot is a conversational forum, and people write "from the hip" without absolute consideration to their spelling. But come on
How am I supposed to take anything someone says seriously, when their text is riddled with grammatical errors that my 14 year old nephew mastered years ago.
Native English speakers who can't express themselves without making childish mistakes like that, just appear thick! And it devalues anything of real importance they may have to say.
Have you also considered that if you practice spelling correctly all the time, then you're less likely to screw up when it really matters?
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:4, Funny)
You forgot the apostrophe in "don't".
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Funny)
But... but if we proofread how will we get FP?!
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?
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.
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:4, Funny)
Just wanted to emphasizes this point, as I'm something of a closet grammar nazi myself. I'm always more forgiving to those who don't sound like native speakers, except for when the change is particularly amusing.
Eg:
A Russian coder that I used to work with once wrote some C code that would generate SQL queries dynamically. In his comments inside the code, he described this as "Building SQL queries on a fly" which had me giggling quite a bit when I first read it.
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Insightful)
According to your own argument , minimizing a person's intellect based on their tendency to minimize another person's intellect is therefore also a form of racism, and you too are guilty of tying two unrelated concepts together to diminish a person's worth.
So, either you're wrong, a racist, or a hypocrite.
Could you clarify for us by letting us know which?
Based on your numerous spelling and grammar errors, I'm gleefully jumping on your minimization bandwagon and am guessing that you're merely wrong (which means neither of us are therefore necessarily racist! yay!) though I haven't ruled out hypocrite yet.
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think of it like a stuck pixel on an LCD around the edge of the screen. During normal use you wouldn't even notice it; the monitor works fine, you can watch movies, play games, surf the net... but in the back of your mind that monitor is still broken.
Poor spelling or grammar still gets the point across. Though, if the reader notices it lingers in the back of their mind and detracts from your message.
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:4, Funny)
Stuck pixel? STUCK PIXEL? My GOD, man! This is Slashdot! It's more like someone took a freaking 12 gauge shotgun to my poor 21" SyncMaster!
Answer to devil's advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is when non-native speakers are taught the meaning of "should have" and never EVER have had contact with the completely illogical term "should of". I'm saying this because i couldn't understand what my friend tried to tell me whenever he said "should of". I'm not saying it was difficult to understand him. I'm saying i could NOT understand him AT ALL. I didn't know if he missed a word, and only after the third time he tried to explain, i caught the meaning.
You call this EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION? I don't think so.
Why should non-native speakers have to LEARN a WHOLE NEW LANGUAGE that is not even english? Shouldn't native english speakers learn ENGLISH in the first place?
Poor grammar does NOT help communication between people of different countries. And the fact that english is the universal language today is only by chance. Remember latin was universal 1000 years ago.
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, the first problem is that you are begging the question: why do you think it is possible to write clearly and unambiguously without recourse to conventional spelling, grammar, and usage? I think this is a highly doubtful proposition, because even clear and correct writing is often ambiguous. When I do understand bad writing, it is because I am smarter and have worked harder than the person who wrote it (remember, we are talking about native speakers, not geniuses who don't know the language.) Then too, bad writing is rude because it conveys the implicit message that time you save in writing is worth more than time I save in reading. But why do you think I should bother to read something you can't be bothered to write?
I think you are also mistaken in assuming that the only drawback of bad writing is that other people can't understand you. Literacy is a system, and if you are a bad writer you are unlikely to be a very good reader. Consider the locution I employed in my first paragraph: "begging the question." This phrase derives from a meaning of "begging" that is no longer current, namely "taking for granted." Because this is an antiquated meaning, many people interpret the phrase as "begging for the question." What's wrong with that? After all, language is continuously changing. Certainly. But if you don't even know the old meaning, and make a point of refusing to learn it, you have cut yourself off from the writings of earlier generations; writings that in many cases are more interesting than what you have to say now (that, after all, is why they have been preserved.) For my part, I believe that most people who misuse phrases like this do so in ignorance and are tacitly acknowledging my point: they have adopted the phrase, without understanding it, in hopes that by emulating better writing, their own will be more favourably received.
Re:Wow! (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe the quoted OP intended the "it" in "does it matter" to refer to "someone's work if devoid of common rules of grammar and usage", not to "you completely and unambiguously understand what they are saying/writing", although both are possible legitimate parsings.
Even if a highly misspelt and ungrammatical post/email/letter is completely unambiguous and can be completely and correctly understood, it usually takes more effort for the reader to get to that point of comprehension than it would without the errors. We are wonderful error-correcting devices, but it's not a zero-cost implementation.
By purposefully ignoring grammar and/or spelling when communicating, you're making things easier for yourself at the expense of requiring more effort from your readers. That's at the very least impolite and quite possibly arrogant and downright rude.
It's especially so in a forum like a news post, where you only need to write once, but what you write will be read many many times. Just making some attempt at reasonable grammar and spelling should greatly improve the overall efficiency of communication at a relatively small cost to the author. Just because something works doesn't mean it works well...
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is also the issue of ease of understanding. Any text is written just once, it is however, likely to be read multiple times by multiple readers. Shouldn't the author try to ease the workload of the readership?
Finally, consider the following quote: "As long as you completely understand them, does it matter if a person breaks common rules of grammar and usage?" transformed thus:
"As long as the page renders correctly in my browser does it matter if the HTML fails to conform to the DTD?"
Doesn't that make you shudder?
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.
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:5, Informative)
A: "What do you want to to do tonight?"
B: "We could go see a movie, but I think we should just rent something... that would be cheaper."
Also, "have" in "should have" is not a verb either. It's another modifier. Usually the verb follows after, with "(sh|c|w)ould have" suggesting a possible alternative to a past action.
"He would have left a bigger tip if he had change."
"You could have turned left on main street as a shortcut."
"You should have read the manual first."
The verb determines tense. There is only a handful of exceptions where the "have" is the acting verb, and is always used as a possessive for the subject.
"The jar should have holes in the lid."
"The car could have a larger engine if you want that option."
"He would have more time if he stopped surfing slashdot."
You are absolutely correct that language evolves. However, you can't honestly claim that substituting "of" for "have" in any of the above examples is sensible, readable english because 'of' is a preposition. It might be acceptable in speech from the slurring of "should've" but that does not make it grammatically correct.
=Smidge=
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".
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's stupid because 100/3 != 33, it's completely incorrect
The main flaw in your argument is that math is constant, while language evolves. This is completely natural and more importantly, desirous. Rigid adherence to outdated grammatical constructs can only hinder communication. A perfect example would be the adoption of "google" as a verb; would you prefer to say "navigate to google's site and use it to search for widgets" or "google widgets"
That being said, I do agree with you, "should of" is horrible, but you have to take the good with the bad.
Re:Wow! What a question to ask on Slashdot... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Should of" is a perfect example, because it's something that children say because they don't know any better. The presumption is that, as you grow up, your intelligence grows with you, and you outgrow grammar errors such as "should of", "supposably", and "pasghetti". Sure, the language will evolve, but "should of" will always sound like something a ten-year-old would say.
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.
Re: Racist? (Score:5, Insightful)
Tin foil hat time, man.
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:3, Funny)
Talk English, dude!
Re:Revenge of the Spelling Nazi and Grammar Troll (Score:5, Funny)
So they're just like computer geeks, but of the english language?
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.
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.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
Re:Revenge of the Spelling Nazi and Grammar Troll (Score:4, Interesting)
I've said it before, but it's not the diction that matters, but the message.
I speak Finnish as my native language. Still I have noticed the poor spelling of English by a large number of geeks. The same seems to hold, perhaps to a smaller degree, in Finnish.
What you said in the sentence that I quoted is really wisdom, and I hope I could have such an attitude myself (but I wouldn't sacrifice my diction for it). Still I have noticed that whenever I read poorly written (grammar/spelling) text, I always have a negative presupposition against it. I just can't help it, it's something so deep in me. And I am sure I'm not the only one among those to whom grammar and spelling has never been a problem who thinks that way. What I seem to think subconsciously is something along the lines, "the writer doesn't even want to put the effort into making their text easily readable, so they cannot be very serious". Really reading poorly written text can be a slight annoyance, which you might not know (or maybe you do) if you aren't so fluent yourself.
While I'm trying to get rid of this, I'm sure a very large number of people aren't. So really I believe you would do well to yourself if you put some effort in trying to learn proper grammar and spelling if you want to be taken seriously.
Of course if you have some real, diagnosed disabilities, this might not be a possibility. That's one of the reasons why I'm trying really hard to get rid of that attitude of mine. But believe me, it's not easy (and I don't consider myself snotty or superior in any other sense).
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.
Re:Programming and human language (Score:4, Insightful)
None of his examples hindered effective communication in the slightest. Infact it could be said that it 'increased' the effectiveness of the communication. Now we know that the submitter is more concerned with details than with results. We wouldn't have had that information if we hadn't misspelled anything.
His other point about 'appearing less intelligent' has more credibility, but not much. It comes down to knowing your audience and taking the necessary measures.
I think the reason the submitter imagined a connection between 'technical' people and grammatical/spelling shortcomings is because we are in, (and have been in) an area of real-time written communication.
If you're using Email, or worse Instant Messaging, or even worse IRC, or even worse 'talk.' The 'speed' at which you present your ideas means MUCH MUCH more to the effectiveness of the communication than dotting the I's and crossing the T's. And once it's established, it's just a matter of habit.
I wonder if the submitter has compared 'on-the-fly' writings of the 'Slashdot Crowd' vs their more permanent and published writings.
Man! (Score:5, Funny)
Engineers are bad spellers (Score:5, Funny)
native speakers? (Score:3, Interesting)
And The Point Being...? (Score:3, Insightful)
Two things: (Score:3, Insightful)
2) as for "hackers and geeks," they mostly reside in their own circles. this is especially tru on the internet. within one's own circle, it's much easier to get away with it.
Of course, it doesn't help... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sayeth an expert --- (Score:3, Interesting)
-- Andrew Jackson
Here [quotemountain.com]
Correct English? (Score:4, Interesting)
What is this 'correct English' of which you speak? Can you send me a copy of the official English language handbook? No. Hrm. Well maybe you could direct me to the official governing body of the English language. You mean, French has one and English doesn't?
Bugger!
Then, how do we know what correct English is? You mean, 'correct' English is by definition 'common' English?! No! But then what will all those semi-intelligent pedants who haven't caught on to the fact that 'should have' is no more meaningful than 'should of', but that 'should of' is much more common in spoken English do? Who knows!
All I can say is that having worked in the publishing industry, you could tell the people who had little intelligence but a lot to prove by how frequently and strongly they misunderstood the fact that there is no 'correct' English, and jumped down the throats of those they perceived to not have as good a grasp on this 'correct' English as they did.
+Pete
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.
could it be..., the schools? (Score:4, Interesting)
I consider myself an excellent speller with a firm grasp of the English language, its syntax, and semantics. And I consider myself to be high on the scale of technical savvy. But I've met more brilliant people in 21 years in this industry who couldn't spell a lick. I don't know if it's lack of care, or just plain inability to spell.
A peer who collaborated with me on one of my major projects implemented a layer of code to make the program more transparent and usable... and one of the major pieces used file handles to hide named pipes... He spelled it "filehadle", which in this case is more likely a typo, but he missed a lot of other words too. To this day I still get questions about that variable name (it's a good filter..., a programmer who brings that question is not one who I want working with that code).
Another best friend is now VP of a company he founded, and I hope he is getting his correspondence edited before sending.
There are even examples of Mr. Gates' e-mail... if you didn't know it was he, you'd think the author of some of his missives was illiterate.
All of this said and observed, I don't think I've ever been able to see any direct relationship or correlation with "illiteracy" and the technology gurus. I have seen more of a correlation with younger people and while I have no conclusive evidence I would submit this is more about a school system that spends time worrying about the wrong things. (I've even seen typo's/misspellings pop up on the CNN crawler! Ick!)
Another experience: a best friend of mine was in a German Blue Grass band, and they came to the U.S. and toured the midwest out of our house. So, here were four Germans with whom I spent over a week... and one of the most notable things about them was they spoke better English than most Americans! Go figure.
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..
Abbreviations with "w" (Score:5, Insightful)
As if that wasn't bad enough! (Score:3, Insightful)
Where have you been? Grammar is bad all over. (Score:3, Insightful)
Additionally, spell-checkers have made things worse, because now no one knows how to spell things correctly by themselves. When you see somethng choc-full-o-spelling-errors, it is probably because there's no built-in spelling checker. And I am just as guilty of this as the rest of the world.
I'm not complaining, mind you. I'm a professional writer, and the worse the general population can write, the more employable I become...
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:Problem in America... BUT (Score:5, Interesting)
I knew one teenage girl while I was there was from Belarus, and her family spoke Belarussian at home, so her Russian was less than perfect - it was probably the quivalent of some backwoods "hick" English. She too was constantly corrected by her peers until she fixed her mistakes.
Re:Problem in America... BUT (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, and Russian language is in fact regulated, by the Russian Academy of Sciences.
I explain this in almost every interview (Score:3, Interesting)
As such, don't asking me about strange, disorderly rules of english phonetics and grammar. Don't ask geeks anything concerning social subtlies, such as language and money.
Sound point, wrong assumptions (Score:4, Insightful)
You say slashdot readers are: obsessed with technical knowledge and accuracy
Some slashdot readers are. Others are more interested in:
Tech Gossip, neither knowledgeable nor accurate
Latest Gadgets, ditto
Science Fiction
Anime, large breasted Japanese girls(!?!), transforming creatures and flying penises
Microsoft Delivery Schedule, always wrong
Mac Advocacy, occassionally right.
Not so many obsessed with technical knowledge and accuracy.
MOD STORY INSIGHTFUL! (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe it's a coincidence, but the fact that I'm _NOT_ a native english speaker answers why people have such a weak grammar / spelling. I didn't learn english by hearing. But by reading (In fact I had some trouble knowing how to pronounce certain words).
But anyway, from Mexico, it's common the rumour that americans are oh god the cream of the crop and they're so superior to us in everything. And then I come, and after a while of chatting I end up making a huge "WTF!? O.O" face.
Please kids, learn a little grammar. Is that too hard?
Different problems? (Score:4, Insightful)
Assuming we're dealing with a native English speaker, I see these as different problems. Poor spelling might simply be poor typing (though if I see 'loosing' for 'losing' one more time, I will become upset...). Poor grammar is more fundamental I feel, as it implies a lack of comprehension. In coding terms, I may not remember the method name but I should at least understand the algorithm I'm attempting to implement.
Good. They assume far too much importance in the world as it is. If people still get them wrong, perhaps indoctrination hasn't quite been completed yet.
Cheers,
Ian
Article (Score:4, Interesting)
It basically falls into two categories. The one you're probably not complaining about is intentional joke misspellings like "teh intarwebnet". The one you are complaining about is the category where some words are just plain misspelled ("catagory"), and others use a correctly spelled wrong word (lose/loose, principal/principle, populace/populous, you're/your, its/it's). While some of the offenders are not native English speakers, most are the product of our (.us) wonderful educational system.
I suspect a major cause of this is people who didn't read a lot when they were young. Not that it matters any more, because publishers can't afford anyone clueful enough to copyedit spelling any more. And that is thanks to spelling checkers which blindly let correctly spelled wrong words through. I think you can thank Microsoft Word stifling competition in the word processor market for the lack of good grammar checking.
/teh intarnet is fool of morans
Disdain for the illogical (Score:5, Insightful)
Then there's the grammar standards of where punctuation marks are used. The comma was invented to just indicate an audio pause in speech. Then later on anal people changed it to only being usable under specific circumstances - Again, For, No, Reason.
Then there's the confusion over whether or not the quote marks are supposed to accurately quote what is inside them or not. I'd say that only things that are part of what is being quoted belong inside the quotes. Punctuation that is an artifact of the fact that the quote got pasted into another sentence are part of that external sentence, NOT part of the quoted material - so they logically belong outside the quote marks. For example:
Logical, but incorrect according to standard:
"Hello", John said.
Did John say, "Hello"?
Illogical, but correct according to standard:
"Hello," John said. (The comma isn't part of the quote dammit)
Did John say, "Hello?" (The question mark is there because of the sentence the "Hello" is pasted inside of, NOT because it is part of the "Hello" that John might have said. This allegedly correct way looks, to me, like the question is aksing whether John spoke "Hello" in a questioning tone, because the question mark ended up inside the quoted part.
According to standard, a question asked in the negative isn't really asked in the negative. "Aren't you coming with us", should logically be answerable by saying "Yes I am not coming with you". But the expected interpretation is the inverse of that. Again, the standard is at odds with logic.
Most people look at stuff like that and don't care. People who think logically get fed up with crap like that and rebell.
If you don't care enough to try to present it well (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't mind if someone has a few spelling mistakes or grammatical faux pas - we all make mistakes from time to time.
What I do hate - absofuckinglutely loathe - is shit like "u" instead of "you" and "4" instead of "for" and all that instant messenger shorthand when the person is clearly sitting at a regular keyboard and has plenty of time to compose a statement.
Rule of thumb: if you're IM'ing someone from your cell phone or trying to type quickly in a shoot-em-up, then fine, use shortcuts. If you're doing anything else - if you're not engaged in real-time communications - then at least make the effort to follow the rules.
Now, why am I so bugged by the "u" and "4" and all that shit? Because I'm somewhat dyslexic. When someone starts throwing stuff around like that, it takes me at least two or three times as long to parse it and make sense of it. I take the time to write clearly - I *agonize* over written communications I send out because I want to make absolutely sure that my point is getting across - it's important to me to know I'm understood.
So, if YOU don't treat what you're saying as important, then why the hell should I?
A Few Points (Score:5, Insightful)
There are no rules, only patterns. Grammatical rules are misleading. Langauges evolve. They have evolved from the ground up and continue to change. The "rules" at the moment represent the normative usage at this time. So it seems sort of silly to teach English "rules," but it is the best way to express the common English code to English-language-learners. In other words, "You ought to follow these rules if you want to be understood."
Language is in the mouths of the people, not the pages of the dictionary and grammar book. Usage by English speakers defines the language. That is why new words and grammatical constructions and figures of speech and idioms pop up and fall away all the time.
The purpose of language is communication. The reason we talk is so that we can communicate with one another. When someone says "should of" instead of "should have," most seasoned English speakers understand exactly what that phrase means. Communication has happened, and the language has served its purpose. This happens all the time in common English. Example: Goodbye. I do not attack people who use this nonsensical grammatically poor word. You see, it originates from "God be with ye." Goodbye is an obvious grammatical distortion that has taken hold as a normative part of English language. So will "should of" as has "aint" as done as well.
It is silly to get mad at someone for not following the "rules" of English if you know exactly what they mean.
Making an impression (Score:4, Interesting)
(Obviously, I make exceptions for non-native writers, and for some kinds of informal communication.)
I'm particularly bothered by executives who have this problem. One CEO I used to work for was so busy and so important that he just didn't have time to make his messages coherent. Getting an e-mail from him was like receiving a prophesy from the Oracle of Delphi, or like trying to interpret the cryptic mumbling of Mao Tse-Tung.
Reading between the lines, the attidute here is: "I'm more important than you. I'd rather you waste an hour trying to figure out what I'm talking about than spend sixty seconds myself editing this e-mail."
I think you can imagine just how inspiring this guy was as a leader.
-- Brian
Good hackers have excellent communication skills. (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at Linus Torvalds, James Yonan, Guido van Rossum, Donald Knuth; all of these people have outstanding communication skills. It's merely the wannabes and hangers-on whose skills are inadequate -- and arguably, such individuals aren't really part of the community at all.
Indeed, I distinctly recall it having been noted decades ago that there was a disproportionate number of English majors in the computing community. Perhaps someone will have a source?
Appearing less intellegent... so what! (Score:4, Interesting)
Now you can certainly be an obsessive bookworm who loves to debate the details of various well known and obscure literature. And that person is likely to have very good written an verbal skills.
Now would a powerful command of the english language be useful in one's career? Certainly. Just as having excellent technical skills would be useful for just about anyone in this day and age.
Perhaps anyone that talk good become manager and stop being engineeer. (or vice versa)
And Let's Not Forget About "It's" (Score:4, Informative)
IT'S = a contraction of IT IS
Used in sentences like:
"It is a sunny day" = "It's a sunny day"
"It is really annoying" = "It's really annoying"
"Don't do that, it is stupid!" = "Don't do that, it's stupid!"
ITS is neuter possessive - as in his or hers, only it refers to a non-gendered object.
Used in sentences like:
"My laptop's battery lost its charge"
"Open Source Software has its drawbacks"
"The G5's strength is its vector processing abilities"
Many times you can save an extra keystroke by using "its" instead of "it's" - and you get the bonus of being grammatically correct.
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.