Is this because I'm an aspie? - Grammar, spelling, punctuat

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Verdandi
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13 Mar 2011, 6:01 pm

old_fool wrote:
Verdandi wrote:
If you know enough to correct their language, you know what they meant all along, and thus your correction is probably completely unnecessary.
Again, who said anything about correcting?


I stand corrected: You don't correct people.

Do you see what I am saying in the rest of my post?



Apple_in_my_Eye
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13 Mar 2011, 8:21 pm

old_fool wrote:
I can understand dialectical differences. I'm perfectly fine with them. I do not believe you can in any way excuse the confusion of "there" with "their", "here" with "hear" and "its" with "it's". There is a reason why we have words: we have words in order to be able to communicate. If we start morphing words with completely different meanings into the same word, then meaning is lost, along with information and communication.


Well, I can't believe that if someone uses "their" where "there" is normally used in a sentence, that most people won't be able to figure out what they meant. It's not as if misusing one word suddenly makes the entire sentence as incomprehensible as if it were written in a foreign language.

I used to be a grammar Nazi, too, but then 'stuff happened' and my cognitive abilities changed. Now, I can now see very easily how grammar and such can be difficult. In the short span of time I might spend working out which "their/there/they're" to use I am likely to forget most of my original thought. So, I take care to get the idea out first and worry about the grammar and punctuation later. I do go back and try to correct any such errors, but my brain simply does not handle intricate information of that sort as well as it used to. And, in the end, the overall message means more to me than the grammar and punctuation.

It is interesting how non-standard use of language still conveys meaning -- and maybe a meaning that standard language might be hard-pressed to communicate. I'm thinking of poetry, mostly, but also slang, and even mixed-language "pidgin," as well.

I.e. Poetry read literally usually makes no sense, yet our human brains are nonetheless able to receive meaning from it (though the interpretation may be less certain than with standard language).

I think that's because our brains don't process language like a computer program. We don't truly have "syntax errors" which completely halt the interpretive process. Instead, we have a fuzzy, associative, connotative, and overall mysterious process that is "alive" (grows, adapts, changes on it's own).

I can understand worrying about language drifting too much, but I think there's enough room for it to drift in such that our brains will be able to adapt (I think the way our brains work actually promotes drift).

(Not trying to ram my point into the ground with all that; just got off onto an interesting thought.)



Bethie
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13 Mar 2011, 10:34 pm

I can agree that it's a class issue, at least in my experience.

I'm of a fairly affluent familial background, and have some college experience,
but it's hardly "snobbery" when I literally CANNOT understand most members of a lower socioeconomic class I encounter when they speak.
I've often wondered if the educational and income gap between those who are more and less educated and those who are rich and poor (and of course there's unfortunately a racial correlation with those groups)
will eventually become so great that there will come to be two classes who will need translators to communicate.

I see posts online all the time from English speakers that are barely-decipherable.


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