The Internet's Typographical and Grammatical Morass

Their used to be a word for this -- illiteracy.

Their

Was that intentional, Bill?

To me the misspelled words and weird sentence structure are a form of prose and besides WTF, the web is revolutionizing communication in all sorts of way. LOL

Abbreviations are one thing. Misspellings and weird sentence structure is a product of speed, laziness, and in some cases, a lack of education.

Pev

Yes.

cain't we all jes get oblong?

sorry, I don't know what came over me just then.

IRL in my world is Internet Resource Locator....but not in my daughters...O RLY ?

Tedd...I thought exactly the same thing when I seen IRL

It's one of those clues that will give away your age real fast...

Redruby, why then, were you questioning whether you should have re-punctuated? I do not understand (nothing unusual).

Ignore my previous comment, getting weary! Sorry!

@ Terry -

The problem arises when someone has such poor grammar/spelling that their point of view is completely incomprehensible. I had this problem with an ex-boss; he would send us an email so riddled with grammatical and spelling errors that we couldn't understand what he was trying to say. He would then get very upset when we would ask him to clarify.

Yes, it annoys me when someone uses "their" when they should use "there" or "your" when it should be "you're" - but it's not going to keep me from responding to them or from getting the point (most of the time). My main problem is when, as I stated above, the point of view is completely overshadowed by the typing issues, or when someone claims to be an "intellectual superior" and then has a post that has a slew of typos (this happened recently on the 'Vine, that's why I bring it up).

So, for those out there who may not have the strongest typing skills, just take a minute to run the spell checker (although it's not always accurate - by the way, the plural of any abbreviation, such as TV is TVs, not TV's, as the spell checker will mislead the user to believe) and to proofread. If something doesn't make sense to you on a re-read, it probably won't make sense to anyone else, either. I don't judge someone solely based on grammar, but if it's the only thing they give me, I have little choice.

OK stop!

Spellchecker or no, it is a reflection on one's education, and intelligence, and ability to propagate quality offspring, and where you live, and your religion, and how you vote, and what you watch on TV (hopefully very very little), and what church to which you belong (hopefully none), and your liquidible wealth, and how much land you own, and who your parents were, and grandparents, and if you're a drug abuser, and if you beat your children, and on and on as I say...!

Oh dear, my meds...give me my meds, dearest!

Nooooooo some of us have grammaritist and spelleroris
.. your just being mean

yeha I know it's you're.. wanna fight about it.

^^ actually you can blame qwerty for some of my problems.. it's just designed for typos when you type fast..
Ok 90% joules, 10% qwerty.

Actually...it was over 400 years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_Alphabeticall

Never, ever confuse Partisan Hack with any facts.

quibling over a digit rather than the message? bill?

Hear! Hear!

@Division by Zero -

You do know the plural of "IM" is "IMs" not "IM's", right?

Hehe - sorry, have to give you a hard time - but I'm guessing you did what everyone should, which is to run a spell check (or have an active one, like I do through Google Toolbar), which will tell you that "IMs" is incorrect. That's a huge part of the problem, online, in schools, and in the professional world: people use the spell checker instead of doing a manual proofread. My father once received a memo that had so many words that were used incorrectly that he thought it was a joke. It wasn't. The boss had just run a quick spell check and sent the memo out. He looked like a fool.

My grammar is far from perfect, however, there are some basic rules that I feel make the flow of communication a little smoother:

There = "There is a monkey on the loose over there!"
They're = "They're not doing anything about that monkey!"
Their = "They got their monkey back."

Your = "Your monkey has escaped!"
You're = "You're a fool for letting the monkey out of his cage."
Yore = "This reminds me of the days of yore when monkeys roamed without restriction."

Monkeys = (plural) "There are several monkeys in the roof."
Monkey's = (possessive) "That is the monkey's banana."
Monkeys' = (plural possessive) "Those are the monkeys' bananas."
(True even when the word is an abbreviation or acronym, such as "TVs," TV's," and "TVs'".)

(Except the word "it," the plural form of which is its, as is the possessive. The only time an apostrophe is used is in the contraction "it is" - "it's.")

I know, I'm a geek.

What are we supposed to do about websites or whatnot that do not recognize the apostrophe. You write -- he's -- and their system puts a big gap with no aporstrophe between the e and the s. I had this happen a couple times in a recent article I wrote for Newsvine, and I had to go back and write out the contraction or just leave off an apostrophe.

@Minnie -

Writing out the contraction is the only choice in that case. Of course, when it's a possessive, you'd just have to leave off the apostrophe (or put in a comma - haha!) On the 'Vine, in that case, I'd send a bug report.

That's another problem with the Internet - even the authors of websites don't seem to give a whit about spelling and grammar - so they will ignore crucial programming - like allowing apostrophes.

You do know the plural of "IM" is "IMs" not "IM's", right?

Thatʼs actually a question of which style guide one is following, and isn't (yet) a hard and fast rule of grammar. Some sources prefer a pluralizing apostrophe for acronyms.

Some people like to use an apostrophe plus s to make certain words and terms plural; others prefer to skip the apostrophe and just use s. For example, the New York Times writes CD's when they're talking about more than one CD; other newspapers just say CDs.

Both ways are correct; inclusion of the apostrophe is a matter of preference. Whichever way you choose, be sure to stay consistent.

http://www.sparknotes.com/writing/style/topic_21.html

I love the false non-contractions would of, could of and should of.

would've, etc.

Is all this a sign of a poor education? Not always- but it does mean a lack of the requisite four years of Latin (groan). Further:

There- adverbial indicator
They're- contraction of 3rd person plural, present indicative of the verb "to be"
Their- plural possessive pronoun, 3rd person.

@spiffie -

According the AP Stylebook (the journalistic guide to style), the simple pluralization of an acronym does not have an apostophe between the acronym and the "S." This is true also of the MLA (Modern Language Association - the college and university standard) and their style guide. The Chicago Manual of Style (writers, novelists, poets) agrees.

You're right - it's all about the style guide. I tend to use the Chicago Manual of Style the most simply because I use it in my creative writing and I've had to use it in previous jobs. I don't know of a specific style guide for the Internet - but I would just determine what type of item you are writing, and use the appropriate guide.

@demmywemmy -

The contractions would've, should've, and could've substitute for would have, should have, and could have not would of, should of, and could of. They sound similar, but a contract of "would of" into "would've" wouldn't make any sense. I.e.:

"I would have called them sooner, but my monkey stole the phone" becomes "I would've called them sooner, but my monkey stole the phone."

"I would of course love to pet your monkey" does not make sense with the contraction "would've" because "I would've course love to pet your monkey" becomes "I would have course love to pet your monkey."

But those contractions are awkward at the best of times (like "ain't"). I know there are many posts I should've used something else. ;-)

Well, Iʼm not advocating an Internet style guide. The point was that, AP style guide notwithstanding, there are style guides out there (even within journalism, as the NY Times example should point out) with different usage. Itʼs no more "correct" to use an apostrophe for pluralized acronyms than not to use one (although I tend to prefer it not be used in non-possessive usages). Thatʼs a different situation entirely from something like their/there/they're confusion, which isn't a matter of style so much as it's a mistake.

@spiffie -

We'll agree to disagree. I see the apostrophe after an acronym as simply a writer using their spell checker and not doing any true proofreading. I do understand that other style guides differ, I was just referring to the style guides that are considered to be "standard."

I do think, however, that there should be an Internet style guide. Someone could make some money on that one...

I donʼt see how to reconcile these two statements:

I see the apostrophe after an acronym as simply a writer using their spell checker and not doing any true proofreading.

I do understand that other style guides differ, I was just referring to the style guides that are considered to be "standard."

If you can see that style guides differ on the issue, how can you simultaneously dismiss such usage as the result of lazy writers? If the writers were following a style guide that advocated a pluralizing apostrophe, thatʼs the exact opposite of laziness. Itʼs just not adherence to the style guide that you prefer.

Before dismissing other writers as being deficient in proofreading, I think the standard ought to be a little more rigorous. If the usage is not applied consistently throughout, then there might be a case for sloppy editing.

but it does mean a lack of the requisite four years of Latin (groan).

To this day, I still remember the eight prepositions that take the ablative case.

And you actually us all that great ablativus absolutus knowledge still ? yikes......I'm glad I took the easy way out with just math and physic and engineering class's..

@spiffie -

How many people on Internet forums do you think use a style guide? If I read an article or comment that is well written and without major typos or spelling mistakes, but they use an apostrophe with an acronym, then I can attribute it to a stylistic difference.

More often I come across articles or comments that clearly haven't been proofread (their instead of there, etc) but the writer has run the spell checker. In that instance, I believe it to simply be laziness, not a stylistic difference.

I also discount the stylistic difference argument a little because the three "standard" style guides all say that in modern writing plural acronyms do not have an apostrophe before the "S." But I think you'll find the Wikipedia entry interesting:

The traditional style of pluralizing single letters with the addition of 's (for example, B's come after A's) was extended to some of the earliest initialisms, which tended to be written with periods to indicate the omission of letters; some writers still pluralize initialisms in this way. Some style guides continue to require such apostrophes—perhaps partly to make it clear that the lower case s is only for pluralization and would not appear in the singular form of the word, for some acronyms and abbreviations do include lowercase letters.

However, it has become common among many writers to inflect initialisms as ordinary words, using simple s, without an apostrophe, for the plural. In this case, compact discs becomes CDs. The logic here is that the apostrophe should be restricted to possessives: for example, the CD's label (the label of the compact disc).

See, again you seem to be holding two contradictory views. Why are you discounting a stylistic difference while simultaneously admitting that an otherwise well-written comment which uses a pluralizing apostrophe would indicate such a difference? Simply using a pluralizing apostrophe is not a sufficient condition for concluding lack of proofreading for the simple fact that the pluralizing apostrophe is not a "mistake". Itʼs a matter of convention. That's completely different than choosing the wrong spelling or writing a run-on sentence, both of which are clearly errors.

and isn't (yet) a hard and fast rule of grammar

Being as there are none. Just rather arbitrary guidelines which will always, almost by definition, be out-of-sync with the spoken language. And chatting and writing online, I think, tends to veer more toward "spoken language written down in some fashion" than to real "writing", the way people choose to apply "rules". A lot of the time, anyway, and especially on boards, blogs, chatrooms, etc.

And, to DbZ - the Queen's English? Even if you're a Texan?

Really?

Being as there are none.

Shh!

My point was that at the level of usage, the pluralizing apostrophe is more analogous to the color/colour or -ize/-ise difference than it is to a genuine mistake (e.g. "pedifile", like here).

I see the apostrophe after an acronym as simply a writer using their spell checker and not doing any true proofreading. I do understand that other style guides differ, I was just referring to the style guides that are considered to be "standard."

Style guide or not, in some cases you're much safer adding the apostrophe. In my company we deal with government regulations and acronyms (up to our eyeballs) daily. Some of the database systems that we use are not case-sensitive. In order to make it clearly understood that we're pluralizing an acronym and not creating or using some totally different one, the apostrophe -s construction is required. In our particular acronym world there's a world of difference between AFA'S and AFAS and you don't want to confuse the reader. As a consequence, this style bleeds over into our email and IM conversations just to be on the safe side. If you've never had to deal with an alphabet soup of acronyms it's much easier to see logic in the -s with no apostrophe plural construction.

@spiffie -

I didn't say I was dismissing the stylistic differences, just saying that I don't feel it's the strongest argument.

@Division -

That makes sense, and is actually why the apostrophe after an acronym for a plural was standard use (see the Wikipedia article above).

I never said it was a mortal sin. It's just irritating. But I can see who it can just be a stylistic difference, so I'll let it go.

I enjoy good grammar and spelling too. And I'm 22 and a college student! Every time I see something like, "u want 2 get lunch l8er?" I just cringe, even though it's supposed to be my generation's thing. What can I say...I'm a bit snobby sometimes too.

I agree with you Eddie. When I was in grad school and when I write for compensation for edited MSM media I always compose my drafts in longhand and I'm a very good typist. I find it easier to write in that fashion and doing so also tends to lessen the potential number of transliterations of usage which can easily happen when typing like typing "it's" when you mean "its".

Glcbarrfr vf zl frpbaq ynathntr...naq V fcrnx vg syhragyl ?

48 65 72 65 20 69 73 20 61 20 65 61 73 79 20 6f 6e 65 20 66 6f 72 20 79 6f 75

ʎlʇuǝnlɟ ʇı ʞɐǝds ı puɐ˙˙˙ǝƃɐnƃuɐl puoɔǝs ʎɯ sı ǝsǝǝuodʎʇ

Yup Yup,
TY on the 411 Tedd...lmao..rotflmao
Word
Excuse the delay in response..I am rusty in 6f 3a

-. --- .--. .-. --- -... .-.. . -- .-.-.- .. .- -- .--. .-. . - - -.-- .-. ..- ... - -.-- -- -.-- ... . .-.. ..-. .-.-.-

I tutor English and I correct and review student papers, and very, very rarely, I get a "cuz" or something similar. I'm amazed that you actually see OMG and the like! Well, maybe I'll get lucky.

Indeed. It's easy to miss the wisdom of people who don't speak in the right accent or with the right word patterns.

And I mean "right" not right.