Thread: To Spell or not to Spell :-)

Quote:
If I was to do a snap poll on whether you have a) contributed positively or b) being objective, I think you would be surprised.
Go on, surprise me.:
Either way {a or b},the odds are in my favour.

Your mistakes, they're annoying. {being is been}

PM Sent

To those who can't help but take digs or retaliate to them - please just ignore each other.

All this bickering, negative comments and retaliation is definitely taking away from the spirit of ALURO... I appreciate wit and quick thinking but when people take offence and retaliate (whether deserved or not) it shows a lack of integrity and self pride.

PM Sent

Mods feel free to close off my thread, it has run its course and I won't let it degenerate due to one individual who seems to have a habit of this behaviour based on other threads,

Regards

Stevo

It can be a combination of too much texting on phones and plain old ordinary speed equals not so flash grammar at times, but is it really a big deal? fair enough for some who,s typing skills are up the putty like mine but for someone who never had any formal training on computors I think I manage ok, even I admit that short cutting words can be annoying to read at times but in the main I understand whats written so it doesnt really blow my skirt up too much, no doubt there are those who use computors all day long and using correct grammar is part of that so they would probably get annoyed at those who shortcut or use too much slang or dont hit the space bar hard enough, ahh coupla beers it doesa madda

People, let me just say that I appreciate the efforts of those posters who make a genuine effort to use correct spelling and grammar - I find your posts much easier to read than those which fall into the other camp.

It also also helps me when you break up long sentences with commas, full stops, and sensible use of white space. Thankyou one and all.

I also appreciate the intent of those who post with errors although, if the material is seriously flawed (Firefox's Australian English spell checker couldn't handle "errored"), I tend to skim over it, so you may lose me. Nonetheless, I appreciate your effort in making the post.

I do have a request. I would find it much more useful if posters would use meaningful titles for threads. I'm afraid I don't really have time to read threads with titles like "What the ##$@*?" as that gives me no clue as to whether the thread is relevant to me either as a source of information relating to my vehicle, or as one that I might be able to respond to with some (hopefully) useful information. Those that do use meaningful titles; thankyou.

This has, however, been a most interesting thread, and Ron is conspicuous by his absence.

(I am now keeping my fingers crossed that I haven't allowed any significant errors to slip through myself!)

I would like to endorse the comments in GrahamH's post.
This thread is really about effective communication.

As we have been reminded a few times the original post was about spelling and grammar that was bad enough to make the post difficult to read.

As GrahamH points out there are other things that can interfere with getting the message across.

A good general policy is:
If in doubt start a new sentence. Don't just add a comma and plough on.

If you start a new idea, start a new line.

Don't try to save space on the screen.

Sensible use of white space makes reading easier.

There are other factors. These are probably the easiest and most important. We can all do these.

I've kept out of this as I hate bad spelling, incorrect use of punctuation, and apostrophes in plurals and elsewhere. (Yes, because this is a list of items, the comma after "punctuation" and in front of "and" is correct )

I sometimes go in and edit posts to make them more readable but I don't say anything. I don't complain about the huge number of spelling errors on here - unless we can have a little fun and/or the incorrect words changes the context completely.

As I've said before, I can spell but there are many things that others on here can do which, unfortunately, I can't - so I can't complain (too much ).

One thing that would really help readability is the addition of a few carriage returns to break up really long paragraphs that meander from subject to subject.

There are a few really bad proponents of that writing style on this forum.

My English and grammar aren't great. English was my worst subject at school so I'm no shining light.

Originally Posted by p38arover

I've kept out of this as I hate bad spelling, incorrect use of punctuation, and apostrophes in plurals and elsewhere. (Yes, because this is a list of items, the comma after "punctuation" and in front of "and" is correct )

You are right about the use of the serial comma for the reasons the following link explains.

www.getitwriteonline.com/archive/021201.htm

However, as I am old enough to have received my education just after the middle of the 20th Century, I still hesitate when I see it used before an "and".

After 50 years of following what was the rule in the mid 20th Century it's a bit hard to change.

The article in that link gives some good examples of why it makes good sense to use it.

Just another observation about this thread.

The poll results have been a bit like the worm that was used for some of the past televised political debates.
Has anyone else been following the progress of the poll results?

The initial post prompted a significant number of responses to option 1.
After a while that dropped below 40%.
That might have been because people were beginning to lose sight of what the thread was really about.

Now it has come back up.
That might be because, as I suggested earlier, there have been some sensible comments on the last few pages.

That might mean that if you have something sensible to say people will take notice.
Or it might be coincidence.
Or the changes might not be statistically significant.
Or I might be wrong.

Originally Posted by stevo68

Mods feel free to close off my thread, it has run its course and I won't let it degenerate due to one individual who seems to have a habit of this behaviour based on other threads,

Regards

Stevo

Everybody's thread, why the ownership, that's twice I've written in one of "your threads" and been told, I'm not on topic

EDIT: oh, no affiliation with Traveller's comments