For some reason this topic has gotten under my skin. My position in this forum as a volunteer administrator tells me that I should stay out of controversy, that I should not use my voice as an administrator to favor one side of an issue. What you are about to read is Gary talking, not a TuD administrator.
This discussion bothers me because of why I believe TuDiabetes exist, because of it’s purpose. This site exist so that no person touched by diabetes should feel alone, it exist to be a resource for all. It does not exist for just the grammar perfect or even the grammar mainstream. It exist for everyone, even the grammar illiterate.
I would find it troubling if even one person shied away from TuDiabetes because he felt that he did not measure up to some perceived standard.
I have no problem with the so called grammar police, it is my hope that they will use their expert communication skills to seek clarity and not to correct poor grammar.
I am a strong supporter of poor grammer/speling. Me buy this book 'cause it sound funny. me laugh whenever me sees it. Goes to show you can have poor grammar and still be a brilliant author.
This is a conversation with one another all though it is written so these sites can exist. Just look at it as a conversation with someone speaking to you. Would you correct someone’s grammar while in conversation?
Ah, but therein lies the difference. Spoken and written language are two very difference things. In spoken language ideas and emotion are conveyed by the manner of speech, tone, and intonation (at least in English). The only way to convey those things in writing is through grammar. For example, if I’m talking to you pauses in my speech are obvious. If I’m writing to you, the only way you can infer a pause is through punctuation. So the reason good grammar and punctuation are important is that is helps you convey your thoughts to the reader, and it helps the reader have a clearer understanding of what you are trying to say.
Regardless, I agree with @Stemwinder_Gary that no one here should feel intimidated or that they shouldn’t share or post thoughts because they think they will be judged by their writing. They absolutely will not. However, if you want to make sure you have conveyed your ideas clearly, read your post out loud to yourself before you send it. You’ll be amazed at what a difference that can make.
The thing that you are talking/writing about was wonderful, but was back in my generation. Today the human being converses on cell phones and with happy faces and abbreviations and words that can be understood only by the receiver of such messages and don’t talk to them about grammar. That said I agree with what you are saying. I’m saying is with the advent of these sites the written word is looked upon as the spoken word. You won’t see support groups popping up where conversations would actually take place. The sites have all but replaced such events. Anyway with my typing skill your lucky if you can read it I am lucky everything is spell checked. I guess everyone will have to invest in a grammar checker to make everyone happy.
your can just cut and paste your second paragraph right here. good taking to you
Yes, I frequently do when I ask for clarification.
I can understand mis-speaking because communication is real time. And though languages happen to be my nerd sweet spot, I don’t expect perfect grammar in conversation from everyone. What does bother me is when someone’s written grammar is nearly undecipherable, yet they do not display an inability to speak clearly. If I know the person, I gently coach them into writing exactly as they speak. All too often, they believe that they must adhere to special rules while writing, and in the process they end up creating undecipherable gibberish.
We’re not in the 19th century where the written word was prose, even when communicating with family. “Write it as you speak it,” and take advantage of the extra time writing provides over speaking real time. As long as most people can understand your point without asking for clarification, you’re well over the American median for the ability to effectively communicate via the written word.
It is that extra time writing gives you versus speaking that appeals to me. I am rarely quick with verbal give and take. I enjoy the composing, editing, and honing of a message that writing entails. I also believe that giving careful thought to a written piece exposes faults and poor logic of a position I may be taking. Writing can rehabilitate faulty thinking.
Great discussion. Permit me to try and boil it down to essentials:
“Policing” others’ grammar and forms of expression is often inappropriate and seldom useful. You can communicate effectively without obeying the “rules”, and you can communicate badly using them. The real bottom line should be that the more important it is to you to be certain your message is understood the way you meant it to be, the more care you should take constructing it. That is an individual choice, and we get nowhere criticizing each others’ choices.
Thas wrote, " People originating from many countries and with a wide variety of English skill just cannot be expected to adhere “proper grammar.” I agree whole-heartedly; however, experience tells me that sometimes English Language Learners (ELLs) actually have better grammar and punctuation skills than native English speakers because they have had the opportunity to really study the structure of the English language. English grammar and spelling can seem confusing partly because English is such a conglomeration of other languages. We have logical reasons for some of the illogical ways we spell words if one wants to go into the history of each word. (Example: “knife” starts with a “k” because in the Old English origin, the “k” actually was pronounced!) All languages evolve, and English is no exception.
I also agree with the earlier comment that if a person wants to better his/ her grammar and spelling, classes are available! I used to teach a grammar class online and really enjoyed having students from everywhere, including one soldier deployed to a war zone in the Middle East. If he can do it, so can you! You are never too old to learn, and once you have that knowledge, no one can take it away from you.
For those of us who, "…never learned to read and write so well."
My freshman physics professor once told his dad (with a 3rd grade education) that he was graduating from college with a doctorate in physics. His dad asked how long it took. He replied, “8 years.” His dad said, “well, takes some longer than others.” That’s the truth. That professor gave out one A and failed most of the rest of us. He said that one of his goals was to teach us, upfront, that technical majors, in NO way enjoy themselves.
And giving your best, Stemwinder_Gary, is all that anyone can ask. For your information, though, you are too hard on yourself. Your sentences start with a capital letter, use commas correctly, and end with appropriate punctuation. Your grammar and sentence structure both pass in my book, and I taught writing and grammar for more than 30 years.
My all time favorite snarky rejoinder to the grammar police is most often credited to Winston Churchill. Someone chided him for ending a sentence with a preposition. His (possibly apocryphal) response:
“This is the sort of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put.”
You know, it causes me something like physical pain when someone writes that they put mariana soss on there spaggeti. I used to hire people in office positions, and if their letters of application or resumes contained spelling or grammatical errors, I eliminated them from contention. If people can’t wrie a letter of such high importance correctly, how are they going to represent my company in correspondence that is simply grammatically and orthographically incorrect, to embarrass us. I often see sentences that make no sense or do not convey what the writer was intending. I have seen legal opinions based on the fact that there is a comma in the law which causes the law to be interpreted a certain way. Don’t think it’s important? Guess again! There is a difference between a sign that says “Slow children crossing,” and one that says "Slow! Children crossing.
Sherry Ann, do you know that Wednesday is pronounced “Wedensday” because six or seven centuries ago, when English was becoming a written language, scholars weren’t yet sure whaat to do with the ‘e’ in the last syllable of a word. Thus we have “little” “kettle” etc. “Wooden” was at one time spelled “wodne” (“wood” meant crazy) and Wodensday became Wednesday. Oh, in British English we also have “centre” “theatre” etc. Americans don’t, and they have Benjamin Franklin to thank for that.
More importantly, they may thank Noah Webster, whose dictionary is still synonymous with American English. Webster shared Franklin’s goal of standardizing spelling but didn’t, like Franklin, aim for a purely phonetic spelling system. Franklin proposed a radical overhaul of the alphabet, dropping some letters and introducing new characters. His reformed spelling is largely illegible to us today (there’s a snippet here), whereas Webster’s 190-year-old spellings look as fresh as the day they were first printed.
Yes, Roger212, English IS a fun language. It continues to evolve, as do all languages. I am aware of many of the reasons words are spelled and pronounced differently from the way one would think they should be spelled or pronounced only because I once took a wonderful class called The History of the English Language. English, today, is very reliant on word order for meaning; however, in past centuries, the meaning of the word was somewhat dependent on the ending. English words ended in -en or -on or -an, and each of those ending helped define the word’s purpose in the sentence. We have dropped many of those endings today, relying instead on word order for meaning. For example, “The dog (subject) bit (verb) the mailman (object),” is quite different than, “The mailman (subject) bit (verb) the dog (object).” Each gives a clear message; however, the meaning of those same five words is quite different depending on the word order.
English sentence structure and grammar ARE important, and help is available for those who feel they need to improve their skills.
