Spelling and Grammar, I'm impressed

[Kiessling]

Yeah! Thanx guys for making it easier to learn English for the non-native crowd here ... ... appreciate the efforts!
bernie

 

[zespectre]

Carrot is a great writer; you guys should check out his blog.

affect vs. effect, anyone? :cringe:

Ooooh damn, you just hit another of my peeves

Of course some day I'll learn to stop spelling Until as Untill along with others that crop up when I get in a hurry <sigh>.

 

[Brighteyez]

I have dealt with a lot of people from Germany both verbally and by e-mail, and quite honestly it was starting to get to point where I was able to distinguish the e-mail from some of my German contacts because it was more grammatically correct that the e-mail from their native-speaker counterparts (regardless of whether they were from an Oxford or Webster English country). So from my standpoint, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the comprehension of English from a reasonably educated person from the pre-unification portion of the country formerly known as West Germany.

Yeah! Thanx guys for making it easier to learn English for the non-native crowd here ... ... appreciate the efforts!
bernie

 

[carrot]

Carrot is a great writer; you guys should check out his blog.

affect vs. effect, anyone? :cringe:

Thanks, greenLED.

Affect vs. effect... Their, they're, there. It's, its. Pear, pair, peer. Hear, here... more words that tick me off when they're misused. There's probably more too, but I can't think of them right now.

 

[TedTheLed]

"Next to TedTheLeds posts, Flashaholism and that Candlepowerforums is a battery leak stain. Your museum Urine potato, is fine. I'm not kidding. I'm not your light monkey. If you voted against me, hope you noted your reasons. Your anonymous as judges but your still flashlight industry people. I am funning. If your not paying attention, go outside, the Streamlight is real bright."

Ted"Rotten"TheLed













with apologies to Johnny Rotten and his Rock Hall of Fame non-acceptance letter! (available upon request) :rock:

 

[magic79]

Words like "to", "too", & "two" are known as homophones - words that sound the same but are spelled differently and have different meanings.

Right you are!

Interestingly, there are some homophones that (I think) we native speakers don't immediately recognize.

My wife is Vietnamese. The other day she emailed me:

"I put my name on the once off list at work."

I was puzzled for a short time. Then it hit me!

She put her name on the WANTS OFF list ! We had a good laugh about that one!

 

[PhotonWrangler]

I'm also very pleased with the quality of the conversations here, both the spelling/grammar as well as the general thoughtfulness of the posts. This place feels like a civilized society, especially compared to the annoying and sometimes brusque shorthand of "texting."

Coming here feels like dropping by a cozy lodge and hanging around the fireplace with good company.

 

[eluminator]

I have a spell check button on my Google toolbar. So I cheat. Actually I used to be a very good speller, but age has taken it's toll.

I agree the messages are quite readable here. The bad grammar I've seen in some forums I've assumed was due to a lot of foreigners there. I'm probably wrong though. As some have noted, the foreigners do quite well here. Probably just stupid Americans.

I'm not as particular of others spelling as I used to be, as long as the sentences make sense.

I saw an awesome series on PBS called "The history of English" that taught me a lot of interesting facts about the language. It used to be phonetic, before the printing press gave us dictionaries and the "proper" spelling. Before that, writing in English or any other phonetic language was very much like using a voice tape recorder today. Your writing captured the sounds of your speech. Two people with different dialects would spell differently, and quite properly so.

Chaucer, who was one of the greatest of all English authors would sometimes spell the same word differently on the same page.

When dictionaries became common, there came into being the "proper" spelling, no matter how you pronounced your words in your particular dialect.

And then English underwent a profound change and words were pronounced differently. The stupid "dictionary" spelling didn't change though.
That explains why English speakers pronounce the letter "i" and the letter "e" backwards from everyone else in the world. It's also why we spell rough the way we do. Originally rough had the guttural sound the letters imply. But not any more. So why not just spell it ruff? Chaucer would have.

 

[pathalogical]

I think most spelling/grammar mistakes occur because some of us are using our work computer and are replying between calls and customers and dealing with, well...work. Also, I think sometimes we have several points to make and can't type as fast as we are thinking, so we tend to do a hack job on the keyboard. I feel bad when I click 'submit reply' and then notice that I made a spelling mistake. I quickly hit the 'edit' button. Spelling mistakes are ok, but bad grammar is more difficult to figure out.

 

[magic79]

Ever wonder why Antelope is "An-ta-lope" and Penelope is "Pen-el-oh-pee"?

English is difficult to learn as a second language, but Vietnamese is damn near impossible! :huh:

 

[PhotonWrangler]

I feel bad when I click 'submit reply' and then notice that I made a spelling mistake. I quickly hit the 'edit' button. Spelling mistakes are ok, but bad grammar is more difficult to figure out.

I make spelling mistakes because I have a spongy keyboard... yeah, dat's da ticket...

 

[abvidledUK]

I'll bet that you Spell Check and Grammar Check your posts to this thread of mine more than usual !!

 

[Delvance]

I actually used to type "lik dis bcuz i was 2 lzy & playn online fps g4m3s rquird sp33d & it was teh in y0".

Wow, that was a long time ago, possibly 4 or 5. I guess i'm one of the younger members here. Most here seem to be engaged, married, married with children etc. I can't wait till i have my own happy little family mhm.

Anyways, i think i started typing correctly a few years ago. Realised that by typing correctly etc, i was actually improving my typing speed for projects/assignments etc that had to be done on the computer. Since then, i've never typed like a mong again.

Another vote for being impressed by CPF's language, grammar etc. Posts are almost always easy to read and understand, and generally well structured. Sometimes i have to read twice, but that's usually due to techy stuff involved in the post.

I remember a few years ago, i was chatting to my bestie and i typed "your" instead of "you're" (i actually forgot the difference and my brain had settled on using "your" for every context...due to me typing like some crazed fanatic online gamer for several years beforehand), he promptly told me off, gave me some ribbing on that one :laughing:

 

[eluminator]

Ever wonder why Antelope is "An-ta-lope" and Penelope is "Pen-el-oh-pee"?

Simple. It's to confuse foreigners.

Learning a foreign language is a real educational experience. First you discover all the absurd idioms in the foreign language and wonder how crazy the native speakers must be. Then someone points out the equally absurd idioms of your own language, and you wonder how you could have failed to notice for all those years.

Learning a foreign language seems like a daunting task to me now, but for children it's easy. Mere child's play.

 

[TedTheLed]

You can lead a horse to water,

but a flashlight must be led.

 

[offroadcmpr]

When I am on instant messager I relax my spelling a little bit. I won't capitalize letters as much, and I will use a little bit of slang. But when ever I am on this forum I try to use better grammar, mainly because it is easier to read, and thats what everybody else seems to be doing.

 

[atm]

I think in an international, english language based forum, it is more considerate to try and use "proper" english to make it easier for those who's english isn't so strong to uderstand what's being said. A whole lot of slang, abbreviations and such like must be a nightmare to follow if you are only familiar with the basics of correct english as may be taugh in language classes. Such things can even be confusing for people from different english speaking countries.

Smilies can be helpful to get the tone of a message across also!

Andrew

 

[TedTheLed]

Wasn't it Henry Higgins who said;

"..the English don't really care what you have say, actually, as long as you pronounce it properly." ?

 

[TedTheLed]

a game: do you know the meaning?

"Icteric—a prehistoric dinosaur with leathery wings."

"Icteric—a rhythmic beat, a stroke or blow; also sunstroke."

"Icteric—pertaining to, affected with, or service as, a cure for jaundice."

"Icteric, Hans—a 14th Century Danish explorer, discoverer of the Isthmus of Mikwen."

"Icteric—nasty, bilious, filled with bile or fetid materials."

* * If you want the right answer...look it up.

 

[JimH]

For the spelling challenged and typo prone, there is help. The help I use is a program called "Spell Magic". It's incredibly easy to use, and you can spell check in any application.

I always check my PM's and replies before I click "Submit". As a matter of fact, I just found two spelling errors and two typos in this short reply.