Most powerful Country in Europe in History

posted on May 8th, 2011, 3:10 pm

All of us also have the potential to not give a damn how we spell on the web, only that it's possible to know what we mean. We're writing on a forum, not for a research paper.

posted on May 8th, 2011, 3:12 pm

Proper English is not so difficult to achieve that the only time we put in the effort to produce it is for a research paper.

posted on May 8th, 2011, 3:21 pm

How strongly you feel the need to defend the indefensible.

indefensible? you're the only one attacking poor spelling and grammar here. indefensible means little when nobody is interested in attacking it.

All I can say is that each and every one of us has housed in our head the most complex known object in the universe, with billions of neurons and trillions of connections or potential connections. Each of us, dyslexic or not, is a potential genius. Furthermore, each of us now has access to an exponentially growing information base by means of the World Wide Web.

so with your "potential genius" you decide to go and valiantly put right the spelling that once went wrong, on a crusade to wipe out poor grammar from the internet. go build a perpetual motion device if you wanna be called a genius. trying to impose your values on someone else will just get you labelled a jerk.

There is simply no excuse for poor English (and no, Blade was not developing a new form of modern English, so your "thou" analogy is void).

there doesnt need to be an excuse for something that isnt wrong. and txt speak is a new form of english. many more people speak in txt speak than do in your typeenglish. both are acceptable ways of communicating, i could criticise you for wasting space with vowels that didnt need to appear in order to deliver the message, but i dont, cos u can talk how u want as long as you arent a jerk.

if only we could be bothered to put the effort in.

i dont speak like i do cos of lack of effort, i speak like i do because i want to, its natural for me. i could put in effort and speak like you do (and there is a time and a place for that, like writing academic things to get marks from 80 year old examiners), but i dont want to.

you cant make people talk like you in public. i know technically this forum is like private property of the owners, so they could set a rule that enforces good grammar/spelling if they wanted to, like you could enforce such a rule in your own home for example.

Proper English is not so difficult to achieve that the only time we put in the effort to produce it is for a research paper.

its not difficult (for most) but its not about how difficult it is, its about whether we want to. its not difficult to eat marmite, but i dont wanna!

posted on May 8th, 2011, 3:26 pm

I find the defense of low standards depressing. You may not feel that you "wanna" hit the shift key to capitalise your sentences, but whatever happened to consistency, high standards and self-respect? It is these things which make the world go around.

By the way, I wasn't referring to my own potential genius, I was referring to other people's potential genius.

[Facist]

posted on May 8th, 2011, 3:28 pm

Last edited by Facist on May 8th, 2011, 3:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

agreed with myles we live in a society in which we can do what we want(within the law) and write how we want without ppl critisising our spelling  :whistling:

if u want to critisise spelling go to uni and become an english teacher  :P

im personnally not very good at typing on a keyboard but writing on paper i have very good english .
txt speak is normally there to make thing easier to type out

also if u understand it why complain about it 

posted on May 8th, 2011, 3:32 pm

You must all feel very proud about your illiteracy. They are not my "values" which I wish to impose on others, they are the values of an educated western society which would have found me in good company 50 years ago when standards were higher. The only reason I am alone now is because everyone  nowadays thinks it's too much trouble to hit a shift key or learn which vowels belong in the word separate.

posted on May 8th, 2011, 3:33 pm

I find the defense of low standards depressing. You may not feel that you "wanna" hit the shift key to capitalise your sentences, but whatever happened to consistency, high standards and self-respect? It is these things which make the world go around.

By the way, I wasn't referring to my own potential genius, I was referring to other people's potential genius.

why are consistency or high standards needed? i respect myself just fine even tho i dont spell perfectly. i base my respect of myself on more important things, such as whether i do good things, or accomplish tasks i set myself etc. spelling poorly doesnt reduce my self respect, beating up babies does.

self respect doesnt make the world go round.

you said everyone has potential genius, that means you do too.

posted on May 8th, 2011, 3:36 pm

Self respect emphatically does make the world go around. It helps you be a confident and productive member of society and stops you making excuses for yourself and others or developing a victim mentality.

posted on May 8th, 2011, 3:38 pm

Self respect emphatically does make the world go around. It helps you be a confident and productive member of society and stops you making excuses for yourself and others or developing a victim mentality.

meh difference of opinion there.

posted on May 8th, 2011, 4:15 pm

I'm scouse too. Bet that surprises you.

My view is different. Spelling properly is easy. I have a friend who is dyslexic who is far more literate than this guy, and he's even doing a Chemistry PhD at Cambridge. He doesn't make excuses, so don't make excuses for others.

I had to google what scouse is. 

Personally i use spell check in Firefox to rid myself of those annoying errors which may pop up if you are not a native speaker (and speaking for myself I've been out of college for more than 10 years so those English lessons are beginning to fade..)

[Dr. Lazarus]

posted on May 8th, 2011, 4:21 pm

Last edited by Dr. Lazarus on May 8th, 2011, 4:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yes, scousers are a specific breed of Englishman with an almost indecipherable accent 

Part of what influences my strong view of English usage is that I have many German friends who are excellent at English, and not only do they manage this as their second language, they also do it as practising theoretical physicists, which requires the additional learning of much technical terminology. Humans are capable of learning so much. If these German people can accomplish so much, I have little tolerance for native English people who think that "tlking to u lyk dis in txt spk" is a natural evolution of the English language.

posted on May 8th, 2011, 4:26 pm

its a perfectly natural evolution of the language, people were given a medium (sms txts), and there was no teaching of txt speak in school or government schemes to teach people how to conserve vowels, people just did it on their own. it just happened faster than previous evolution of the language. thats what bothers some people who see it as a corruption, when really it's just change, change that the masses want.

posted on May 8th, 2011, 4:30 pm

Myles, the phenomenon you are referring to only existed because of the difficulty of using the buttons on a cell phone. With smart phones and ipads and the like, this is already redundant. The text speak abbreviations are now only used by teenagers on youtube.  I question strongly whether it represents something that the masses want, and I think if there were a vote on the issue, you'd be surprised. It's not an age thing. I'm only 26 myself.

And recall that the text speak issue was not my only criticism.

posted on May 8th, 2011, 4:34 pm

It works as a form of shorthand, which is nothing new. It also continues to be used everywhere, so it's evidently popular.

posted on May 8th, 2011, 4:35 pm

It's used everywhere

A highly questionable statement.