jock123 Moderator
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#16 · Posted: 9 Aug 2006 10:53
number1fan were knot all oxford proffesors sometimes were in a bit of a hurry and things that we write on theres boards come out wrong.
Quite so - no one is disputing the fact; but you have to look at it in the light of how often, and how much.
Somebody who makes mistakes from time-to-time will tend to be more readable than someone who constantly takes no time, or care, over the way they post.
Many of our members are using English as a second- or even third-language, and they make a huge effort to conform to the rules just for the sake of clarity.
You yourself have described yourself in your biography as a writer, so in a way you have set yourself up as having perhaps a greater appreciation of this fact than most (and I believe previously you described your interest as "learning languages" so you will have sympathy with our foreign readers if they are face with a lot of hard to read posts...).
Sometimes being in a hurry is different from always being in a hurry, so poor spellin, grammar, punctuation etc. (which is often no more than mis-typing, more than any in-built lack of knowledge of the language.
(Did anyone notice that spellin just now? The spell-checker did...)
If you do find that you have posted in haste, you can still repent (and review and edit) at leisure, using the Edit button next to your post, so there is a period of grace for you to amend errors.
By the use of incorrect spelling you can actually confuse your readers - if that happens, people might give up, and what you have to say, which could be important or useful, will be lost.
Just as an example, you have written were knot - two legitimate English words, just neither of them the ones that you wanted, and which don't actually make sense together, or in context.
If you slowed down and wrote "We're not", you would improve things for everyone, because only then does it make sense. The time it took you to write the extra k you didn't need could have been used to put the apostrophe in we're, so it wouldn't actually have cost you anything, even in a hurry.
I think who ever is in charge of the spell check becuase there otherday i spelt were wrong by accident and the correct spelling came up weir*
Now one problem here is that you have dropped an entire word (or entire words) somewhere along the line, and again we have to guess at your point; do you mean "whoever is in charge of the spell check should be given a medal because..." or "whoever is in charge of the spell check must be doing something wrong because...", or what?
How is anyone meant to know, unless you take time to review what you write?
As to the spell check and weir, well that too is a proper English word, and the spell check doesn't actually know what word you are intending, so presumably whatever you wrote was closer to weir that were (or we're - see? I don't know which you were going for...). So the spell check actually appears to have been okay.
To sum up, I think the gist of the thing is manners and politeness above all else - not taking the time or expending a little effort in what is posted is like eating with your mouth open and talking at the same time - it shows little respect for those with whom you are conversing, and maks the whole thing less tolerable.
(No doubt there are errors in spelling and grammar here too, but hey, I'm not an Oxford professor either...)
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