Sabotaging Your Posts & Your Points

There is something that has been bothering me for a while as I read through many of the posts and replies on ATS. A lack of care and fastidiousness in the construction and spelling. I'm not claiming to be perfect by any stretch of the imagination. As a matter of fact, i screw up in my grammar and spelling all the time, but I do go over my posts with a fine toothed comb before I post them.

When I try to read posts rife with obvious spelling and punctuation errors, my mind starts to slide off the the points you are trying to make and all I can see are the errors. You could be saying something that could change my life, but I just stop reading and I think to myself "This person is just an idiot". I know that's not fair, but there it is.

I'm sure I'm not the only one that just ignores those kind of posts. If you just take a bit more time go over what you are writing I think you will find that people will listen more to what you have to say. I know ATS is used by many ESL people, and errors are to be expected, but most of the time I find that the worst offenses are by people that have been speaking english their entire lives.

If you want to be taken seriously, then go to Google and check the words you aren't sure about. Look for the red wavy line under your words in your posts. Most of the time the built in ATS spell-check will help immeasurably.

I'm sure that I have made mistakes in this post as I am not very good at spelling or typing, and I encourage the members out there that have better skills than I do to point out where my mistakes were made so I can learn from them.

All I want is for the posts to be as clear and concise as possible, so your message isn't lost in the typos. A little caution goes a long way. Thanks for reading my rant.

Now... Tear me apart. LOL.

I know what you are getting at and it a great skill to have. ATS and other sites have members from all over the world where English might not be their first or second language of choice. See,sea,weather, whether, their, there. Gets annoying even if you grew up hooked on phonics.

And lets throw out the fact that most writing done by the younger generation is txting and fits in 160 characters or less.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

I can read the above just as fast as if it was correctly spelled.

I always believe to not kill the messenger (spelling and structure) but hammer on the idea.

reply to post by staple


I can read that just fine too, but i've seen some posts that just go over my head. I'm not going to play the grammar police although I have been attacked over it and I understand that people make mistakes and things could get jumbled and lost in translation, but I think spelling is important to this site so we don't have to decipher everything and it just makes it smoother.

You could be saying something that could change my life, but I just stop reading and I think to myself "This person is just an idiot". I know that's not fair, but there it is

Why judge a persons words on their spelling my friend...

If you can understand what they're trying to say then read on, because as you said... They could be saying something that could change your life!

Don't miss that moment!

reply to post by staple


I love that you mentioned the "hooked on phonics" program. I think that's where most of my spelling errors derive from. I also love that you added the "mixed-up" paragraph. I remember the first time I had something like that sent to me in an e-mail. I was blown away that I could read it so easily.

It's not really that text talk and all that gets on my nerves so much as it makes me question, at the most, the intelligence of the poster. What they have to say may be brilliant, but the lack of attention to detail, I think, hurts what they are trying to say.

As for people that have another language as their first, I find that they will usually inform the reader of that, and put a lot of effort into making sure that they are understood. I respect the hell out of that.

I find the posts that I tend not to read are the ones with a long wall of text, without paragraphs. I find that worse than spelling mistakes, but yes, there are lots of both grammar and spelling atrocities.

Also, the spell checker is USA based, so some words, I refuse to spell that way, like colour, honour, neighbour, labour, cheque, etc. See - 5 squigglies. 6 now, it seems squigglies isn't a real word, but I still know that I spelled it right

There are also a few words that I've come across, that I think are right, and the spell checker tells me that they're wrong, without giving me an alternate word. Maybe I've made up a few new words along the way?

I am finding though, that the more I post on here, the less I worry about my own spelling

reply to post by Akragon


Sorry, you're right there. "idiot" is the wrong thing to say, I should have said "lazy".
I just have to wonder how much a person really cares about what they are saying if they don't take the time to be concise.

Thanks for mentioning that.

no need to appoligize...

I tend to ignore posts that are similar to books... i want to read what they have to say, but i don't want to spend all day doing it *shrug*

i could be missing something amazing, but i'll get bored half way through it

Originally posted by Chindogu
As a matter of fact, i screw up in my grammar and spelling all the time, but I do go over my posts with a fine toothed comb before I post them.

A comb with a broken tooth me thinks.

Capital "I" for "i screw up..."

It's OK, i know it was a deliberate mistale.

You are of course absolutely right about taking time to prepare a post. Not only that, but even the time to "edit" a post goes undone a lot of the time round here.

Anyone who cannot be bothered to at least take the time to present something legible and with some sign of thought going into it doesn't deserve my time to read it. It's disrespectful in presuming I/we must do the work to get the information being offered.

Exceptions are our fellow non English speaking comrades who's posts are with their grammatical errors and punctuation mistakes but they are usually obvious and easily forgivable. Kudos to them for trying.

cheers

Originally posted by nerbot

It's OK, i know it was a deliberate mistale.

Nope. That was a missing tooth in the comb. lol.

I completely agree with everything you said. It is bad to judge the value of a post by the spelling and grammar and yet I do it routinely. However if the idea or news is good then I forget about it and concentrate on the topic.

I also think that, certainly for long posts, there should be first paragraph that summarises the post, just as they do in newspapers.

Mostly though it's all cool.

I completely agree with everything you said. It is bad to judge the value of a post by the spelling and grammar and yet I do it routinely. However if the idea or news is good then I forget about it and concentrate on the topic.

I also think that, certainly for long posts, there should be a first paragraph that summarises the post, just as they do in newspapers.

Mostly though it's all cool.