Is Grammar and Speling important?

[SithDoughnut]

I stumbled upon this video, and I decided to make a thread about it. Apart from the facts that I'm a fan of kinetic typography and that the video contains the audial [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] that is Stephen Fry, it puts across a point that I agree with strongly: YouTube - Stephen Fry Kinetic Typography - Language So, what's more important for you, the message or the presentation? Do grammar and spelling matter as much as the content of what you're saying?

For me, it's the message, every time. I regularly go out of my way to try and annoy Grammar-Nazis in retaliation to the annoyance they bring me. I understand that incomprehensible rubbish instead of a sentence would be something that would need to be addressed (although it does make good memes), but if you can understand someone well enough to correct their language, then you never needed to speak up in the first place. You're wasting valuable oxygen (or paper, or server space) by essentially repeating a statement that everyone understood in the first place. Far too many times (especially online) have I seen good discussion derailed by a pointless correction of 'their' to 'there' or whatever. This is the sort of thing that spurs me on to purposefully mangle language to make a point. It's just as pointless, I'll admit, but I don't interrupt discussions with it and it's far more fun.

So, thoughts? Does your religion or belief system have anything to say on the usage of language? I've certainly never heard of such a thing, but it would be interesting to see if anyone has. (Any grammar or spelling mistakes made in this post are retrospectively intentional, and something you're just going to have to deal with )

EDIT: On an unrelated note, why is the forum forcing me to manually type HTML formatting to avoid a wall of text?

 

[MattRose]

OK, first off you're either a "smart" or "dumb" ass as you misspelled your thread title.

Now putting that behind us. Do you fel that this statment show's that Im not as smart as you're? If someone writes so poorly that I notice the mistakes more than I notice the message, then I would devalue their message. The biggest problem with doing that (consciously or unconsciously) is that the person may speak English as a second language. I have actually checked to see if someone was from a non-English speaking country when I thought they had a brilliant message, but it was riddled with grammatical errors.

I agree completely with you about people pointing out the occassional error. It serves little purpose, but to cause friction.

 

[Catherineanne]

OK, first off you're either a "smart" or "dumb" ass as you misspelled your thread title.

...

I agree completely with you about people pointing out the occassional error. It serves little purpose, but to cause friction.

Irony is a wonderful thing.

 

[SithDoughnut]

OK, first off you're either a "smart" or "dumb" ass as you misspelled your thread title.

I made a grammatical error too.

Now putting that behind us. Do you fel that this statment show's that Im not as smart as you're? If someone writes so poorly that I notice the mistakes more than I notice the message, then I would devalue their message.

Why?

What if they're in a rush, or they're dyslexic? What if they're just incredibly poor at spelling? Why do you choose to value their comments less?

 

[BruceDLimber]

YES, these are indeed important--especially if one wants to communicate clearly!

Further--and meaning no offense--, the thread title should properly be:

ARE grammar and spelling important?

Just the facts.

Peace,

Bruce
(Who works editing books for the Online Baha'i Library Project in his spare time.)

 

[MattRose]

I made a grammatical error too.

If I had been smart enough to notice the spelling error and the grammatical error I would have immediately caught the satire. I didn't, so pass me the dumb-ass hat.

Why?

What if they're in a rush, or they're dyslexic? What if they're just incredibly poor at spelling? Why do you choose to value their comments less?

We assume that very poor spelling and grammer means someone is not very well educated. If someone here told you that they ate at a pizza buffet for dinner lat night and they are going to a chinese buffet for lunch, then you could infer they are fat.
I make assumptions all the time, and I must to survive, thus I make no apologies. (i.e. I assume that no one put cyanide on my keyboard and that's why I didn't test it before replying.)

 

[SithDoughnut]

We assume that very poor spelling and grammer means someone is not very well educated. If someone here told you that they ate at a pizza buffet for dinner lat night and they are going to a chinese buffet for lunch, then you could infer they are fat.
I make assumptions all the time, and I must to survive, thus I make no apologies. (i.e. I assume that no one put cyanide on my keyboard and that's why I didn't test it before replying.)

Oh, I understand that assumptions need to be made, I'm just curious as to why the value of a message changes depending on the person who is giving it and how they give it.

 

[Catherineanne]

YES, these are indeed important--especially if one wants to communicate clearly!

Further--and meaning no offense--, the thread title should properly be:

ARE grammar and spelling important?

Just the facts.

Peace,

Bruce
(Who works editing books for the Online Baha'i Library Project in his spare time.)

Most excellent; Pedants Revolt is my favourite game.

One hyphen, not two, you missed the spaces, and you also missed the initial comma to the subordinate clause after 'further'.

Capital YES for emphasis is not Standard. And ARE is even worse. Underlining ought really to denote the title of a book or published paper.

And you split a verb form; 'should be' with 'properly'. This can be done, but is not the optimal construction. I would suggest; 'Properly, the thread title ought to be:'

'Just the facts.' is not a sentence.

And finally, referring to yourself in the third person is really, really weird.



All of which shows that Pedants Revolt may be fun, but does not make for the freeflowing interchange of ideas.

 

[Chesterton]

I don't think I've ever critcized anyone's spelling or grammar on CF, but I'll take the nazi side and say yes we ought to enforce the rules, if nothing else than to avoid to problem of the slippery slope. If a sign says "5 items or less" of course we know what is meant, but if you allow that kind of thing to go unchecked you risk someone putting up an even worse sign, and one which we won't know what it means.

Plus, he compares language to music and art, which is good, but in music and art there are combinations of notes and colors which are just going to always be wrong and ugly. Now you can be discordant or ugly for the sake of being ugly, but these mistakes in language which people make are not intended to be ugly, they just are, and that's wrong.

 

[SithDoughnut]

And finally, referring to yourself in the third person is really, really weird.

Except in the case of Facebook status updates.

 

[Chesterton]

I forgot you also asked for a religious view on this. All I could come up with was:

Keep reminding them of these things. Warn them before God against quarreling about words; it is of no value, and only ruins those who listen.
2 Timothy 2:14

 

[Dark_Lite]

Yes, grammar and spelling are important. It doesn't have to be accurate down to the last esoteric detail, but we should put effort into our writing. Sentences ending with prepositions: meh (usually). People who utterly fail at putting apostrophes in the right place and can't use punctuation properly and can't be bothered to take an extra half second to type out "y-o-u:" that's a problem.

I regularly use "they" as a gender-neutral third person pronoun. It's technically grammatically incorrect, but it has become used like that in colloquial American English. I'm not perfect, but if you can't spell the word "you," it's time to take an English class.

 

[MattRose]

Oh, I understand that assumptions need to be made, I'm just curious as to why the value of a message changes depending on the person who is giving it and how they give it.

Assumptions and dogs of course, have their day. Years ago I had a guy come up and introduce himself to me in a situation where it was a bit odd for him to do so. He was red-headed (sorry red-heads), sounded like a red-neck (even to me and I'm from Georgia), hickish, and had a low skill job (repaired simple electronics). I assumed he was not bright and maybe not even of average intellect. I was not overly friendly to him for years until I observed him working at his job on and off for a few dozen times. I could not have been more wrong about my initial assumption. He turned out to be much smarter than me (obviously nicer too). If you needed his help to explain how some of the electronics worked he would tell you much more than you needed to know and at a level that baffled me. I would have to ask him to dumb-it-down so that I could understand. He eventually went back to school and got his EE degree and is very respected and well liked by all his colleagues.

This parable of the intelligent, red-headed (still), electrical engineer was intended to show that we don't just hear or read what we see without using visual (or audio) clues that reinforce or detract from the message. I now trust what this guy tells me and would only question his decisions or reasoning in rare cases. If he had turned out to really be a dolt and he informed me of something I didn't already know, shouldn't I be suspicious?

I'm inferring that either the thread author thinks he is not good with grammer or he thinks that it's not worth the effort to spellcheck his writings. I think he writes quite well so I am a bit baffled as to why he has authored this thread. Care to show your hand SithDoughnut?

 

[Chesterton]

Oh, and that stuff about using nouns as verbs; no. Shakespeare doing something many centuries ago does not establish a norm for us today. I know many nouns are "verbed" today, but it should be resisted. Nouns and verbs are separate for good reason. If I'm eating an orange, I'm eating; I'm not "oranging". If I'm a dentist by trade, I am a dentist; I don't "dentist".

 

[Chesterton]

I'm inferring that either the thread author thinks he is not good with grammer or he thinks that it's not worth the effort to spellcheck his writings. I think he writes quite well so I am a bit baffled as to why he has authored this thread. Care to show your hand SithDoughnut?

I don't think it's necessary to infer anything about the OP author. It's just an interesting subject anyway. But given the forum he placed it in, I feel it behooves me to ask: "Do Muslims believe in blowing up people who use bad grammar"?

 

[Mess]

For me personally I absolutely hate spelling, but that is just because I keep failing my spelling exam at uni(mandatory where I live) with one or two mistakes to many. I suck at it, hence why I hate it.

 

[durangodawood]

For me personally I absolutely hate spelling, but that is just because I keep failing my spelling exam at uni(mandatory where I live) with one or two mistakes to many. I suck at it, hence why I hate it.

Really? I thought you'd have moved on to "higher" pursuits once you get to uni.
.
(I had a brilliant professor who was a terrible speller. He had a few "mental disabilities", which manifested in problems with recognizing faces and with spelling. But his class was excellent: "Existentialism in Literature and Film". Its available as mp3s online.)
.

 

[Mess]

Really? I thought you'd have moved on to "higher" pursuits once you get to uni.
.
(I had a brilliant professor who was a terrible speller. He had a few "mental disabilities", which manifested in problems with recognizing faces and with spelling. But his class was excellent: "Existentialism in Literature and Film". Its available as mp3s online.)
.

Dutch system is crazy, all I can say really.

 

[hikersong]

Oh, and that stuff about using nouns as verbs; no. Shakespeare doing something many centuries ago does not establish a norm for us today. I know many nouns are "verbed" today, but it should be resisted. Nouns and verbs are separate for good reason. If I'm eating an orange, I'm eating; I'm not "oranging". If I'm a dentist by trade, I am a dentist; I don't "dentist".

You're with the French then who, I have heard, have strict rules to make sure no more new words are allowed into the official language. Personally I think this stiffles creativity.

In fact this point was addressed well in the video. People are always using words creatively. You did this yourself above. Some of these words catch on and become the words that we now admire and subsequently find their place in our dictionarie (unless we're French). But "In the Beginning" those words were seen as improper, ugly, shall we even say sinful, by the Word Pharisees of the day.

Why should creativity end with Shakepeare. In fact it didn't. You couldn't prevent it if you tried.

Anyway, I'm feeling citric acid deprivation. I'm off for a bit of surreptitious oranging.

 

[awitch]

Oh hai!