Correct grammar and spelling on the internet

I've been a part of many different online communities, and one of the things that I just recently realized I enjoyed about Smogon was that the majority of the active members use correct grammar and spelling. It exudes a sense of intelligence, which makes me feel like I am in a community with people at or above my intellectual level. I'm quite sure many of you appreciate this.

What I don't understand, though, is why those people who choose not to use correct grammar and spelling get so shitty about someone calling them out on it. Is it really that difficult to change your sentence from "if u wan 2 join my guild pls pm one of my chars" to "If you want to join my guild, please PM one of my characters"?

I find it hard to take people seriously if I am speaking with them and they obviously don't know the basics of English grammar. So, I don't take anyone seriously who can't use the correct version of "you're/your" or if they can't spell out an entire word.

How do you feel about grammar on the internet?

Well, I try to use better grammar, sometimes I forget tho. And it's annoying when you can't understand anything that someone says.

EDIT: Oh, think that people need to use better grammar, it's not that hard.

I like the fact that Smogon has members with proper grammar too. I try to use proper grammar in forums, communities, just not Chatrooms (I need some time to act stupid too). In fact, I actually find it more difficult to type "if u wan 2 join my guild pls pm one of my chars" in place of "If you want to join my guild, please PM one of my characters". I don't call people out if they use improper grammar or anything but grammar really does help if you want to be successful on the net.

It's quite important to me, although I'm more lenient when it comes to online games and MSN (or other messengers). I really can't stand shorthand slang though. I tolerate it at times but, as snobbish as it may be, I have difficulty respecting the intellect of someone who keeps typing "u", "l8", "ur", etc. (although I'm okay with acronyms, e.g. iirc and IMO). I’d rather see someone typo “oyu”, “ltaer” and “yoru” than use the aforementioned shortenings (and I can say, that quite often it’ll be me making those typos).

As for grammar, up to a point. I wouldn’t pretend to be an expert on grammar, but provided there’s full stops, commas and proper use of line breaks, I’m satisfied. If someone doesn’t use those things, it’ll be quite often that I just don’t bother reading their post, mostly because it’s an eyesore.

It's actually against the rules to type stuff like "u", "ur", etc. The only place where it happens for the most part is the Wi-Fi forum because nobody has the heart to mod it. I'm probably going to push this more, to the point where if you use that kind of shit in your posts you WILL get infracted.

I personally absolutely despise leetspeak. That stuff is seriously just appalling. If someone uses that, especially when they're saying something to me to try to prove me wrong, I WILL call them out on it, and I'll totally shut them up.

I really do feel that good grammar on the internet is necessary. Like you said Kholdstaire, it's incredibly hard to take anyone seriously if they use terrible grammar, damn near impossible for me.

User munje is a perfect example of this. <_<;

Anyways, I do find improper grammar on the internet very annoying. I can understand not using periods or not capitalizing certain words every now and then, but there is just a point where you need to go back to elementary school English or reading.

I don't have too high an expectation because, after all, it is the internet we're talking about. But as far as I've seen, grammar isn't a big an issue as spelling is. The worst you could do with grammar is mixing up its and it's, where as you could imagine how easy it is to mispell.

hey dis aint englsh qwiz so wat if i spel bad

I'd like to say i'm usually pretty slack on how I treat people with poor grammar. As long I can understand what they're saying then there's no problem. I just like to think that maybe there's rules on what may or may not be acceptable grammar, depending on the medium that's being used. Instant messenger or something like it? Whatever, some people are slow typists and shortcuts help.

On a messageboard though? Well there's really no excuse not to use correct spelling and grammar. There's no rush to get your thoughts out, so they can, and should, take the time to compose a clear message.

oh and it kinda makes you look dumb. :(

Yogi said:

Ok. time to cut the Crap. Whoever wants a pro guild youve got it. Work Hard, Love to Pvp more than woe and mvp and party for fun. pm Any of my Chars :
Yogi Tha Bear, Yogi Tha Beast , Raver, Ice Cream, Bear, Robin hood, Faisel, Y o g i and D e v i l. All 99/70 ofcourse.

If you even think you have a chance to join our empire you must prove ur worth in pvp. Leave ur Info Here.

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kholdstaire said:

I like how professional you are using perfect grammar and everything.

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Yogi said:

dude this is one bish you dont want to tick off so dont mock me. i did not use perfect grammar at all.

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kholdstaire said:

A few questions:

-What is a bish?
-What are you going to do if you get "ticked off"? Write angry words?
-Why are you telling me you didn't use perfect grammar? If you were intelligent enough to pick up my sarcasm in my first post, you'd know that I had already pointed out your lack of grammar skills.

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Yogi said:

1. A Bish Is a Bitch , you know a female dog?

2. if i get ticked off ill just pwn u in pvp.

3. stop picking on me T_T every single thing i post u atk... just shut up =p i really dont need ur input on my grammar and i can write how i want T_T dude just get off my back before you start a guild war. because your really startin to disrespect.

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kholdstaire said:

I just found it ironic that you call your guild professional and you can't even type using proper English. A bit of an oxymoron if you ask me. Is correct grammar really that difficult?

I don't see how you being an "internet bad ass" is helping either.

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Yogi said:

*sigh* how does me not typing properly decrease the value of my guild... get a life and stop pointing out everyones flaws , have on Divinity online and enjoy the server conversation over

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kholdstaire said:

If you're going to talk to people in person, do you take them seriously if they don't use correct grammar?

So really, how should I take you seriously if you don't use correct grammar? I never said it decreased your value, it just makes you look unintelligent, and I don't know about anyone else, but I prefer to associate with intelligent people. Using correct grammar is not difficult.

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Yogi said:

Dude... Stop trying to make me look bad. Seriously Chillax and shut up this is supposed to be a recruitment thread so just Shut up and flame somewhere else. i dont know why ur giving so much chat dont know who the hell you think you are but im not going to take ur crap man

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kholdstaire said:

I'm not trying to make you look bad, I'm trying to help you, but you're not taking the advice. I'm not flaming either. It isn't my fault you're so touchy about your spelling and grammar skills.

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Yogi said:

1. i didnt ask for your help or input
2. i dont care about what you have to say
3. this is a recruitment chat so stop chatting if u dont have anything guildwise to say

Simple As Smack

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My attempt at helping this moron.

The sad thing is that, reaching a certain high speed of typing, it does not even make a difference, so then the people spelling things u or r or whatnot are just being apathetic. With you especially, since the three letters are all right fucking grouped together, it takes an equal amount of time.

I usually strive to maintain a decent standard of "correctness" in my posts because it just makes them look cleaner and easier to read. I don't mind if there are some errors or abbreviations (like "u" instead of "you") in other people's posts, but if it interferes with my understanding of the post, it gets annoying.

I'm in total agreement. Sometimes I take for granted the intellectual level smogon is on and how much better grammar/spelling users tend to use here, so when I take a peek around gamefaqs I realize how lucky we are to have such a great conversational community.

eh i dont really care about misspellings cause sometimes people just want to type out whatever the fuck they want as fast as they can and end up overtyping a letter or forgoing it on accident.

but all that u and you shit is no question needs to get the fuck out

it is a rarity for me to use even the most basic punctuation marks, though i am quite certain that i employ proper grammar most of the time

u and ur obviously bother me, as it is laziness to the detriment of others, but i dont feel the way i type is particularly annoying to read! if it is, please let me know

oh and obvious misspellings get on my nerves too, primarily 'definately' and its retarded brethren

I absolutely hate when people use bad grammar and such online. I'm no grammar master. I don't know exactly where to put every comma, and I tend to not use the Enter key enough, but my grammar and spelling are at least half-way decent for 14 year old. It just makes you look really, really stupid when you start using things like "u", "ur", and "r". When I see someone type stuff like that, the first thing that comes to mind is that the typist is immature and just plain stupid. It really makes me appreciate just how intelligent Smogon is when it comes to stuff like this.

TheArrow2 said:

I absolutely hate when people use bad grammar and such online. I'm no grammar master. I don't know exactly where to put every comma, and I tend to not use the Enter key enough, but my grammar and spelling are at least half-way decent for 14 year old. It just makes you look really, really stupid when you start using things like "u", "ur", and "r". When I see someone type stuff like that, the first thing that comes to mind is that the typist is immature and just plain stupid. It really makes me appreciate just how intelligent Smogon is when it comes to stuff like this.

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not that im necessarily accusing you of such, but it bothers me when people assume that grammatical ability is directly related to intelligence, to the point where in internet arguments, the one who types properly can spout nonsense like 'Oh well, you're a n00b. Learn to type properly, then come back.' or something ridiculous like that

theres obviously a correlation between the two, but one isnt directly indicative of the other

kholdstaire said:

My attempt at helping this moron.

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Well, I mean what were you expecting?

You were kinda the instigator there. Did you really have to go into his recruitment thread and talk grammar?

I usually type with proper grammar, but sometimes I'll intentionally ignore punctuation and capitalization depending on the purpose of the post. For example, none of this in a sarcastic post.

What amuses me the most is people who capitalize words randomly. Like in khold's quotes: "A Bish Is a Bitch", "Simple As Smack".

The way I see it is that posting on the internet does not require you to do so at such a speed that you'd have to miss out spelling and major grammatical errors. It's not like MSN/AIM where you might want to reply quickly and are not fast enough to type longhand.

That being said, I often don't capitalise my sentences or use full stops when posting in firebot, but that's because a lot of the posts there are generally more informal in nature (I don't post like that anywhere else or on other forums). Anyone typing like that anywhere else doesn't bother me though, as long as you take a couple more seconds to type words out fully. 'ur' and 'coz' make you look immature and fucking lazy when you can write 'your' and 'because'.

I tend to go back and forth between using capitalization and not using it, and spelling usually isn't something I concern myself with or call other people out on, but other than that, I'd say that trying to keep internet messages as readable as possible is a doctrine that I approve of and go by.

I agree with glen in that I find it a bit ridiculous when someone says something to the effect of 'improve your grammar n00b' to someone else on the internet, and I just usually try to refrain from correcting anyone; from what I've seen, it takes more effort to correct something like that than a lot of people are willing to go through.

Uhh well English is not my first language so i probably have some errors:/

But i got to agree with the u and leetspeak part. I absolutely CANT stand the 1337 morons running around in the wi-fi forum. Seriously give them a lifetime ban please.

Well, I do enjoy the general use of proper grammar, and I appreciate that "u", "ur", "r" and the like are against the rules. I mean, it's not hard to type proper sentences. My philosophy on the matter is as such:
"If you say plz because it's shorter than please, then I'll say no because it's shorter than yes." Poor grammar conveys immaturity. I'm thinking I should push for this on Marr.

I mean, if someone misspells a word or messes up grammar because English isn't their first language(English isn't my first language), then that's underatandable, but the use of the aforementioned terms is annoying and shows laziness and immaturity.

Blanky said:

Well, I mean what were you expecting?

You were kinda the instigator there. Did you really have to go into his recruitment thread and talk grammar?

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No one else had posted in his thread lol. I was merely pointing out that MAYBE people would take him seriously if he didn't try acting like an internet badass and use correct grammar and spelling.

I find it most irritating when people try to come off as smarter than they really are. A post made with perfect grammar and spelling does not make you right, just as a post written in pidgin English does not make you wrong. Too many times people get sidetracked by trivial grammatical errors and don't focus on the main substance of a post.

That said, I find the implicit laziness of internet abbreviations to be quite rude. Even 'rofl' and 'lmao' I find to be a little obnoxious; 'lol' now has such a grounding in my vocabulary that I treat it as a real word.

If I ever correct someone's grammar/spelling on the internet, it is usually for one of two reasons:
- I'm trolling them, trying to get them wound up over nothing
- I'm cutting them down from their high horse when they've been snide about another's English skills


anyway i usually dont bother with capitalisation or punctuation cause hey its the internet and it looks kinda pretentious