Am I Nit-Picking?

[Pell Mell]

When I start reading a post written by a seemingly intelligent person I suddenly lose interest when this happens: Loose instead of lose, threw instead of through, except instead of accept, etc. Is this a result of the Internet or of a basic lack of knowledge of the English language?
The one I see most often is loose in place of lose, probably because horse racing forums have a lot more "loosers" than anywhere else.

[prospector]

Originally Posted by Pell Mell

When I start reading a post written by a seemingly intelligent person I suddenly lose interest when this happens: Loose instead of lose, threw instead of through, except instead of accept, etc. Is this a result of the Internet or of a basic lack of knowledge of the English language?
The one I see most often is loose in place of lose, probably because horse racing forums have a lot more "loosers" than anywhere else.

nit picking...
i've been reading da bad grammer sew long now that i'ms immune ta it..

[cmoore]

Originally Posted by Pell Mell

When I start reading a post written by a seemingly intelligent person I suddenly lose interest when this happens: Loose instead of lose, threw instead of through, except instead of accept, etc. Is this a result of the Internet or of a basic lack of knowledge of the English language?
The one I see most often is loose in place of lose, probably because horse racing forums have a lot more "loosers" than anywhere else.

I lose interest when people start talking about an
Odds Line
Beyer figures
Systems...

That's all I can think of at the moment..

[OTM Al]

I don't think you are nit-picking. I find it very distracting when a writer continually makes spelling and grammar mistakes. No matter how great the idea, it's worthless unless it can be properly communicated.

[Tom]

Communication is a two way street. Many people are not good typists and make errors, many just misspell, many use the wrong word.

Big frigging deal. The idea is the meat, not the package. I have no problem with the wrong word, no capitals, no comma, etc. I am clever enough to figure out what they mean and focus on the idea. This is horse board, not a report to management or a term paper.

If you ask me at the track what I think of Dutrow and I raise one finger, do you not get my drift?

[bobbyb]

you almost had me worried there

[JustRalph]

I am not perfect................but I hate

to, too and the infamous two

but what the hell, Tom is right..........you don't have to be perfect.........but some of it does get me..........sometimes...........

I probably made ten errors in the above post

[Overlay]

I'm not referring to the board here, but one thing that I've been noticing more and more (and I'm assuming that it's related to grammar and syntax, rather than to spelling) is people who are clearly writing in the past tense, but who omit the "-ed" ending from past participles. It's not an impediment to understanding, but it seems to be occurring with increasing frequency.

[Dick Schmidt]

I certainly sympathize with anyone who has this problem. For years I couldn't let anything out of the door without my mother or wife correcting the spelling. I can't spell cat if you spot me the c and the a. I'm so bad, many times I can't use a dictionary. I had an English teacher tell me once that even if I had the greatest idea of all time, no one would take it seriously if there were three spelling mistakes on the first page.

What changed my life is getting my first word processor with spell check. Good ol' WordStar! Damn, I loved that program. Wrote and typeset books on it; and the spelling was perfect because I compulsively ran spell check at least 5 or 6 times on each chapter. Before I post anything on the net, I spell check it. Even very short replies with short words. Spell check everything, every time is my motto.

If you question your spelling or grammar, try writing in Word or another program that checks grammar as well as spelling. I find that I disagree about half the time with Word, but it keeps me on my toes. What matters to me is that all my crackpot ideas and odd tag lines come across as very professionally written.

Dick


"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."
Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)

[cmoore]

I have to admit..I'm a pretty good speller and my grammar isn't to shabby..I grew up playing scrabble and still play it online occasionally. If there is a word I'm not sure of. I won't hesitate to look it up..

[Marshall Bennett]

I always had issues with spelling . A professor once made me rewrite a paper because he found 2 spelling errors . I did and corrected the errors , but he found 3 new errors . He laughed harder than I did . Substance is important , I don't think spelling is much of an issue unless its excessive . I haven't seen much of that here , and don't think its a big deal ... hope I didn't screw up any spelling this time ? May well have , I can't locate my dictionary .

[Pace Cap'n]

The European Commission have just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty's government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5 year phase in plan that would be known as "EuroEnglish":

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c"-- Sertainly this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard "c" will be dropped in favor of the "k". This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" wil be replaced with the "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expected to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always been a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent "e"'s in the language is disgraceful, and they should go away.

By the 4th yar peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v". During ze fifz yar, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer.

ZE DREM VIL FINALI KUM TRU

[jballscalls]

I'm very anal when it comes to spelling in posts, emails, anything really. I think it's inconsiderate to have brutal spelling, especially if you are stating a strong willed opinion, because it does make me question the person who delivers that message.

[dav4463]

I am an English major and it bugs me, but I understand that sometimes when you are typing at the same time as thinking.....it's easier to make mistakes. It's hard to do two things at the same time!

[michiken]

If people only understood the difference between to, too and 2, I would be happy.