<soapbox> Decent Writing Does Matter!

Thank you. This is the most gratifying thing a thread starter can hear.

I have no interest in helping you or anyone else in this matter. You have your standards, its clear you expect others to live up to them. I think, contrary to your stated objective about trying to help others be communicative, that you are more interested in belittling them and being condescending. I pointed out earlier, in a nicer manner, that I felt you were being condescending and judgemental and you brushed me off. Yet you posted a clear example of your own snideness (your own admission! quoted below!).

Yes you were leading the pack. Your post was near the beginning. As I'm quite sure you are aware, being a master at the English language and formulating a post to communicate a point, one does not need a lot of words to communicate a point. I thought your one sentence showed how little you thought of the OP in a very concise manner. Good job!

Furthermore, as you demonstrated so aptly when you brought the post to this thread, you understood what the OP was trying to communicate quite well. You were able to translate her post into one that better fits your standards. Could it be that she didn't achieve her goal because you (and others) are more interested in picking on people without good writing skills rather than actually responding to the content?

There are four pages of posts here in which you've been very participatory. Yet, you think I've failed to get your point. And here you've been so grammatically correct. How is one to fathom this failure to communicate? Obviously it is not poor writing skills. Could it be that attitudes of the original poster, as well as those of the audience, might be a contributing factor?

I have to agree with Surreal on this. I'm the child of a teacher and a newspaperman, so proper spelling and grammar was drilled into me from an early age.

Since this is a forum, and not a professional situation, I don't so much mind accidental spelling errors here and there, and I'm not even concerned with punctuation; there's such a thing as being too hung up on details. On the other hand, if you want to be taken seriously, you do need to follow a few basic rules.

If a post is overly long and has no paragraph breaks, that's one thing. If it's interesting enough, I'll keep reading. If it's peppered with basic spelling errors and uses a lot of single letters and numbers as abbreviations for words, that's quite another thing. Maybe it's just my background, but anything written like that speaks to me of laziness. And Surreal is right, I think: if you want a serious response to a business idea, don't write that way.

I don't think forum posts need to be absolutely correct in every picky detail, but it doesn't hurt to look things over before you click 'submit' and see if anything needs correcting. And please, please, don't use things like U and 2 as words. It doesn't take that much extra time to do it the right way.

I repeat. I don't give a rat's ass if anyone lives up to my standards. I am not interested in helping others become communicative, I am pointing out that it is in people's self interest to do so. I didn't brush you off, I pointed out that you were doing the same thing. Hypocrisy.

You bet I can be snide. What makes you think that I'm ashamed of it. A tard post is very likely to get a snide reply. Notice that I'm judging the post, not the person.

As for the rest of this, yes I think you've still missing the point.

If you are interested in debating my premise: good writing helps get you you achieve your goals, then let's continue talking. If you're only interested in dripping sarcasm and expressing your hostility, then I'm not interested.

Something else that can help in communicating is when we refuse to drag feuds into a thread from in-world or other threads. Failure to do so makes us look petty, I think.

When flamed by someone you haven't interacted with, do you ever use the search feature to get a sampling of their posts before you reply? Just curious as I usually do. It gives me a quick idea if their response is their norm or not. Very useful when considering how to reply.

Oops, I meant PM (private message), not IM when I used it.

I did actually. She was a complete ass.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the point you're trying to make is "she was probably just a complete ass" and you're probably right.

I'm definetely not saying you're a complete ass for wanting to see better writing. It's not like I'm not tempted to do it myself sometimes. But I hold back becauseI'm afraid someone will misinterprete my intent. For some people who have a chip on their shoulder about whatever, it's an easy way to attack someone and feel justified in doing it.

P.S. I can't edit worth a crap though. That I will admit. I just can't wait to hit that enter key.

I've been speed posting today because my workload picked up suddenly. I meant to add that I also will do a post review if a new person posts something I agree with or find enlightening.

You're right. No matter what you say someone is bound to take offense unless you stick to bland. I think if you want to play in the forums you have to expect to take some heat if you discuss anything the least bit contraversial.

You would be suprised. Everything I learned about grammar, I learned in law school because of the abject failure of the American education system. I even went to private high school, not public.

The 1960's-1970's produced a movement in education that focused on students expressing themselves, and not really focusing on the manner in which they expressed themselves. The end product of said educational experiments is an entire generation that is grammatically clueless. Or should I say utterly lacking in grammatic acumen.

Of course in law school they now advocate a "plain english" style of expression. Apparently even law schools need to teach people how to write.

My beef with this thinly disguised excersise in condescension is that the OP starts with a statement that is self evident, and the truth of which has been placed into the brains of anyone who has survived grade school. The assertion needs no support, and thus, the only discernable reason for the post is to say "I judge people who write poorly as being lesser human beings."

It is not being judgemental that is the crime here-its being judgmental on trivialites of expression. Historically, standardized spelling is a reltively recent phenonomenon, having been born largely in the mid-late 19th century. To be sure it was long in development, but letters from the early 18th century vary widely in their spelling, though they are readable.

Perhaps we are simply entering an era when the language is changing to meet the needs of those who use it, and match the exigencies of communication. American english is the language with the fewest known dialects in all of history, and it is natural that linguistic conservatives be resistant to change. I think we must accept that we can be very wrong in deciding by twenty lines of forum post that another person is an ass and an idiot, when all they have done is committed misspellings. Nobody here derves to have their personal worth summed up so easily.

Of course the OP does point out that people are always subject to judgement on appearances. Oscar Wilde went so far as to say that only shallow people do not judge on appearances. Clearly the original post has taken this to heart.

Of course it seems to me what was communicated by the post was not, "lets debate the merits of good writing" but rather, "lets talk about how people who write poorly or mispell have nothing meaningful to say." Apparently even the most grammatically correct post can be misinterpreted.

Now, in my expereince with these forums, as soon as someone is on the losing end of the argument, or they need to make themselves look better in the eyes of the braying pack of hounds, they raise the hue and cry of "you cannot spell so you must be an idiot." Here we lack the braying pack of hounds, so I assume the purpose can only be to raise a pack to attack every poor soul who ever misspelled teh, as a leet speaking moron.

Well perhaps that is overly strong. Clearly, however, I am not the only person who read the post this way.

I never spell check my posts, I do not have time, seeing as I write them usually between other activites. I cannot type. I have a secretary who is an english major who does a wonderful job of reviewing my work and making me look very together. But the thinking is mine, and its the thinking I get paid for, or I would charge by the word.

In reading the original post the thinking just comes across to me as nit-picky and mean- spirited. Hence I am judgemental. But at least I am not afraid to admit it. And I won't hate you for typos.

Two words: ASCII art

Thread defeated.
Surreal: 0
Chance: 1

controversial

i'd like to point out my grammar has nothing to do with my education or tells anything about me i post how it comes out im not going to correct it for the masses. Its forums. Its basically my thoughts im not trying to write an essay but i do tend to rant on . If anyone of you actually knew my background you would go into shock as to how i actually write if i need to. Im not doing editing work here folks and im not going to appease surreal by letting it get to my ill continue posting in the manner in which i do. And besides The people that actually take the time to read my posts are the ones i want reading them because they most likely are the ones that are caring about SL. Rather then attacking me over bad grammer (has been done many times especially by people that i have difference in opinion with (they know who they are) is jsut wrong.

The fact of the matter is if you take the time to read it you get the point regardless. I showed the post to about 10 people after i wrote it and they understood it perfectly most of the people in SL would. Surreal im not an english major a writer or for that matter educated in the u.s so before you post things like this in the future think it out a bit more. Not everyone was educated in the same manner as you!

Evidently the statement is not self-evident. I have had many conversations with people who do not understand how much good writing skills can affect their success.

I in no way think that people who write poorly, for whatever reason, are lesser human beings. Period.

You are reading my posts through the filter of your issues. While I do this too, I also adjust my perceptions based on additional information. I think this is an excellent strategy if you are really interested in understanding rather than keeping your assumptions.

PWNED!!!

Has anyone else noticed that spell check is ruining their ability to spell? (Or maybe it's decrepitude).

I replied more fully to you in the other thread.

This isn't about intelligence or education. This is about how good writing skills impact achieving goals. Many people discard or skim anything that they find difficult to read. You must also take into account your audience's reading skills.

Lina, we're talking about a matter of degrees here. I think Surreal's merely pointing out that in the medium of written electronic communications, better sentence composition, white space and grammar help to convey one's point more effectively. It's not that no one would understand you (I understood your post just fine). It's a matter of degrees.

One of my friends back on another board years ago compared posting style to dress code. You don't wear grubby, grease-stained jeans in public (well, I don't anyway) so why use a hard-to-understand abbreviated form of English where people only have words on which to base their opinion of you? It's not that anyone would wear jeans to a party - this is an informal setting as someone else pointed out. It's the people who are wearing smelly sweat-stained clothes and haven't washed their hair in a couple of weeks who are more at issue.

However, to illustrate the point a bit more please allow me to snip from an example at one end of the extreme. This is taken from a post over in General Topics:

Now. The difference between that post and yours could be expressed in light years. So I doubt that your writing style was a target of Surreal's original rant. How hard is it to spell out the word "people" or use a period once in a while?

The latter is more likely than the former.

The only thing that ruins my spelling is reading the forums. I see words misspelled so often that I sometimes unconsciously write the defective versions and have to immediately go back and change them.

I think the OP is just saying that sometimes it hard to understand someone with particularly bad grammar. I just don't infer from that post that she is saying that people with less than stellar grammar skills are lesser human beings than those who do have them.

Personally, my beef with extreme cases is that I think many people tend to skim through particularly hard to read posts, or simply pass them over. The post may indeed be saying something important, and therefore, it may miss out on the attention it deserves.

I don't think that this is always due to reader arrogance. We are all constrained by time, and if we have to spend an inordinate amount of time reassembling a post in our heads, we may not take the time to do so, especially if we are budgeting time at the time of viewing it.

And, I was just ribbing you, in case you thought I was being an ass. I think you are a very intelligent, thoughtful, and eloquent person. I did once jab you for some typos, but I think you took me a bit more seriously than I had intended, and when I did so, it was because you were speaking legalese, and I think I speak for most folks when I say that we automatically tend to expect lawyers, doctors, or other folks in professions which require extensive schooling, to possess solid basic skills. However, this is not always the case, and I recognize this. Hell, trying to read what doctors write is like trying to decipher hieroglyphics at times, and I am not just talking about prescriptions, as I have been told they do that on purpose.

In the end, yes, the schools are to blame, and so are parents. In my house, growing up, my parents were HUGE sticklers about writing skills. Both of them wrote beautifully, and I rarely see people today with writing skills of that caliber, especially cursive.

I also had the fortune of attending some very top notch, strictly run public schools, which I of course hated at the time, but am thankful for that in retrospect, as I realize that many didn't have that fortune.

My own grammar skills used to be a lot better. I am no perfect grammarian, not by any means. Part of the reason I've slipped (just ask me for some commas, I have a BBoC - Big Bag of Commas - with plenty to spare ), is that over time I have forgotten a lot (probably due to disuse), and some of it is laziness. I do consciously make an effort though, and that is really all I personally ask of others. If they find that insulting, I can but say I don't mean it to be. You obviously do make an effort, but some obviously don't, and I am not talking about posters for whom English is not their first language. I usually have no problem spotting those cases in short order (possibly because I speak multiple languages, and have had a lot of exposure to folks who do not have a very good grasp on English. I have even assisted some Mexican nationals, who are here on work permits, with their English studies. I really enjoy that, and find it very rewarding. I have made some great bonds with people that way), and I wouldn't dream of critiquing them.

Both my grammars and grandpas are dead