A request about posting

[GeoTerraTestudo]

I'd like to make a request, if I may. It seems like a lot of people compose their posts rather quickly, without taking the time to check punctuation, spelling, grammar, or style. I realize this is a forum, and that posts are often quick and informal. However, the more errors there are, the harder a post is to read. Frankly, some posts are so poorly written that I just give up on them. It would be a shame if someone really needed advice, but couldn't get any because his/her post was too difficult to understand. For the sake of your turtles and your readers, please try to make your posts clear. Thank you.

 

[Yvonne G]

And PLEASE don't use netspeak, cyberspeak or chat speak. Things like LOL! or OMG! are ok, but long sentences full of abbreviations are terribly hard for the "older" (ahem) generation to read.

 

[JoesMum]

We do, however, have to be mindful that many of our posters do not have English as their first language, so our English grammar does not come naturally to them. Some of them may well be using Google Translate or similar to translate their posts into English which also has its pitfalls.

Those of us in the UK have a different vocabulary and spelling to those of you in the USA... and some grammar rules are different too (Two countries divided by a common language? )

And finally, there are many people to whom spelling is a sore trial. Dyslexics for example. They can't help it; it is just the way they are.

If you are using a PC, Firefox and Chrome browsers have spell checks. Unfortunately, Internet Explorer doesn't. Of course those spell checkers only check that words you have types are real words, not that they make grammatical sense!

 

[Nay]

Oh my, I love this!! I am ,too, of the 'older' crowd and this topic has come up quite frequently as of late.
My vet boss had a request from a young student asking her to do a 'questioner' on her life's work (veterinarian). It came over as an email and the first line was, ' hey, you don't know me.....and proceeded to get worse from there. You can imagine!! and not a capital letter in the whole email.
My boss gave her an earful,(email ful?) Like when you take an English class, let me know!!
We then got on the whole 'way of the world' as it is right now. Hard for some of us to take.
I agree whole heartily with GeoTerra, it is a lot of work to make sense of some posts and quite frankly, to me, not worth the effort.
It really seems to be a different story when it is someone actually trying to 'speak ' in this language, as most will still try to stop and start sentences, rather than the whole texting shortcut language.
I realize I am showing my age and this may be how it is, but never for me!
Thanks for posting, love to add to it!!
Nay

 

[N2TORTS]

years back ..... we talked about " Spell check" on this forum for us old timers...
Wonder what happened?
I know I need it!

 

[Nay]

When I post, I get a red squiggly line when something is not spelled correctly!
I guess that doesn't happen to all?

 

[wellington]

And PLEASE don't use netspeak, cyberspeak or chat speak. Things like LOL! or OMG! are ok, but long sentences full of abbreviations are terribly hard for the "older" (ahem) generation to read.

DITTO. Showing my age right along with ya. I always try to read my post after I post it to catch what may be wrong with it. I also work really hard to figure out what they are trying to say, but I too some times give up.

 

[terryo]

Well, I have a learning disability, and I have to go over my posts very carefully because lots of words come out backwards and so many are misspelled. If I'm tired I really have to put a lot of effort into checking the spelling. I wish we had spell check on here.

 

[pam]

I wish we had spell check on here

 

[Tom]

We do, however, have to be mindful that many of our posters do not have English as their first language, so our English grammar does not come naturally to them. Some of them may well be using Google Translate or similar to translate their posts into English which also has its pitfalls.

Those of us in the UK have a different vocabulary and spelling to those of you in the USA... and some grammar rules are different too (Two countries divided by a common language? )

And finally, there are many people to whom spelling is a sore trial. Dyslexics for example. They can't help it; it is just the way they are.

If you are using a PC, Firefox and Chrome browsers have spell checks. Unfortunately, Internet Explorer doesn't. Of course those spell checkers only check that words you have types are real words, not that they make grammatical sense!

I have never had any trouble reading and fully understanding any post from our UK members or any of our ESL (English as a second language) folks. I think GTT is refferringg to those post that are all lower case no puntation no setinse difenation and the yjust sort of runnn onnn n onnn likke jthissss

 

[ascott]

I do not know what you mean I can totally understand all this is written whenever I open a thread and if not then I just read it a million times putting in punctuation and hope that I get it right I have been known to run one word into the other because I totally figure you all know what I mean hahahlol

 

[GeoTerraTestudo]

I have never had any trouble reading and fully understanding any post from our UK members or any of our ESL (English as a second language) folks. I think GTT is refferringg to those post that are all lower case no puntation no setinse difenation and the yjust sort of runnn onnn n onnn likke jthissss

Yep, you got it, Tom!
I can tell if English is not someone's first language, and that's not a big deal. It's also not a big deal if someone misspells a word every now and then. What bothers me is something like this:

"Hi im joe i jus bot a russian tortoise an i noticed he hasnt bin eatin can u tell me how to fed him i kep him on cyprus mulc and i give him lettice cabbige an cat food is that ok pls let me no b/c i want him to be healthy thx k bye"

When I start to read something like that, I have two thoughts:

1) Oh my God, this person is going to kill this poor tortoise.
2) I wish I could help, but it's just too difficult to try and figure out what this person is saying.

Tragic isn't it? Let's not let turtles die because of bad punctuation and spelling. Okay, thanks! Bye!

 

[dmmj]

O I C R U H8ing on other people?

---

Geo's example is the school district teaching phonetically spelling instead of real spelling.

 

[Madkins007]

I am solidly in the 'older generation' and I don't think we are trying to be grammar Nazis or anything- we just want to be able to figure out what the post is all about without having to run it through a decoder or anything.

I gotta admit- the longer it takes me to 'unravel' a post, the less interested I am in reading it. I learned this a long time ago and it is a major reason most of my posts are done in a short paragraph style or as lists. The easier it is to read, the easier it is to comprehend.

 

[ALDABRAMAN]

years back ..... we talked about " Spell check" on this forum for us old timers...
Wonder what happened?
I know I need it!

I need it also! Great idea!

 

[JoesMum]

If you install the Chrome browser or Firefox, they have spell checker add ons.

 

[GeoTerraTestudo]

Seems like a lot of folks are apologizing for being too old or uncool to understand internet slang. But that's not what this is really about. Other than some quaint little acronyms like "LOL" or "BTW" or "ROFLMAO," people should be composing posts in a standard language (in this case English), using basically correct spelling and punctuation, so that people can understand what is being said. Otherwise, many people (including me) are going to give up on trying to decipher the message, and the post will not get as much attention as it otherwise might.

 

[JoesMum]

My husband today has been going through a pile of job applications from students about to graduate from university. The ones that had "text speak" instead of standard English ended up in the 'no' pile automatically.

 

[GeoTerraTestudo]

My husband today has been going through a pile of job applications from students about to graduate from university. The ones that had "text speak" instead of standard English ended up in the 'no' pile automatically.

There you go. I teach college students, and some of my students actually submit reports to me that have text speak in them instead of standard English. Instead of "because," they write "b/c," and so on. Hard to believe anyone would submit such work as a formal report, but some of them do, and they definitely get points off for that.

 

[Zamric]

I read MOST ok. but I would love to a spell check on here! My big, fat fingers hit all kinds of keys, I tend to over puncuate and over capitalize but that is easier to over look than a paragraph of chat speak!