Video game's are awesome!

[obi]

those who are of this way of thinking must feel that, if they allowed outside them anything short of fine handsome stops like the exclamation and question marks, they would be countenancing an anticlimax.

In other words, the common American usage is to only put question marks and exclamation points outside of quotes, periods go inside quotes (and are replaced by commas if in the middle of a sentence).

But they are really mere conservatives, masquerading only as aesthetes; and their conservatism will soon have to yield. Argument on the subject is impossible; it is only a question whether the printer's love for the old ways that seem to him so neat, or the writer's and reader's desire to be understood and to understand fully, is to prevail.

Putting the punctuation the would normally appear if there were no quotation mark makes the sentence easier to comprehend.

Unless I grossly misinterpreted him, my bold statements are a more modern English way of stating it, and he agrees with my position (or rather, he came first, so I agree with his). Also just to cover my bases in case I did misinterpret him, it is currently 3:31 (A.M.). I'll admit I find his writings somewhat abstruse.

 

[majesty]

It still seems more like a vanity issue than a pure communication of ideas issuse. If I'm not mistaken, the basis of language is communication.


Edit: Just thinking about it:
"it is only a question whether the printer's love for the old ways that seem to him so neat, or the writer's and reader's desire to be understood and to understand fully, is to prevail."

What I get from the final words of the quote (not the first five) is that it is a contest between those that read and those that write. The institute of langauge, I will reiterate, is to communicate ideas rather to be understood on some higher level. What if that quote, as Obi so threw down, were to be in laymans terms? Would that not be a step up from the degeneration? Could not the 'sophistication' of language so be completely unncessary except for necessary additions within the original template (ie. Soundbarrier, Internet)? What then of your magnificent quote? That fancy language is for not when simple communication is indeed the goal, as I pointed out with my ironic first sentence of my original post in this thread!

Though, languages do evolve...Is it so bad that we degenerate to bad grammar? Do you understand it? As much as I hate it, would I understand some kind of olde English tomfoolery compared to "hai2u" in a conversation? Would you?

 

[snecols]

Though, languages do evolve...Is it so bad that we degenerate to bad grammar? Do you understand it? As much as I hate it, would I understand some kind of olde English tomfoolery compared to "hai2u" in a conversation? Would you?

I have no issue with language, or punctuation and grammar remaining liquid and open to change. I have no interest in pronouncing knight "Ka Neegt", and I fully embrace the emoticon and the interrobang (?!).

That being said, the loss of punctuation seems more a case of terrible timing than a serious shift in language. Apostrophes are not being neglected because we no longer have a use for them, but because a large portion of society was not properly taught how to use them in the first place. This just happened to coincide with the dawn of internet self-publication. Rote instruction might be dull, but it was effective with a larger percentage of students than learning through context.

As to interpreting Fowler's quote, he was writing in an artistic manner, using the written word as a means of aesthetic expression. Obi's translation is effective, but it does not demonstrate the shifting trends of language. It's like comparing Picasso to a street map. They serve different functions.

The current 'shifts' we are observing today seem to demonstrate an orientation towards sloppier language, likewhentherewerenospacesbetween wordsandeverythingwaswrittenlikethis. And although English is open-minded in that it accepts new words, it is more rigid than you think. The reason knight is spelled the way it is, despite a grossly different pronunciation, is due to the spelling being standardized hundreds of years ago. Punctuation is the standardized system to imply tone, organize thoughts, and traffic understanding. As punctuation is dropped, Truss notes that people are becoming more efficient readers and writers, in terms of quantity, largely due to the fact that they think about the material less. This has obvious drawbacks.

The Internet is helping literacy, there is no doubt. The definition of literacy has expanded to include the issues it has brought to light. However, literacy itself is a slippery term, and can be measured from limitless angles, always subjectively or in a fragmented manner. The Internet is a powerful teacher, but it does not cover everything, much like the emoticon it has brought to life. My hope (and being an elementary teacher this time next year, I may have the means) is to try and curve the damage the Internet has caused an important convention of understanding.

 

[ULra]

^
Actually, I'm pretty sure that's just the homo, ambiguous, American way of doing it. The British (and by extension, Canadian) system isn't quite as stupid/arbitrary.

Edit: Yep, I'm right.

Excuse my living in America then.

 

[dookiemonster]

I think we're overexaggerating how people talk on the internet.The way people talk on the internet is 'Aim talk'. Replacing one with 1, removing h's from words like what, etc. It's readable so I don't see what is wrong with that. Personally, talking with grammar just shows you're either older and know English fairly well, or you just want to look smart and be respected. Besides, who has time to press backspace to fix a comma these days?

PS. My grammar suxxorz.

 

[DiamondDust]

i try to use correct grammar, but i am pretty bad at it.
on the plus side i type really fast.
i remember seeing this same exact thread made by kholdstair.
http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33835

 

[snecols]

i remember seeing this same exact thread made by kholdstair.
http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33835

Technically, this is about punctuation, not grammar or spelling. They're related, and grammar keeps coming up, but I'm focused on the use of commas, semicolons, etc.

 

[pear]

I think we're overexaggerating how people talk on the internet.The way people talk on the internet is 'Aim talk'. Replacing one with 1, removing h's from words like what, etc. It's readable so I don't see what is wrong with that.

Just to be a dick, "overexaggerating" is a redundant construction.

A lot of things are readable. LieKTIhsenTnEsFFFFFFFFForXampl. That's perfectly readable if you think about it hard enough, but that doesn't make it a reasonable sentence.

Personally, talking with grammar just shows you're either older and know English fairly well, or you just want to look smart and be respected. Besides, who has time to press backspace to fix a comma these days?

Well, I feel that you just made a rather poor generalization. I am 15. Although I do want to seem intelligent, that's not the only reason I (try to) use decent grammar. According to Boolean logic, that assertion is downright false. I also heavily abuse the Backspace key; if you don't have time to press Backspace, you need more time.

PS. My grammar suxxorz.

Your grammar isn't actually bad--in fact, it's far better than what one expects from a two post wonder with a username derived from toilet humor--, but your semantics are kind of "muddy;" the worst aberration you made was probably the use of "overexaggerating."



As for punctuation, it's just a basic way of imitating the tones of spoken English, and it does quite a minimal job at that. (The exception is the apostrophe, and Obi already said why.) Even if the gods revealed themselves in all their glory and said that punctuation is now optional, I would still use the marks because I love how they can provide subtext.

Of course, this is in a setting that isn't real time, like a forum. On IM programs such as IRC, the rules of punctuation are much more relaxed, and a sentence similar to "max: do you like that album" would be perfectly acceptable. Amusingly, on IRC, I tend to capitalize the pronoun I if it's not the first thing I say in that line.

 

[Vidd]

Online I tend to adhere to the rules of grammar/punctuation but at times I sometimes omit periods at the end of IM messages.
I use punctuation and proper spelling in text messages as well.

 

[Zenigame]

I try punctuation, but sometimes I just don't care (on the internet). At school, obviously I use punctuation in the correct places. IMs/text messages I don't care about spelling/punctuation.

 

[Burn Jack]

Fowler also said that the word "television" would never catch on because it combines Greek and Latin in one word. >_>

 

[Sinswift]

Me and grammer go hand in hand as much as I can allow. I have a friend who I talk to over MSN who is always shouting at me when I use internet speak. I love to use emoticons, and I do have the habit of being lazy and putting shorter abreviations into text messages and sometimes on MSN like "u" and "2moro".

I think internet language is easy to pick up by lazier people. It surprised me somewhat when my boyfriend (who is from Japan and doesn't have English as a first language) started texting me with the shortened abreviations I described earlier, and he has only been in the UK for just over a year.

I have a habit of double-punctuating to overexaggerate what I am saying... it doesn't help a lot when I am trying to write essays!

 

[NESgamer]

I'm not a native English speaker, so i can't really say much about the rules of this language, i try to do my best.

But my native language is also affected by this, i think is not only affecting English, it happens in other languages and i believe it is just the way the young people start to communicate with each other.