"versus"

[Criskin]

I've always felt it was a mistake to equate intelligence with speaking or writing ability. Two of the wisest people I know only had an 8th grade education and aren't great with spelling or proper grammar. I've also met quite a few people with PhDs who are, for lack of a better word, idiots.

 

[gryeyes]

This was my ugly side. It comes out now and then. Eh. I debated returning to delete the post but I was tired, grumpy, feeling snotty about stuff. I felt Random Ramblings where more than chickeny stuff is grist for members' mills was a fair enough spot to post what bugged me without thunking any good person on the side of the head for what was bugging me. I wouldn't dream of pointing out errors in specific posts to embarrass someone who was communicating his or her experiences or thoughts.

I'm well aware of the huge number of non-English members. I am also aware of reading handicaps, visually impaired readers and writers, and even the frequent "auto-correct" features which imperfectly select incorrect words as one types.

I know full well smarts and writing ability aren't always linked.

AND I have my own linguistic oddities in my writings, frequently switching to deliberately anachronistic forms of words, colloquialisms, etc. Wait, I bet I used "etc." wrong! Long, run on, compound sentences, inconsistent use of punctuation, all kinds of poor sentence structure and the like.

All of y'all are are quite correct in what you've said TO ME. I am chastened. I don't think I'll delete this thread, after all. Staff may consider it inappropriate and remove it - I'd understand if that's the case.

Anybody else wanna lob stones?

 

[canesisters]

I thought it was funny.

 

[gryeyes]

I thought it was funny.

Yeah, me too. "Here's some stuff which bugs me." Thank you.

 

[bunnibird55]

I too notice inaccuracies in spelling and grammar but I try to overlook it - most of the time. I was an editor for 6 years with a newspaper which had a circulation of approximately 12,000 customers, so I have been corrected more than once in my life. My current boss tells me I am the grammar/spelling Nazi and has me proof his correspondence and documents. I would never correct someone on a public forum, although I do find myself cringing at the way society as a whole seems to disregard proper grammer as something deemed nonessential. That said - ya'll have a great day, hug your "fids" (feathered kids) and enjoy sharing with other chicken crazies of the world!!!

 

[donrae]

This was my ugly side. It comes out now and then. Eh. I debated returning to delete the post but I was tired, grumpy, feeling snotty about stuff. I felt Random Ramblings where more than chickeny stuff is grist for members' mills was a fair enough spot to post what bugged me without thunking any good person on the side of the head for what was bugging me. I wouldn't dream of pointing out errors in specific posts to embarrass someone who was communicating his or her experiences or thoughts.

I'm well aware of the huge number of non-English members. I am also aware of reading handicaps, visually impaired readers and writers, and even the frequent "auto-correct" features which imperfectly select incorrect words as one types.

I know full well smarts and writing ability aren't always linked.

AND I have my own linguistic oddities in my writings, frequently switching to deliberately anachronistic forms of words, colloquialisms, etc. Wait, I bet I used "etc." wrong! Long, run on, compound sentences, inconsistent use of punctuation, all kinds of poor sentence structure and the like.

All of y'all are are quite correct in what you've said TO ME. I am chastened. I don't think I'll delete this thread, after all. Staff may consider it inappropriate and remove it - I'd understand if that's the case.

Anybody else wanna lob stones?

I'll bite, why not..........

Sale used inappropriately as a verb. "I need to sale my mare cause I don't have time to ride her". I don't know if this is limited to horse folks on craigslist, but man that's where I see it a lot! Or, when they use "sail" , that's even funnier!

Another pet peeve is folks who don't use periods. Seriously, I keep reading and reading and my eyes move faster and faster trying to get to a place to take a break and it just keeps going and going and I get kind of anxious cause there's no break and on here the poor poster is usually very upset cause of a sick or injured bird and I'd like to help but I literally can't read the post cause it just goes on and on and my mind's just screaming for a break but there isn't one and they're so upset and I keep thinking they should just go back and toss some peroids in anywhere doesn't matter if they make sense or not my mind just can't cope with that on and on and no break or end to one thought.
Okay, that was very hard to do!!!

 

[gryeyes]

Hehehehe.

Even when driving I will roll my eyes at signs with apostrophes changing plurals to possessive words. "Orange's $2 a bag."

 

[donrae]

Hehehehe.

Even when driving I will roll my eyes at signs with apostrophes changing plurals to possessive words. "Orange's $2 a bag."

Yes!! We have a little business that advertises "Purse's!!!". I knew my new trainee was a keeper when we drove past that and she looked to me and asked "what do the purses have?"

 

[thaiturkey]

Not to mention, there is a big difference between a "good point" and a "good pint". I'd much rather have the latter. However, an education in English Literature is impossible without an academic grounding in English Grammar. The two can't be separated on an academic level. Thank you for correcting my spelling on a post where my point was that I don't always bother with correct spelling when posting on BYC, though.

I could claim that I meant 'pint' but I would be lying. Many thanks for the correction, especially as I made the scanning error of which I have complained.

I take your point about language and grammar, at least for higher education. On the other hand, readers for pleasure can usually understand good grammatical construction even though they may not be able to achieve the same standards themselves.

Eng. Lang. and Eng.Lit., as we called them, were may favourite subjects at school, along with Geography. Sadly, Lang. was of little use in Lit. when we studied Chaucer. We had to learn a new language. Shakespeare was similar to a degree. However, when we studied Hard Times, English grammar was the thing. Our syllabus, I think, contained too much classical stuff, including Milton. The teacher, a brilliant man, would try to balance that with extra, modern works which he slipped in as extras.

 

[thaiturkey]

As long as we can all understand each other, I don't think grammar really matters. We're human beings, and we're supposed to be able to understand a few mistakes.

Quite so. There is a problem, though, when the shortcomings are so great that the intended meaning isn't clear. English is such a powerful tool of communication that we should respect it as far as we are individually able.