That’s not really what I’m talking about. I don’t care about whatever the latest slang is or the shorthand we use while texting, that’s fine. It’ll all be different again in 20 years.
I mean just the basics. “Could of” instead of could’ve, can’t figure out “too” or “to”. They’re, their, there. Stuff that should have been sorted out before middle school.
But that is what Randall’s talking about. People who often read and write with text speech and frequent misspellings and such actually score better at spelling and grammar tests. It’s not that they don’t know how to do better, it’s that they’re choosing not to. That’s how their audience communicates, so it’s how they do too.
…and I disagree with that MO too. Because your audience chooses to write poorly or cannot spell I disagree that “dumbing yourself down” to perpetuate it or popularize yourself is helpful. That’s why I find it irritating. I’m not trying to make a sweeping discussion where we go down the rabbit hole of how intelligent people have to talk like “normal” people or how a politician might try to speak differently to pander to an audience, I get stuff like that happens. However, the point of this whole thread was essentially about what pisses us off. This is mine. If I had accepted the rationalizations for people being unwilling/-able to correctly use language learned prior to middle school I wouldn’t have posted this.
E: and I very much disagree that poor spelling and grammar is any stereotypical indication of someone’s skill regarding spelling because they’ve deliberately chosen to write poorly. A quick trip through plenty of forums other than tech-minded people like Nextdoor, mechanical-related, or even Facebook will turn up plenty of material from people that didn’t or shouldn’t have made it out of high school.
You do know that you do it too, right? Even many words being spelled “correctly” and used “logically” have changed in meaningful ways. It might annoy when someone now says “I’m literally dying” after a joke, but once upon a time “incredible” meant “totally lacking credibility” and not “amazing”. Language changes. In French, you negate a verb by saying “not verb step”. Taken literally, it’s the same meaningless gibberish as “could of,” yet it’s good enough for l’Académie Française while “could of” is abhorrent? I get that it’s not how you’d like to communicate, and not how you’d like others to communicate with you, but it also isn’t inherently bad or undesirable, since clearly that is how many people communicate.
So communicate the way you prefer, and make it known that you’d prefer that. But also, don’t tell others they’re wrong for reasons that are, ultimately, just as arbitrary as theirs.
This thread isn’t /changemymind, this is “what pisses you off”.
I’ve made my reasons clear.
I don’t think you understand “arbitrary.” The process of applying standard spelling to words began in the mid-1500s, whereas how you spelled a word prior the formalization of the words in these early “dictionaries” was indeed arbitrary. The efforts to standardize English are the exact opposite of arbitrary.
That’s not really what I’m talking about. I don’t care about whatever the latest slang is or the shorthand we use while texting, that’s fine. It’ll all be different again in 20 years.
I mean just the basics. “Could of” instead of could’ve, can’t figure out “too” or “to”. They’re, their, there. Stuff that should have been sorted out before middle school.
But that is what Randall’s talking about. People who often read and write with text speech and frequent misspellings and such actually score better at spelling and grammar tests. It’s not that they don’t know how to do better, it’s that they’re choosing not to. That’s how their audience communicates, so it’s how they do too.
…and I disagree with that MO too. Because your audience chooses to write poorly or cannot spell I disagree that “dumbing yourself down” to perpetuate it or popularize yourself is helpful. That’s why I find it irritating. I’m not trying to make a sweeping discussion where we go down the rabbit hole of how intelligent people have to talk like “normal” people or how a politician might try to speak differently to pander to an audience, I get stuff like that happens. However, the point of this whole thread was essentially about what pisses us off. This is mine. If I had accepted the rationalizations for people being unwilling/-able to correctly use language learned prior to middle school I wouldn’t have posted this.
E: and I very much disagree that poor spelling and grammar is any stereotypical indication of someone’s skill regarding spelling because they’ve deliberately chosen to write poorly. A quick trip through plenty of forums other than tech-minded people like Nextdoor, mechanical-related, or even Facebook will turn up plenty of material from people that didn’t or shouldn’t have made it out of high school.
You do know that you do it too, right? Even many words being spelled “correctly” and used “logically” have changed in meaningful ways. It might annoy when someone now says “I’m literally dying” after a joke, but once upon a time “incredible” meant “totally lacking credibility” and not “amazing”. Language changes. In French, you negate a verb by saying “not verb step”. Taken literally, it’s the same meaningless gibberish as “could of,” yet it’s good enough for l’Académie Française while “could of” is abhorrent? I get that it’s not how you’d like to communicate, and not how you’d like others to communicate with you, but it also isn’t inherently bad or undesirable, since clearly that is how many people communicate.
So communicate the way you prefer, and make it known that you’d prefer that. But also, don’t tell others they’re wrong for reasons that are, ultimately, just as arbitrary as theirs.
I’m not interested in a tu quoque discussion.
This thread isn’t /changemymind, this is “what pisses you off”.
I’ve made my reasons clear.
I don’t think you understand “arbitrary.” The process of applying standard spelling to words began in the mid-1500s, whereas how you spelled a word prior the formalization of the words in these early “dictionaries” was indeed arbitrary. The efforts to standardize English are the exact opposite of arbitrary.
You should’ve been in this thread. You would’ve loved it.
https://lemmy.world/comment/9858709