I've talked about quality writing before and I've talked about how texting is not English. In that latter post, I mentioned that I had other reasons for not considering texting to be English.
Now I will address some other such reasons. Specifically the lack of grammar, punctuation and capitalization in most texts.
Unlike proper written English, text language often has no, or minimal, punctuation. If you're lucky, you might see a period, maybe a comma. (Though I do have to concede that most people sending texts do have to deal with a character limit.) Most of the time, none at all. However, the exclamation mark seems to be the most common since people sending texts lean toward the dramatic...
There is a little fluke with some punctuation. Some words that should have apostrophes but don't when used in text language actually do create real words, just with very different meanings. For example - won't and wont. One is saying you will not do something, but the other is something you are inclined to do.
As for grammar, well since that falls into divisions that are specifically denoted by punctuation as well as sentence structure, and you're not likely to see much of that either.
Say I want to explain something to you, but I want to make sure it's clear. Secondary clauses, agreement and more. That means, if I want to mark each aspect of the idea, I have to show you the divides. That is done through my grammar and my punctuation working in conjunction, demonstrating my idea.
The lack of these two items alone makes the style of text language almost too fluid to follow. Most of the time, you have to read the message out loud to even figure out what it's saying.
And it really doesn't help that things are rarely capitalized. Not even I, let alone the beginnings of sentences or proper nouns. It's a lower case blur.
Capital letters can help express importance or recognize the status of something. If I'm saying something about myself or about a well-known landmark, I should denote such things by capitalizing the terms, such as Montmartre, Harrisonburg, United Kingdom, Hans Christian Anderson, Clovis, just to name a few...
On top of that, the sheer oddity of spelling in such messages... Very confusing at times. And there are days when I have absolutely no idea what someone is trying to write.
For example, here's a sample of text language I recently saw - "i neva wuda thought in million years she wud do sumn like dis."
If you say it out loud, you can get most of the message, which translates into "I never would have thought in a millions years she would do something like this."
Neva for never, wuda for would have, sumn for something and dis for this.
It seems rather ironic to me that some of these idiosyncrasies of texting are actually the way people speak these days. It really bugs me when I hear someone say "ax" for "ask." And all the dropped t's and d's. It's mountain, not mounian. Bottle, not bodle.
The hardest word in the English language might be "the" or it might be "lollipop," but "dat" doesn't mean you should become sloppy and not say "that" correctly!
Somewhere running around there's a children's book that says avoid the gonnas and wannas. Well, I'm going to find that one because I want to have other people remember to speak clearly. I think it's called "English Can be Fun" by Herbert Prescott.
Ever tried to read one of the poems from "Oh Say Can You Say?" by Dr. Seuss out loud? Now that's a test students should take! Not the Standards of Learning exams that seem to leave every child behind and promote mediocrity.
Enunciate! As I often yell at my nephew who has a nasty tendency to mumble and slur his words so badly I have absolutely no idea what is coming out of his mouth...
So from spoken to written. The beginnings of modern text language appear to have developed in sloppy speaking. As Henry Higgins once said, "In America, they haven't used [English] for years."
How about this one - its messed up that sum ppl miss use stuff like this
OK, that one reads "It's messed up that some people misuse stuff like this." Not that tricky a one until you get to the "miss use."
How about this one - "id advise u to get to no ur son a lil better cause from the sound of it u dont no anything about him."
Lots of common forms of text language there. Translation - "I'd advise you to get to know your son a little better because from the sound of it you don't know anything about him."
Here's a nice long one that might mess you up - i cant belive all they gave tht pos is 6 years he should have gt mre oh well hopfully hell get real aquanted with a big black guy n prison he better hope i dnt c him cause we gta talk if i were him id hide cause i gt people in all the correctional facilitys in virginia.... o n sissy pull the wool out from your eyes he was the CROWED he was the influence he gt all those people to follow him.... n hell most of these people were inosent
Translation - "I can't believe all they gave that piece of shit is six years. He should have got more. Oh well, hopefully he'll get real acquainted with a big black guy in prison. He better hope I don't see him because we got to talk. If I were him, I'd hide because I got people in all the correctional facilities in Virginia. Oh, and sissy, pull the wool out from your eyes. He was the crowd, he was the influence. He got all those people to follow him. And hell, most of these people were innocent."
Took a couple of times reading that one to make sense of the mangle. And that specific example is very good to see the degeneration of spelling. Inosent for innocent. Aquanted for acquainted.
Makes me think of that old e-mail joke where the Germans wanted everyone to speak German, not English, but when the other countries wouldn't agree to it, the Germans insisted on various changes and English almost got changed back its Germanic roots in the end anyway... I still have a copy of that e-mail somewhere. I shall have to find it...
But I specifically remember things like getting rid of the hard "c" and replacing it with a "k." Or getting rid of the silent e... Most of the rule changes affected writing... There were numerous examples in the original message. I just can't remember all of them.
And exclaiming "Y'all come back, y'hear!" Or asking someone "D'jeat?" (If you don't know what that second one is, it's "did you eat?")
"Enuf already!!" Are we truly becoming so lazy that we can't even speak, or write, in such a way as to make ourselves clearly and easily understood?
Maybe I'm just plain old-fashioned, but I find the degradation of English to be a disturbing and disheartening transition...
To put it bluntly, I believe texting is becoming the English version of Pig Latin or even Creole.
I'd be most "gr8ful" to never have to see such language again (license plates notwithstanding). People really "shud chek" what they're writing and saying because who knows "whut" you'll see or hear next.
Posting Date - January 30, 2011
Friday, November 19, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
Addendum to Benefit or Bane
Very early on, I wrote a post about most news outlets using social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Even back then, I had noticed a rather disturbing trend in viewer/reader interaction through such sites.
For me, posting to such a site is to inform and help people. Sometimes it's about a weather alert; sometimes it's an update on a breaking news story; sometimes it's a preview of a story for that evening; sometimes it's asking for viewer opinion on a particular topic.
However, there is a problem. Since these kinds of messages are usually providing information, I personally would appreciate it if viewers/readers would not get nasty in return.
I'm talking about the snarky comments that various viewers post. I know snarky isn't necessarily a negative word. However, since snarky does mean snide remarks, I think there is a chance for a negative connotation.
To be snide is to make a comment expressing contempt, to be derisive of something. Neither of these is a positive connotation. So when someone gets snarky on a social networking site, those comments also tend to be negative.
To put it in colloquial terms, to be snarky is to cop an attitude or to give someone lip.
Some viewers are rather predictable in posting their hate and prejudice. To me, that makes them simply look like fools. They rant and rave and show they are too ignorant to look beyond themselves to the larger picture.
Some attack the news organization, screaming obscenities. In their own way, such postings are just another form of ranting, no matter the topic, which again reduces the mentality of the poster.
Some appear to attempt a reasonable request, such as asking for information regarding something they think the news organization should cover, but the person's manner of going about it is not a nice request at all.
For example, one day, a post was put up with a question on some topic to which the first response was someone screaming about why the news organization wasn't covering a missing girl in a nearby city.
Well, the organization called on that possible missing child, because that isn't something you leave hanging. Turns out it was a hoax message from another country. A response to that line was posted. To which the original screamer said it should still be in the news. Luckily, another viewer posted a reply saying the local organization doesn't often do international news.
That's not to say that all such posters are incorrect. Some do actually post relevant and real events. Like the popular local teacher killed by her husband who then killed himself. Or one of the many nasty crashes on the interstate that send people to the hospital. Or the various roads and intersections local people consider dangerous... To those people, Facebook and Twitter are the Benefit because they are trying to get valid information out.
Those are just a few examples of many, but many of the posts have been along the same lines: they accuse, claiming the news outlet isn't doing its job. Thus, they are the Bane. But when the person in charge responds, they don't want to hear the answers.
Like people who have their noses glued to a Bible. Their minds are already made up, don't confuse them with facts.
You might find that an odd comment coming from someone like me, but considering how many times I've been told I am going to burn because I don't go to a particular church or genuflect a certain way... Well, I usually just tell those people to go away. Just like the ranters posting on the social networking sites, these cannot see beyond their own nares.
They rant, they scream, they rave and they only make themselves look idiotic.
You may have seen some such comments in the past. I read far too many condemning such things as homosexuality; gay marriage; the don't ask, don't tell policy; even Islam. It may seem strange to include that last one is such a list, but because of the controversial nature of the belief system in recent years, it still fits.
Especially when it comes to some of the commentary that exists. Due to the fact that it is a different belief system, there are many out there who attack it just because it is different, even though it is related to the two other most commons forms of beliefs today: Judaism and Christianity (all three are monotheistic, beginning with the oldest - Judaism, and ending with the youngest - Islam). Some posters scream about false prophets (or in some instances, false "profits"), etc.
Truly small-minded and ridiculous.
Far too often, I have seen comments that are based solely on the biases of religious texts. While some such texts can be quite beautiful (take the "Bhagavad Gita" for instance, which is some absolutely gorgeous poetry in my opinion), to base every single opinion a person opines on one is foolhardy. A religious text is not the be all and end all. There is an alpha and omega, but as humans, we do not have the capacity to understand that totality. Therefore, any religious text is of necessity incomplete.
Thus, such comments, especially when they get snarky and attack people, are also incomplete, leaving out vast possibilities and potential options.
In any event, to respond with nasty, demeaning, even inappropriate comments does NOT make the news organization look foolish. It makes the poster look that way.
I myself bite my tongue more often than you can imagine. When I read hate-filled, ignorant commentary, it does make my blood boil. I'm only a human after all, even if my thinking is a bit on the odd side. But more often than not, I do not vent my irritation by posting a reply to a negative comment. (Go back to the original "Benefit or Bane" to read about my own foibles when it comes to venting on Facebook.)
So when you post to a news organization, please refrain from making negative comments. Like the old rule your parents probably told you, if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything. Or at least make your "criticism" constructive, not destructive.
Posted in December 2010.
For me, posting to such a site is to inform and help people. Sometimes it's about a weather alert; sometimes it's an update on a breaking news story; sometimes it's a preview of a story for that evening; sometimes it's asking for viewer opinion on a particular topic.
However, there is a problem. Since these kinds of messages are usually providing information, I personally would appreciate it if viewers/readers would not get nasty in return.
I'm talking about the snarky comments that various viewers post. I know snarky isn't necessarily a negative word. However, since snarky does mean snide remarks, I think there is a chance for a negative connotation.
To be snide is to make a comment expressing contempt, to be derisive of something. Neither of these is a positive connotation. So when someone gets snarky on a social networking site, those comments also tend to be negative.
To put it in colloquial terms, to be snarky is to cop an attitude or to give someone lip.
Some viewers are rather predictable in posting their hate and prejudice. To me, that makes them simply look like fools. They rant and rave and show they are too ignorant to look beyond themselves to the larger picture.
Some attack the news organization, screaming obscenities. In their own way, such postings are just another form of ranting, no matter the topic, which again reduces the mentality of the poster.
Some appear to attempt a reasonable request, such as asking for information regarding something they think the news organization should cover, but the person's manner of going about it is not a nice request at all.
For example, one day, a post was put up with a question on some topic to which the first response was someone screaming about why the news organization wasn't covering a missing girl in a nearby city.
Well, the organization called on that possible missing child, because that isn't something you leave hanging. Turns out it was a hoax message from another country. A response to that line was posted. To which the original screamer said it should still be in the news. Luckily, another viewer posted a reply saying the local organization doesn't often do international news.
That's not to say that all such posters are incorrect. Some do actually post relevant and real events. Like the popular local teacher killed by her husband who then killed himself. Or one of the many nasty crashes on the interstate that send people to the hospital. Or the various roads and intersections local people consider dangerous... To those people, Facebook and Twitter are the Benefit because they are trying to get valid information out.
Those are just a few examples of many, but many of the posts have been along the same lines: they accuse, claiming the news outlet isn't doing its job. Thus, they are the Bane. But when the person in charge responds, they don't want to hear the answers.
Like people who have their noses glued to a Bible. Their minds are already made up, don't confuse them with facts.
You might find that an odd comment coming from someone like me, but considering how many times I've been told I am going to burn because I don't go to a particular church or genuflect a certain way... Well, I usually just tell those people to go away. Just like the ranters posting on the social networking sites, these cannot see beyond their own nares.
They rant, they scream, they rave and they only make themselves look idiotic.
You may have seen some such comments in the past. I read far too many condemning such things as homosexuality; gay marriage; the don't ask, don't tell policy; even Islam. It may seem strange to include that last one is such a list, but because of the controversial nature of the belief system in recent years, it still fits.
Especially when it comes to some of the commentary that exists. Due to the fact that it is a different belief system, there are many out there who attack it just because it is different, even though it is related to the two other most commons forms of beliefs today: Judaism and Christianity (all three are monotheistic, beginning with the oldest - Judaism, and ending with the youngest - Islam). Some posters scream about false prophets (or in some instances, false "profits"), etc.
Truly small-minded and ridiculous.
Far too often, I have seen comments that are based solely on the biases of religious texts. While some such texts can be quite beautiful (take the "Bhagavad Gita" for instance, which is some absolutely gorgeous poetry in my opinion), to base every single opinion a person opines on one is foolhardy. A religious text is not the be all and end all. There is an alpha and omega, but as humans, we do not have the capacity to understand that totality. Therefore, any religious text is of necessity incomplete.
Thus, such comments, especially when they get snarky and attack people, are also incomplete, leaving out vast possibilities and potential options.
In any event, to respond with nasty, demeaning, even inappropriate comments does NOT make the news organization look foolish. It makes the poster look that way.
I myself bite my tongue more often than you can imagine. When I read hate-filled, ignorant commentary, it does make my blood boil. I'm only a human after all, even if my thinking is a bit on the odd side. But more often than not, I do not vent my irritation by posting a reply to a negative comment. (Go back to the original "Benefit or Bane" to read about my own foibles when it comes to venting on Facebook.)
So when you post to a news organization, please refrain from making negative comments. Like the old rule your parents probably told you, if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything. Or at least make your "criticism" constructive, not destructive.
Posted in December 2010.
Text Language Is NOT English!
OMG 4COL! There are times, if someone sends me a text on my phone or an instant messenger, I have to look up what that person has actually written. For instance, you probably know what the OMG stands for, but you might not know what 4COL is. I certainly wouldn't know that stands for "for crying out loud."
I did have to look that one up and there are numerous sites out there where you can learn what various text-language messages mean. Just Google it!
But I'm not kidding when I say those kinds of message are not English! Why? Well there can be several reasons, not the least of which is that not everyone knows what it means. WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?
Anybody got some translator microbes? (And if you get that reference, you're a scifi geek just like me!)
I was recently at a function where I ran into an old teacher I know and a person I went to school with who has since been a teacher. We got to talking about language and the changes we have seen in the last several years.
I mentioned a story I have heard about, though not independently confirmed, that some college-level writing classes have begun accepting papers with text language. Both of the people to whom I was speaking told me they had seen such papers in the classes they taught at the high school level. One even mentioned a student protesting a poor grade on such a paper, saying something about, "Well I could do that last year."
There are days I simply know I'm not cut out to be a teacher. I get frustrated too easily and these kinds of things... Splinter under your nail, anybody? Or how about fingernails on a chalkboard? Not that a lot younger people would know what a chalkboard is anymore, or what fingernails sound like when dragged down one. *wince*
If I were a teacher and was handed a paper containing such text-language writing, I probably wouldn't even read it. It would be handed back to the student with a big, red letter on it. And no, that would not be an A. Nor am I referencing a well known book by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
I think, in some ways, this sort of devolution of written language is why I see some of the mistakes I wrote about in my last post. People have become accustomed to seeing acronyms for phrases, such as LOL (laugh out loud) or TTYL (talk to you later).
Why should people bother knowing how to properly write something when they can just fill in the blanks with "WIBNI people would STFU?" (In case you need a translation, that says "Wouldn't it be nice if people would shut the 'freak' up?") Someone's probably thinking that about me right now. But you know what? Since this is MY blog, I can say almost anything I want, within reason. If they don't want to see it, they don't have to read.
Unfortunately, I think a lot of bloggers leave their reason at the door to the room where they have their computer. Just saying, I have seen some really out there things in blogs that make me wonder if some people have any gray matter. Oh well!
Back on topic...
I have to admit I was rather dismayed, though not surprised, to learn that sexual language has also cropped up in these shorthands. For example, I saw LH6 on one of the many "dictionaries" of text language I found online. That apparently stands for "let's have sex." No, I'm not propositioning you... Just giving an example.
With the recent news regarding sexting and child pornography, I have to wonder if officers have this kind of "dictionary" in which to look up some of these things. Otherwise, how in the world do they know if some of what they see actually falls under the umbrella of sexting?
Now that sexting has become a serious crime, even if it involves two minors, it must be an issue to address. And again, I'm not sure a lot of older people, even though I don't quite fall into that range yet, would understand the short-hand messages that fly between the phones, smart phones and computers to which the younger generations have become so attached.
At any rate, because these messages have to be translated, whether by looking up the integral parts or by someone who actually "speaks the language," I do not consider text language to be English.
Perhaps it is growing into a separate dialect. But it is no longer the language that is supposedly taught in schools.
I have at least two other reasons I don't consider this kind of writing to be English that easily come to mind. However, due to the length of this post, I will discuss both of them (as they are related) in a future post.
In case you are interested - Here are some links to online "text dictionaries" I found...
Text Message Abbreviations from Webopedia
"The Largest List of Text Message Shorthand (IM, SMS) and Internet Acronyms" from NetLingo
Translate Your Txt Messages from Lingo2Word
There's even some for the various "smileys" you can use.
I'm sure there are more, but why try and list all of them? Like the Internet itself, this "language" is in an almost constant state of flux. That means the definitions might change over time...
Posted Thanksgiving weekend 2010.
I did have to look that one up and there are numerous sites out there where you can learn what various text-language messages mean. Just Google it!
But I'm not kidding when I say those kinds of message are not English! Why? Well there can be several reasons, not the least of which is that not everyone knows what it means. WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?
Anybody got some translator microbes? (And if you get that reference, you're a scifi geek just like me!)
I was recently at a function where I ran into an old teacher I know and a person I went to school with who has since been a teacher. We got to talking about language and the changes we have seen in the last several years.
I mentioned a story I have heard about, though not independently confirmed, that some college-level writing classes have begun accepting papers with text language. Both of the people to whom I was speaking told me they had seen such papers in the classes they taught at the high school level. One even mentioned a student protesting a poor grade on such a paper, saying something about, "Well I could do that last year."
There are days I simply know I'm not cut out to be a teacher. I get frustrated too easily and these kinds of things... Splinter under your nail, anybody? Or how about fingernails on a chalkboard? Not that a lot younger people would know what a chalkboard is anymore, or what fingernails sound like when dragged down one. *wince*
If I were a teacher and was handed a paper containing such text-language writing, I probably wouldn't even read it. It would be handed back to the student with a big, red letter on it. And no, that would not be an A. Nor am I referencing a well known book by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
I think, in some ways, this sort of devolution of written language is why I see some of the mistakes I wrote about in my last post. People have become accustomed to seeing acronyms for phrases, such as LOL (laugh out loud) or TTYL (talk to you later).
Why should people bother knowing how to properly write something when they can just fill in the blanks with "WIBNI people would STFU?" (In case you need a translation, that says "Wouldn't it be nice if people would shut the 'freak' up?") Someone's probably thinking that about me right now. But you know what? Since this is MY blog, I can say almost anything I want, within reason. If they don't want to see it, they don't have to read.
Unfortunately, I think a lot of bloggers leave their reason at the door to the room where they have their computer. Just saying, I have seen some really out there things in blogs that make me wonder if some people have any gray matter. Oh well!
Back on topic...
I have to admit I was rather dismayed, though not surprised, to learn that sexual language has also cropped up in these shorthands. For example, I saw LH6 on one of the many "dictionaries" of text language I found online. That apparently stands for "let's have sex." No, I'm not propositioning you... Just giving an example.
With the recent news regarding sexting and child pornography, I have to wonder if officers have this kind of "dictionary" in which to look up some of these things. Otherwise, how in the world do they know if some of what they see actually falls under the umbrella of sexting?
Now that sexting has become a serious crime, even if it involves two minors, it must be an issue to address. And again, I'm not sure a lot of older people, even though I don't quite fall into that range yet, would understand the short-hand messages that fly between the phones, smart phones and computers to which the younger generations have become so attached.
At any rate, because these messages have to be translated, whether by looking up the integral parts or by someone who actually "speaks the language," I do not consider text language to be English.
Perhaps it is growing into a separate dialect. But it is no longer the language that is supposedly taught in schools.
I have at least two other reasons I don't consider this kind of writing to be English that easily come to mind. However, due to the length of this post, I will discuss both of them (as they are related) in a future post.
In case you are interested - Here are some links to online "text dictionaries" I found...
Text Message Abbreviations from Webopedia
"The Largest List of Text Message Shorthand (IM, SMS) and Internet Acronyms" from NetLingo
Translate Your Txt Messages from Lingo2Word
There's even some for the various "smileys" you can use.
I'm sure there are more, but why try and list all of them? Like the Internet itself, this "language" is in an almost constant state of flux. That means the definitions might change over time...
Posted Thanksgiving weekend 2010.
Quality Writing...
If there is one thing that bothers me about the dependence on technology so many people have developed, it is the simple fact that spell check DOESN'T catch everything! In fact, it'll sometimes mess you up worse. There is simply NO replacement for actual proofreading.
Example: I saw a story at one point where the author was talking about President "Back" Obama. Wait a minute... I think we're missing a syllable. So spell check would say the word was correct... And that's the problem.
Mrs. Malaprop is probably flipping her pages, going nuts for some of the things that slip by because people are relying too much on spell check. "For all the things we take for granite," READ WHAT YOU WRITE! (And that is an actual malapropism I have seen. Not the funniest, but certainly up there!)
I'm sure it often looks like I've made a mistake, but I try very hard not to do so. What's the main thing I do? I proofread like crazy!! Two, three, four times... I will proofread and proofread until I have whatever it is almost memorized! And then you know what? If I can, I have somebody ELSE look at what I've written. Why? Because fresh eyes will catch mistakes mine won't see!
I've had it happen many times, more times than I care to count, that I've written something that looks fine to me. My brain is reading whatever I wrote as correct. But someone else takes a look at it, and they find spelling issues, transposed letters, dropped letters and other mistakes. I wasn't seeing those mistakes because, as far as my brain was concerned, those mistakes didn't exist.
Even in writing this entry, I'm proofreading as I go and finding several places where I left out a word. Maybe my brain is going faster than my fingers or maybe I'm simply not actually writing the words but my brain thinks I am. How confusing can you get? That's a little confusing even for me, and it's coming from me!
A lot of the time, I'll be using a writing style that might seem a little archaic or words that aren't used everyday. That could simply be, since my mother was an English teacher, I was taught a more strict, regimented writing style. But the lackadaisical attitude I have seen from so many people when it comes to their writing, it really makes me wonder what people are being taught now.
What is the basic structure of a sentence? Subject, Verb, Object. Something does something to something. Then you get fancy and add extra clauses, adjectives, adverbs, etc. But you have to have those three elements first. THEN get fancy.
The basics do matter, especially in print-type media, which a lot of the Internet still is despite all the fancy JAVA, ASP, PHP and everything else you can use.
Even in just writing a basic paper, watch what you are writing.
Some programs do have a "grammar check" in them, but I don't trust it because it seems to underline the strangest things. However, a grammar point of contention with me is AGREEMENT. An organization, like a hospital or a single business, is an IT! That means ITS business, not THEIR business does something. The only time a writer should use their for an organization is if that writer is talking about more than one organization.
In mentioning "their," I can't help but cringe at the thought of homonyms. PAINFUL! There are so many words that sound alike but are spelled differently, and mostly mean different things. For example, probably two of the most common homonym mistakes I see involve their, they're and there or your, you're and yore (add that last one if you really want to screw with somebody's head. It has amazed me how many people don't know what that third one means).
Sometimes it's just a missed letter... Sometimes it's the completely wrong word in the given context of the specific sentence. Those details can make you, as a writer, look smart or ignorant.
Here's one for you - What are the five ways to say "ough?" "Ow" (bough), "off" (cough), "oh" (dough), "oo" (through) and "uff" (rough). This one works best if you say it aloud... Otherwise the mistake with "The dough is rising" when you say dough like cough doesn't quite make sense. My mother says this was originally in "The Reader's Digest" many years ago... Something about a recent immigrant on a subway with a bowl of dough. Don't ask me because I have no idea why in the world someone would be on a subway with a bowl of fresh dough...
There are so many potential mistakes, most of which can be caught by proofreading. It also helps to know basic written English such as how to write numbers, subject-verb agreement, subject-object agreement and so much more. To me, it seems as though English, as a written language, is dying. Otherwise, what is Ebonics?
Yes, spell or grammar check CAN help, BUT they CANNOT do it all. Like the above examples of Back Obama and taking things for granite... The words are spelled correctly, but they are incorrect in that usage! If you simply take an extra minute and reread what you have written, you'll avoid a lot of potential problems.
Learning any written form of language is hard. Being a person who is bi-lingual, I can say that and be honest. However, English is a screwy language. And while every language has its foibles, simply paying attention will help most people avoid pitfalls.
Don't rely solely on spell check or grammar check. You are your own spell check and grammar check. You, who ever you are, as a writer, should be fixing those mistakes.
Example: I saw a story at one point where the author was talking about President "Back" Obama. Wait a minute... I think we're missing a syllable. So spell check would say the word was correct... And that's the problem.
Mrs. Malaprop is probably flipping her pages, going nuts for some of the things that slip by because people are relying too much on spell check. "For all the things we take for granite," READ WHAT YOU WRITE! (And that is an actual malapropism I have seen. Not the funniest, but certainly up there!)
I'm sure it often looks like I've made a mistake, but I try very hard not to do so. What's the main thing I do? I proofread like crazy!! Two, three, four times... I will proofread and proofread until I have whatever it is almost memorized! And then you know what? If I can, I have somebody ELSE look at what I've written. Why? Because fresh eyes will catch mistakes mine won't see!
I've had it happen many times, more times than I care to count, that I've written something that looks fine to me. My brain is reading whatever I wrote as correct. But someone else takes a look at it, and they find spelling issues, transposed letters, dropped letters and other mistakes. I wasn't seeing those mistakes because, as far as my brain was concerned, those mistakes didn't exist.
Even in writing this entry, I'm proofreading as I go and finding several places where I left out a word. Maybe my brain is going faster than my fingers or maybe I'm simply not actually writing the words but my brain thinks I am. How confusing can you get? That's a little confusing even for me, and it's coming from me!
A lot of the time, I'll be using a writing style that might seem a little archaic or words that aren't used everyday. That could simply be, since my mother was an English teacher, I was taught a more strict, regimented writing style. But the lackadaisical attitude I have seen from so many people when it comes to their writing, it really makes me wonder what people are being taught now.
What is the basic structure of a sentence? Subject, Verb, Object. Something does something to something. Then you get fancy and add extra clauses, adjectives, adverbs, etc. But you have to have those three elements first. THEN get fancy.
The basics do matter, especially in print-type media, which a lot of the Internet still is despite all the fancy JAVA, ASP, PHP and everything else you can use.
Even in just writing a basic paper, watch what you are writing.
Some programs do have a "grammar check" in them, but I don't trust it because it seems to underline the strangest things. However, a grammar point of contention with me is AGREEMENT. An organization, like a hospital or a single business, is an IT! That means ITS business, not THEIR business does something. The only time a writer should use their for an organization is if that writer is talking about more than one organization.
In mentioning "their," I can't help but cringe at the thought of homonyms. PAINFUL! There are so many words that sound alike but are spelled differently, and mostly mean different things. For example, probably two of the most common homonym mistakes I see involve their, they're and there or your, you're and yore (add that last one if you really want to screw with somebody's head. It has amazed me how many people don't know what that third one means).
Sometimes it's just a missed letter... Sometimes it's the completely wrong word in the given context of the specific sentence. Those details can make you, as a writer, look smart or ignorant.
Here's one for you - What are the five ways to say "ough?" "Ow" (bough), "off" (cough), "oh" (dough), "oo" (through) and "uff" (rough). This one works best if you say it aloud... Otherwise the mistake with "The dough is rising" when you say dough like cough doesn't quite make sense. My mother says this was originally in "The Reader's Digest" many years ago... Something about a recent immigrant on a subway with a bowl of dough. Don't ask me because I have no idea why in the world someone would be on a subway with a bowl of fresh dough...
There are so many potential mistakes, most of which can be caught by proofreading. It also helps to know basic written English such as how to write numbers, subject-verb agreement, subject-object agreement and so much more. To me, it seems as though English, as a written language, is dying. Otherwise, what is Ebonics?
Yes, spell or grammar check CAN help, BUT they CANNOT do it all. Like the above examples of Back Obama and taking things for granite... The words are spelled correctly, but they are incorrect in that usage! If you simply take an extra minute and reread what you have written, you'll avoid a lot of potential problems.
Learning any written form of language is hard. Being a person who is bi-lingual, I can say that and be honest. However, English is a screwy language. And while every language has its foibles, simply paying attention will help most people avoid pitfalls.
Don't rely solely on spell check or grammar check. You are your own spell check and grammar check. You, who ever you are, as a writer, should be fixing those mistakes.
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