Grammar and computers

Does anyone else find that there grammar goes completely down the drain when they are typing on the computer?

When ever I am on a computer, typing text, I really have to try hard to get my grammar right, and when I re-read it I still have to rephrase a few things. But I am actually quite good at speech when talking out loud.

No I think more oftenly I use good grammar for thinking about good posts.

Grammar Nazi, AAAWWWWAAAAYYYY!!!

No, I use good grammar.

I think what you meant to say was:

Sorry couldn’t help myself. The point being that “correct grammar” is a somewhat arbitrary thing anyway being for English speakers based on a dead language (Latin) and imposed on Lower German, and it can be far from legible. Legalese is technically correct for example but by gods you wouldn’t want to read much of it. Anyhow if you spend too much time working at it you can end up completely destroying whatever it was you were meaning to say.

So while it’s fully commendable that you should respect and care for the rest of us that much - Relax, you’re doing fine. Beyond just checking for the correct spelling to use (they’re, there, their etc :smile:) just write as you would speak, and speak what you write first. That way if when you read out loud what you’ve written it feels like too much of a mouthful - it probably is. Place punctuation where natural diction allows… and w31cum 2 da intarwebs.

Only two things bug me:

alot
It’s spelled a lot!

elite
7|-|15 15 L337. 17 //\4|<35 j00Z L00|< 1||(R3D1BL’/ 57UP1D 4||D U||4BL3 70 7’/P3. 4L//\057 L1|<3 j00Z |-|4D 4 531ZUR3 0|| j00R |<3’/B04RD.

translator

Fixed.

I have never met a guy with programming skills, good grammar, good spelling, and good handwriting. The only time I enjoy grammar is when I write a large sentence with lots of semicolons; it’s just so much fun.

Nope, I use good grammar :slight_smile:

Darn, I am close to alone.

Thanks for the tips Per!

Actually, some of the best programmers I’ve known had bad grammar, not to mention social skills.

I don’t know about grammar. But I can express myself much better writing/typing than speaking.

I have horrible handwriting.

Darn…

Same here man. To be honest, my typing/ writing is much much better than my oral communication… It’s probably because I spent and still do spend a lot of time on computer.
My oral communication in English is not very good, I understand everything 100% but for some reason I just can’t speak out well. My teacher at college was seriously impressed lol, she was like “Your written communication is so excellent, pleasure to read! I never expected you to write so well considering your oral communication isn’t that perfect.” :smile:
Anyways, when typing I speak out my mind etc., but I’m quite shy in person and I don’t like speaking out :S

I think I could fit in that category :smile:
I have programming skills, my grammar and spelling are both good (according to my teacher back at college) and I have a decent handwriting :smile:

Not so, dear sir!

English does have plenty of rules. The problem is that you need to know the etymology of the words you’re using to work out which rule(s) apply.

English is a whore: it’s never met another language it didn’t like. It is an amalgam of Old French, Frisian (from Germany’s north-western coast), and a bunch of loan words from a myriad other languages and cultures. Note that the Romans had very little influence on English: Latin was the language of the learned religious clergy, not the unwashed masses.

The Victorians had a couple of fads revolving around Latin. Until that point, the English used “fall” to represent the season before winter, just like their American cousins. Afterwards, “autumn” became the accepted term.

In addition, many scientists during the Renaissance era had a classical education, which resulted in many fields of science using old Greek and Latin words and stems in their jargon.

Loan words often cause the most confusion. In general, a loan word may be:

  1. Not yet “naturalised”, and thus its own language’s rules for plurals, etc. apply. (This is mostly seen in technical jargon, such as “flora” and “fauna”, both from Latin.)

  2. “Fully naturalised”, which means English rules do apply. (E.g. the plural of “forum” is “forums”, not “fora”, because “forum” is a naturalised word imported from French.)

(The above also applies to other languages: “Cliccare il mouse”—the Italian for “click the mouse [button]”—shows a naturalised loan word, ‘Cliccare’, which uses Italian phonetic rules, and the unnaturalised “mouse”, which has retained its English pronunciation.)

In general, the word’s origin and state of naturalisation will define which rules apply to it. The problem is that the etymologies can be very complex, with some words having multiple threads of history for each of their senses. (‘Chair’ is a good example. The furniture is from Old French, while the sense of a ‘seat’ as in ‘seat of authority’ comes via the Latin ‘cathedra’—from which we get ‘cathedral’.)

English spelling is worse. It was fixed quite late in life—the Italian of Chaucer’s time is perfectly readable today, yet Chaucer’s English is like a foreign language to most readers now—and was undergoing some changes when the first attempts to lock it down were made. Hence the fact that “ghoti” could be justifiably pronounced “fish”. (As in “cough” + “women” + “attention”.)

The problem is therefore not that English has no rules, or even very few rules. The problem is that the full set of rules is so complex and difficult, that even experts find it extremely difficult to master them all. The user interface has become very complex.

“Legalese”, on the other hand, is an attempt to create an unambiguous programming language for humans out of English—arguably the most ambiguous natural language known to humanity.

i also have horrible hand writing, now that with so much tech these days you less and less write by hand,my hand writing style got worryingly ugly

Ha, yeah. Mine has gotten pretty bad…

Wrong. That’s grammatically incorrect. You should have said: “I utilize my grammar well.”