Wednesday, September 14, 2011

English Skills on Facebook

C’mon, folks. I make a ton of errors and inaccuracies when I’m conversing on social sites, and there are probably even a few in this very post. But I know how to spell, and I know the most basic of the basic English rules. It seems that many do not. As a writer, it bugs me pretty badly.

I can’t do math very well. I never have been able to. However, when I do attempt it, I don’t mistake a division sign for a multiplication sign, and I don’t write a 2 as a 5. I at least try to get it right so that everything makes sense. Mistakes are made, and even with best efforts, stuff gets screwed up. It happens, and I get it. I do. But, can we at least *try*?

English perfection isn’t for everyone, and some folks can’t even conquer spelling very well. That’s fine! I can tell when a post was created by someone who simply isn’t good with English, and there’s not much grieving I can do over it. What really irks me is when people who claim to be writers butcher posts. Oh, man, that’s a peeve-and-a-half.

Questions don’t end with periods. Triple exclamation marks or question marks are not only incorrect, but they do not make the sentence any more exciting, or any more of a question. One works, all the time. “There” house isn’t on the next block; “theirs” might be, though. Oh, it goes on and on.

As I have mentioned in previous blog entries, the re-posts are some of the worst. Horrible punctuation, absolutely no grammar, misspellings, and sometimes they are ALL IN CAPS. That’s annoying, not attention-getting. Should you choose to re-post a copied and pasted ad, take a few seconds and edit the damned thing. Just because you didn’t make it up is no reason you have to look like an idiot. I’m just sayin’.

3 comments:

Lark said...

Thank you! Let me reiterate: thank you! Sometimes it seems that written language is becoming a lost art.

Christina said...

I never use question marks because when I speak I don't have that up-tone when I ask questions. So in my mind, it makes no sense to use them when I'm "talking" online. Does that make sense to you. Prolly not.

BUT YES, the grammar and everything else by "writers" irritates the hell out of me. I'm like who the hell in his/her right mind pays you to write.

Frank said...

Christina, ever wondered why no one understands you? Its because there are social conventions that regulate how people talk, so we can actually know what someone else wants. The up tick in spoken language or question mark in written is there to tell the person you're talking to that you're asking a question. So please, start doing it. Its not a style thing, its a part of the language, so get used to it.