Grammar nazis, do you really believe the map is the territory?

Grammar nazis are everywhere. At a site I moderate, we have one guy who's an editor like yourself, and he will often wind up making a single post to chastise someone else's post. I suppose it's in the genes. I normally try to make sure my spelling is correct by looking it up in Webster's-- I'm not a big fan of spellcheck software. I'm a bit more lax when it comes to grammar, as my regional dialect is from the St. Louis area, and I tend to write in the manner that I speak. I probably should add that I was pretty focused in English in high school, and worked briefly in college at an agency writing radio ad copy.

Good grammar usage and spelling lends an air of professionalism to a post. A post that has something controversial is more likely to be taken seriously if the poster uses proper English.

Having said that, I do think some people go waaaay overboard on chastising people for misspelled words and poor grammar usage. There are many posters for whom English is not their first language, and we ought to laud them for making the effort! Not banish them to purgatory for the offense of a misspelled word or dangling participle.

If I can understand the post and the grammar/spelling is not too bad, I consider it fine.

My own pet peeve on these forums is "moral" versus "morale". Both are important concepts in GalCiv2, yet time and again people mean morale but write moral.

The grammer police are getting a bit tiresome because they tend to disrupt what could be a good thread. I would wager they'll be reading every post on this thread carefully since it's on that topic...

My own pet peeve on these forums is "moral" versus "morale".

One I see all the time on RPG forums-- "rouge" instead of rogue.

Have you simply become exhausted by the overwhelming barrage of "bad" English available today, or have you started "picking your battles?" If the latter is at least half true, tell us about your choice criteria, please.

While not having English as my native tongue,,I do get annoyed by poorly written posts.
If it's only a simple misspelling or typo I might point it out to the poster if it can lead to misunderstandings,,otherwise not.

Should the error be consistent in that poster's writings,,I sure will give a headsup about it,,as that's the best way to learn and improve (least works for me. I tell every friend on IMs to point out when I've butchering Her Majesty's Language

The one thing I can't stand is when posters simply don't care to try.
Sure,,lot of people like myself have some other first language,,but that isn't an excuse to put the burden on the reader to decipher sloppy posts.

I believe we established long ago that the grammar fraktards should die.

Some of the worst offenders are gone. Beyond that, I have been forced to attack my colleagues based on their ideas instead of their spelling and grammar.

In my opinion, I'm nicer when I'm criticizing spelling and grammar.

I must admit that a fair share of my reason for this post was my interest in the thread(s) related to Wheel's assertion that "grammar fraktards should die." This is related to my deep gratitude to BSG(2) for the fact that we can, at least briefly, say "frak you" in public without fear of traditional authoritarians.

But I also have much sympathty for ESL folks like PB OMowe, not least b/c in my paid work I sometimes need to do my best to edit IT marketing-babble in hopes that translators won't tear their hair out when they get told to put the "English" I process into their native language.

I believe the so called "grammar Nazi" is out of place on forums of this nature, and only serve to inflame and incite silly arguments. Its a gamers forum, not a PhD dissertation. The self seeking Nanny Brigade are becoming far too prevalent these days, and I for one want to get away from the freaks in my time off, not get pounded by self seeking comments, and picky silly comments that add nothing to the topic in hand.

Attention to detail in writing and expression are without doubt very important in the workplace - in some utterly essential - but outside of work, no, forget it. We are here to relax and have a bit of fun not go back to school, particularly when more often than not the base motivation for such comment is more to do with creating impressions, not genuine grammar correction.

I guess my tank is now full of individuals telling me what is good for me, what is bad for me, what to eat, what not to eat, what to drink (even so called natural mineral water that does not pass current health standards) yaddie yadda. Nope, I get enough of that claptrap when at work without listening to it in my free time.

In my free time, I just want to play a game, have a friendly chat etc - is that now out of reach? Sadly its an increasingly rhetorical question.

Sigh   

Regards
Zy

The self seeking Nanny Brigade are becoming far too prevalent these days...my tank is now full of individuals telling me what is good for me, what is bad for me, what to eat, what not to eat, what to drink

I can't speak for all Grammar Nazis but, I assure you, if your posting ever became illegible and you consequently get attacked, it's not to make your life better. It's because you're a wanker.

I guess my point is that I'd rather see good nannies than dedicated "nazis." Mary Poppins surely understood that the children just wanted to be understood, and sometimes that means telling them how to spell "understood." But it *doesn't* mean spending hundreds of words excoriating them for typing "undrstood" in a casual forum.

Is that too backwards a way of asking the grammar nazi crowd to mellow out but not quit asking when they can't understand a post? If you ask nicely, it shouldn't ever hurt to request clarification in a written public chat like this.

Grammar Nazi's are a pain in the a$$, but some people deserve their wrath.

Things like the aforementioned(sp?) 'rouge' and 'rogue', aswell as 'moral' and 'morale' piss me off to no end. I actually have to stop to read it, every time i come across it.

How hard is it to take your time? A forum, imho, is here so that you don't have to rush. You don't have to use IM speak so that you can get your point across before three other posts are made and it becomes irrelevant. Sometimes I doubt even the author can read it. Punctuation is severely lacking in many posts, and would be greatly appreciated.

In conclusion, Grammar Nazi's serve a purpose, but it couldn't hurt for them to be nice.

Anyway, thats my two bits.

excoriating

OK you're just showing off here.   

Grammar Nazi's serve a purpose, but it couldn't hurt for them to be nice

Seems to me this is a reasonable attitude to take. GW said pretty much the same, he just used more words to do it.   

The "grammar nazis", as we so politely refer to them, are really just there to bug us. Just now I typed "jsut" instead of "just" and it happens to me all the time. I write short stories and am even working on a novel(when not at work or school at least) and I can't even tell you the amount of times that I find mistakes in my typing. I've gotten the third degree from these folks over typing "jsut" because I was typing fast and didn't catch it. Please, forgive me. If you can't understand a post, then simply say so.....don't be a dick about it.

As for the title of this post, let me ask you this: Would you really find the word "nazi" so evil and frightning if they hadn't killed all those jewish people? I really think that had they not done the whole holocaust(sp?) thing that we'd jsut say "well, they wanted some more land" instead of "they were the most evil and vile creatures to ever walk the earth and every last one should burn in hell!" But I guess that's a discussion for another day.

-Spencer

"...well, they wanted some more land"

Say that to someone who lived in one of the European countries overrun by Germany during WWII and see how long it takes for them to punch you in the nose. Then read up on your history of the Third Reich.

The thing that bugs me is the word "there." I see it all the time. Half the time the poster meant "they're," a quarter of the time he/she meant "their"(did I spell that right?), and the other quarter of the time he/she actually meant "there." I'm not quite sure it matters in such an informal place as these forums, though. However, I do point the errors out if I'm proof reading a paper for some class. As far as I know, teachers hate that. There, their, they're. To, Two, too. A lot. then, than.

What were the other ones?

Oh yeah, and as much as I don't like it, language is determined by the people, not so much the textbook. Still, I wish they would follow the textbook.

Did I mis-spell anything?

How about spelling no one as 'noone'?

Noone is NOT a word.

However, Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits might argue with you.

That is a person's name, so it doesn't apply in this context.

[shameless plug]

Fire Fox 2 has built in spell checking!

[/shameless plug]

Which still won't catch the mistakes like there, their, and they're.
Two, to, and too (also, as well).

Etc...
etc...


Sometimes I wonder what they teach in school these days.

Maybe it is just a general dumbing down because of computers and spell checkers.
Maybe standards have been lowered a little too much, catering to the lowest common denominator? Can't make anyone feel dumb, so lower the standards so everyone can feel smart? Don't make anything really matter anymore?

I dunno, maybe I am just getting old.


Ah, the good ol' days...


Nothing like a good sit back and READ what you have written, before hitting the 'Post Comment' button.

I think that one should formost keep in mind that the context of the post is most important. Second in importance is that the post be understandable related to the context they are addressing. Third, one should write the best English one knows. A responder should respond in like manner, meaning that correcting English, whether spelling or grammar should be as part of a post, not the point of the post.

Say that to someone who lived in one of the European countries overrun by Germany during WWII and see how long it takes for them to punch you in the nose. Then read up on your history of the Third Reich.

Rent The Believer.

I think "grammar nazi's", or people who have been taught to speak reasonable English (whichever you prefer), tend to only really go off when somebody either A)hit's a peeve such as Wheel's 'moral' or B)The English is so horrendous that it truly retracts from the post. When I see a single spelling mistake that's not a game term, I usually just let it slip; however, when there are profuse grammatical errors, I take the person's post all that less seriously. If you can take the time to think of an idea that's worth writing, you can take the extra minute's worth of time to put it in decent enough English. Also, it's usually pretty clear when somebody is not native to the English language versus someone who has twelve year old instant messenger grammar. The former usually misplaces an article, or makes some mistake based on how the Latin context would sound. The latter usually avoids using punctuation, complete sentences, and honestly they actually make more spelling errors (which I think is sad).

"...well, they wanted some more land" Say that to someone who lived in one of the European countries overrun by Germany during WWII and see how long it takes for them to punch you in the nose. Then read up on your history of the Third Reich.

I get the feeling that i've read more books about the history of Europe and it's major wars than you have. Think about it, when someone says "nazi" you think holocaust. I mean, nobody gets mad when you talk about Austrio-hungary doing all the things that lead up to the first world war. It's simply that the nazis did something waaaaaaaay over the top and now we act like they're the spawns of the devil. Now this isn't to say I support them, not at all, but simply how we react to certain words(i.e. "terrorist").

Sorry if I pushed a few buttons but I simply had to get that off my chest.

-Spencer