Video game's are awesome!

[snecols]

Does the title of this thread bother anyone else?

I have just finished reading Lynne Truss's book "Eats, Shoots and Leaves," a book about the history and bleak future of punctuation. A glance through the various threads on this website, or any website for that matter, suggests that most people have not.

According to Truss, the dawn of the "netspeak" age followed a tragic trend in Language Arts education, a trend that continues in Canadian and American schools today. Punctuation is not taught in a rote manner; rather, students are expected to learn punctuation rules through the context of reading and writing. This was supposed to foster creativity and constructivist learning: it hasn't.

How many of you bother to punctuate replies, text-messages, or emails? If you don't bother, why not? Do you think that punctuation has lost its purpose, or is it out of laziness that the convention is suffering? For those of you in university, have you found that years of internet-related punctuation neglect is causing you trouble in your papers (if you don't use it, you lose it)? And finally, can you reply to this thread without using an emoticon?

 

[chaos]

wrong forum, moved accordingly

 

[Mastadi]

Dammit, I thought this was topic about video games. Well, I usually try to use right punctuation and grammar, which sometimes might be hard since English isn't my first language. Even when I text somebody, I try to not use abbreviations, unless I need to (Curse you, character limit!)

Also, about emoticons - I see nothing wrong with using some in a message/post. After all, don't we smile or cry while talking to somebody in real life, expressing our feelings? I think that emoticons serve the same function, and it's natural to use them.

 

[Hasen-Nobi]

It really bothers me whenever I see something like this. My mind tries to learn whenever I read, and when I read something like this, the learning part of my mind puts it in "correct grammar", and I have to run through my mind multiple times why that's wrong until the learning part of my mind kicks it out.
Okay, I probably explained that really badly. Whatever. Let's just say it bothers me.

I try to use the best grammar I can (when I'm being serious), but I'm pretty sure I don't have perfect grammar.

In serious posts like this, I try not to use emoticons. They look out of place, and don't really serve much point.

 

[Bulblax]

wasn't there just another topic about this

i'll repeat what i said

spelling is always important, what you say needs to be readable.
capitalization is not really important
grammar is somewhat important

 

[Shigeru]

I actually came into this thread expecting a Halo fanboy and several people correcting multiple errors in his spelling and grammar.

Personally, I type with full-on spelling and punctuation in e-mails, forums, chat, etc. Grammar, however, isn't high on my priority list seeing as most of my online communication is casual. Because they are casual, I don't feel the need to "speak" in proper sentences.

Study has actually shown that "netspeak" has increased people's (more specifically children's) literacy level, as they are more pressured to read, regardless of content. Think of netspeak as a new language, things are still being said, just in another style.

Somewhat, outside the topic, I also defend the use of emoticons as it helps bring some "visuals" into a currently all-"verbal" communication medium. When communicating physically, many things are expressed through body language, most of the time outnumbering the things being said. It's only normal to try to simulate such a dominant form of expression. ;)

 

[Carl]

I almost edited the thread title because I hate when people do things like that.

 

[Sunday]

Is there meant to be some kind of punctuation error in the title?

 

[Mastadi]

Video Game's instead of Video Games

 

[Trax]

What use is punctuation where the sentence still makes sense without it?

It's only marketable quality in that situation is to be a pain in the arse.

 

[snecols]

wrong forum, moved accordingly

I thought that, seeing as the topic was initiated by a book, and that I was looking at punctuation as something of an art, that it should have went in Internet Renaissance - with the added irony, of course, of the Internet Renaissance itself being one of the major obstacles facing punctuation. Still, perhaps it does make more sense here.

What use is punctuation where the sentence still makes sense without it?

It's only marketable quality in that situation is to be a pain in the arse.

The thing about punctuation is that it communicates intended meaning without relying on context. Sure, scrolling through a forum and reading every poorly punctuated post will still communicate most, if not all, of the posters' intended thoughts. If one were, however, to quote a post from a thread and post it elsewhere, out of context, the message will likely be lost in translation.
This might seem a tad too hypothetical to many of you, but I have actually quoted thoughts on this forum in papers myself (the Peach paper from a few years back), and they're littered with [sic] and notes on the poster's intended message, so it's not as farfetch'd as it seems.

Moreover, the misuse and abuse of punctuation, as in "video game's are awesome," if it goes unchallenged, begins to blur the purpose of such marks as the apostrophe. Truss, in her book, notes that some British bureaucracies are actually making it a policy to drop the apostrophe entirely, as too many people are confused by it. It's so misunderstood, in fact, that Firefox, even as I type this, is telling me that "Truss's book" is incorrect, when in fact, it is perfectly acceptable.

As to the emoticon, I actually don't have a problem with it. The reason I requested its absence in this thread is because it expresses tone quite acceptably in the absence of punctuation (or in cooperation with it), but only in the frame of netspeak. The challenge is to express tone and meaning without relying on it, as one would have to in a paper. If this proves to be a challenge, then the problems related to the disappearing art of punctuation should become more apparent. I actually think the emoticon is quite innovative, but it doesn't cover all the bases.

 

[aura_lucario]

I try to type acceptably most of the time, unless I want to say something quick and then I won't capitalize. In texts, I use good grammar most of the time, unless, like in the situation before, I need to get something across quick, then I might type "u" instead of you, etc.

 

[Kietharr]

I use proper grammar, punctuation and spelling when writing forum posts, stuff for school and other various E-mailing shit. When I'm texting, talking smack in a game or IMing I don't bother, I think of it like a conversation and everyone knows that nobody uses truly proper English in a conversation.

 

[Basics]

The english language is one of constant evolution and reformation of grammatical rules and sentence structure. "Where did that girl come from?" is pretty much the most common variation, as opposed to the prescriptive grammarian version of "From whence came that girl?" In fact, I don't think I've ever heard the latter, except in like Shakespeare.

That said, the language doesn't really evolve through unnecessary grammatical errors people make, so I'm not justifying "video game's", but at the same time, historically the language has evolved through misuse, so maybe it's not as big a deal as everyone makes it out to be.

 

[Synre]

How many of you bother to punctuate replies, text-messages, or emails? If you don't bother, why not? Do you think that punctuation has lost its purpose, or is it out of laziness that the convention is suffering? For those of you in university, have you found that years of internet-related punctuation neglect is causing you trouble in your papers (if you don't use it, you lose it)? And finally, can you reply to this thread without using an emoticon?

I very rarely bother to use punctuation(or even capitalization) in text messages simply because of the tedium of using anything that is bound to 1. When I am text messaging I am typically only sending short messages that are almost exclusively incomplete sentence sentences so I just roll the terrible writing, I guess. I certainly don't think punctuation has lost its purpose, which is made obvious every time someone posts an eight thousand word wall of text without using any periods or commas. It's normally out of laziness when I choose not to use it, although with mediums like AIM, IRC, and forums like Firebot I often intentionally choose not to use it to come off as more casual. For better or worse, at this point it's basically pretentious to type properly on IRC.

I've never had any problems with my terrible internet habits hurting me on a paper in school, though. I find that almost surprising since even when I wrote some analyses a few months ago they ended up being pretty poorly written but it's very rare I'm not right on the edge of a perfect score when I'm writing for school. I think a lot of that is that it's almost a completely different skill set writing for the internet and writing for school; I don't write nearly as well technically when I'm writing online largely because I'm focusing on entertainment and not really taking the time to refine it to excel in both categories, I doubt I am alone there. The emoticon thing made me laugh though because I have to make a conscious effort to keep it out of serious posts.

 

[obi]

[14:23] <@Obi> lol
[14:23] <@Obi> Video game's are awesome!
[14:23] <@Obi> I read that title
[14:23] <@Obi> And I was like "No you idiot you never use apostrophes to pluralize words God why does everyone mess this up?"
[14:23] <@Obi> And I enter the thread
[14:23] <@Obi> Does the title of this thread bother anyone else?
[14:23] <@Obi> I have just finished reading Lynne Truss's book "Eats, Shoots and Leaves," a book about the history and bleak future of punctuation. A glance through the various threads on this website, or any website for that matter, suggests that most people have not.



Although to be honest, I don't like apostrophes. In all cases they can either be removed or the sentence can be reconstructed with no loss of meaning (and in the case of spoken language, such a change would often be accompanied by a decrease in ambiguity). For instance, instead of "don't", we could just use "dont" or "do not" (although people would still say "dont", so this would be a mostly futile change). "My friend's car" is the same as "The car of my friend", and using the latter avoids the confusion of "My friend's car" with "My friends' car".

 

[Basics]

The most annoying thing for me is misuse of the possessive when dealing with complex nouns, but everybody has their pet peeves.

 

[ULra]

I am so nit-picky about grammar. After having my English teacher jam all it into my head, I can't help but have it always be present.

[14:23]"The car of my friend", and using the latter avoids the confusion of "My friend's car" with "My friends' car".

Commas go on the inside of the quotation marks.

 

[Basics]

^
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.

 

[Firestorm]

When I saw that the topic was moved, I thought it was moved to Trou. Anyway, I know it's selfish but I like the current way of learning grammar because learning it the traditional way is just really, really boring. I read quite a bit when I was younger and grammar just comes naturally to me for the most part.

What I mean by that is when I speak, I can usually figure out if something is grammatically correct or not by sounding it out in my head.

 

[Basics]

Yeah, Firestorm, that's generally the case with most people who grow up in an environment in which grammatically correct speech is encouraged and used; the problem is teaching grammar to the population which hasn't grown up around it, etc.

Honestly, if I head "David's and Mike's house", it's not that big a deal to me, the phrases that worry me are like: "Aiyyo brejrin, wha'sa gwanin chu?" You might not think it happens, but believe me, it does. I don't want to single out the uhh, Black dialect here, but honestly, it's gotten to the point where proper grammar is discouraged. I even talk like that sometimes, it's just... a pervasive element in a lot of society.

 

[obi]

I am so nit-picky about grammar. After having my English teacher jam all it into my head, I can't help but have it always be present.

Commas go on the inside of the quotation marks.

I was always taught that, but I think it's stupid and my way is acceptable in some parts of the world, so that's how I write. It makes sense the way I do it. The comma isn't part of the clause in the quotation, but rather, part of the clause of which the quotation is only a small part, and thus the comma ought not belong to the quotation, and thus is outside of the quotation marks. This is the same reason I put the period outside of the quotes.

 

[Cathy]

I rather like what Fowler says about the order of the comma/stop and the quotation mark in The King's English:

Neatness is the sole consideration; just as the ears may be regarded as not hearing organs, but 'handsome volutes of the human capital', so quotation marks may be welcomed as giving a good picturesque finish to a sentence; 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. 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.

And, of course, the whole book is in the public domain, so you can view the context here. (The book is a great read!)

 

[majesty]

I disagree Colin. That whole quote seemed to me as nothing but wordsmithing and wandwaving gramatically correct pompousory (ironically, so was that last sentence).

The reason why we have these rules isn't the tidiness. Infact, English is a hideous language plagued with exceptions and synonyms. This is one of the key things that led to that hideous 'leetspeak' and other atrocities in what is likely one of the worst languages using this alphabet (German is way better, IMO). That and almost all English speakers are lazy, that is.

However: Languages evolve. It doesn't matter if you are passing stone tools in a mammoth skinned cloak or you are writing a post on www.smogon.com, you are infact a 'baton passer' (sorry) of said language. English happens to be one of the fastest evolving languages. That could indicate a staying power. The adaptibility, albeit through degeneration, could be the power behind English.

Should we accept this degeneration? 'Woot' and 'bling bling' have already been accepted as words. Why not just bend over and take it?

As an aside, I think it is France who has declared the dictionary to be unchanged. Please correct me if I am wrong, but they will not allow slang into the dictionary. It could be a reason for the decline of their langauge and even culture (either that or the proud history of failure, negating Napoleon). I think this is a grievous error on their part; unevolving languages tend to end up like Latin....or worse (Hitties spoke what before Egypt? 'Kthnxbai').

Bad grammar CAN beget good grammar. Get my drift? I still hate it though .

 

[Cathy]

I disagree Colin. [...] The reason why we have these rules isn't the tidiness.

Perhaps you should actually read what Fowler writes because you seem to have read a different quote. Fowler constructs the position of somebody who holds that neatness is the only consideration, and then goes on to describe people like this as "mere conservatives, masquerading only as aesthetes", who are wrong. The first sentence is merely setting up the point of view which is then argued against, not stating Fowler's position on the matter.

It's really a great quote, but you have to read it to understand it, rather than stopping after five words.

[Edit: In retrospect this was probably too harsh..]