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[Charlie19]

UP,
"- in the UK we often shudder at some of the verbal creativity expressed by Americans - some find it offensive, some find it creative.

Being a regular reader of the Divernet forums and Yorkshire Divers boards, I find it incredible the amount of misspelled words and bad grammar used by those posting. Here is a short list of what I am talking about;

Not capitalizing the first word of a sentence.
Not using paragraphs to track the progression of thought in a post.
Not using proper punctuation marks.
Using "your" for the contraction "you're," meaning "you are."
Confusing "then" for "than," and vice versa.
An abundance of misspelled words.

All of these are not intended to be nit-picking, but rather are intended to be some motivation for us to improve our writing skills in order to promote clearer understanding by our readers.

I had hoped that reading the boards from the UK, I would find examples of excellence in writing, but sadly, it is not the case.

Best regards,
Dempsey of the Deep

 

[Walter]

Charlie,

What about the use of "of" when the writer means " 've"? That one makes me shudder. There is no proper use of "I could of" it is "I could've."

Why not:

"Do it Right" from the flooded caves at Wakulla to the Andrea Doria. Find out how these diver's systems differ from most you've encountered."

 

[FreeFloat]

Charlie,

What about the use of "of" when the writer means " 've"? That one makes me shudder. There is no proper use of "I could of" it is "I could've."

I think most posters/writers do not recognize that they are, in fact using words or phrases that simply do not exist. This includes phrases "borrowed" from another language - examples such as déja vu, et cetera (which I have many times found misspelled as "ect." vice "etc."), bona fide and countless others. As a result, the posters/writers attempt to put into print things they may have only heard verbally, and the results are amusing at best and hard to read at worst.

Other pet peeves of mine include incorrect usages such as its/it's, your/you're and then/than (the latter two as already mentioned).

 

[Cave Diver]

Other pet peeves of mine include incorrect usages such as its/it's, your/you're and then/than (the latter two as already mentioned).

Mine include those already mentioned, as well as their/there/they're and the numerous typing/spelling/grammatical errors encountered on internet forums every day.

I've given up trying to correct most of it; I'm not the grammar police. I just shudder and move on...

 

[Uncle Pug]

This thread has been moved from the DIR forum, a no trolling zone established to discuss DIR diving methodology to the non-diving related forum.

Enjoy.

 

[bwerb]

Might I just point out that there is, in both deed and fact, no such verb in the English Language as 'to systematize' !!!!

And our good friends William Shakespeare and John Milton just went along merrily with the words in their OED...

This is an internet bulletin board, the key point for being here is to discuss and disseminate ideas. As long as the ideas are being expressed in a reasonably coherent manner, most of us can simply gloss over grammatical errors or "spelling" mistakes. Besides, on-line discussions follow speech patterns much closer than strictly written grammatical rules. Living in Canada, I'm caught between the "English" useage and "American" spellings on many words, (color;colour, meter;metre, hemoglobin;haemoglobin).

Hehehe...the only trend that makes me cringe is the total misuse of a word or phrase by a writer (or speaker). It is a MOOT point, not a MUTE point and it's "sign here with your JOHN HANCOCK"...not JOHN HENRY (one signed the Declaration of Independence, the other raced a machine with a sledgehammer).

 

[Kat]

I think some of the spelling errors are caused by hitting the wrong key on the keyboard. This has happened to me many times. Also, people tend to write the way they speak. If they don't know how to say it correctly, they are never going to be able to write it correctly. Because they don't know it's wrong. That does not mean that their ideas/opinions/feelings are less important than the "grammatically correct."

Walter, I had never thought about the ' would of/would've, but you are right. I'll be keeping an eye on myself for that one.

I am amazed at the people who will interrupt an ongoing discussion on the board, to point out grammatical errors. I wonder if they would interrupt you while you were speaking to someone else, to correct you. Probably not.

 

[HamsterHuey]

I see this thread from time to time on other forums. The funniest thing about it is, people are aghast at the spelling and grammar errors they see...and their own post is rife with them. "I'm shocked and appalled at the blah blah blah...", and they've machine-gunned their post with misplaced commas and improper ellipses.

If a forum had to conform to the the MLA usage manual, and was being proofread by the likes of my 9th grade English kommandant, it would cease to be an enjoyable forum.

Hey, if we type like goobers here, it's probably because we sound like goobers out there. World needs goobers. Lots of 'em.

 

[Bob3]

This thread has been moved from the DIR forum, a no trolling zone established to discuss DIR diving methodology to the non-diving related forum.

Wouldn't it more appropriately fit in the "humor" thread?

Seriously though, there are a lot of posters for whom english is a second (or third, or fourth) language. Some even have a better command than the "natives".
It's still a good idea to cut some slack for "less than perfect" english use.
My fingers can get pretty dumb sometimes.

 

[Bren Tierney]

(A) That does not mean that their ideas/opinions/feelings are less important than the "grammatically correct."

(B) I wonder if they would interrupt you while you were speaking to someone else, to correct you. Probably not.

(A) Unless, of course, the communication of said feelings/opinions/ideas are lost in meaningless verbiage or jargon; rapped in cant and butchered language - which, invariably, finds its root-cause in poor (there's no such thing as 'bad') grammar?

(B) With respect, interrupts got little, if anything, to do with it: deciding whether you want to maintain a conversation (on-line or face-to-face), or whether to carry-on reading same, or just move on because someone might be putting across the point so poorly, is the prerogative of the listener or reader.


And for those who've cited The Bard and Milton: they did, in both deed and fact, derive new words where none existed before for a given object, feeling and turns-of-phrase; but they did so with a blank canvass; they did not cobble together a word or butcher a verb ('systematize') where a perfectly adequate one existed already!

For 'systematize', why not use the vastly more elegant 'to address systematically', ergo:

"Do it Right": from the flooded caves at Wakulla, to the [wreck of the] Andrea Doria. Find out how these divers go about/address their diving systematically and 'holistically', for both maximum safety and fun." ??

Surely the above is both more accurate and flows more easily?

I'm well aware that English (a non-inflected, Indo-European language) owes a great debt to its historical 'magpie qualities' (as cited above in deja-vu etc.) in that it borrows constantly from any number of sources; but when a banner headline to a forum glibly describes something with made-up words which jar, or 'toe-curl', the reader, then where are our standards?

And I am expressly NOT attacking anyone who submits to these forums; more over, certainly not those here whose mother-tongue isn't English; but when a globally used forum, using the Lingua Franca, i.e. English, as both its official and de facto form of communication drops such a howler!? Come on.

Would we take the same slap-dash and shoddy approach to our diving practises or the learning of same? Our diving safety? No. Then why take that approach in the chosen language on this board, which both describes and communicates the above two key areas of diving and its safe practise??

Would you allow an instructor, to whom you were listening, get away with telling you something you knew to be wrong or incorrect; if you knew he was merely making it up as he went along; with words you knew to be invalid or concocted? I doubt it. People using 'made-up' words and jargon - for that's all 'systematize' is - only draw the wrong sought of attention to themselves - and the result can be that others begin to take them less seriously. As this working example proves.

Dive safe all - always.

Bren.