Is anyone else annoyed by lack of grammar?

Post Reply New Topic

& the rest of the internet. BTW I was not aware that a person's intelligence was determined by how well his/her usage of grammar is. English professors must be smartest people on the planet.


I might would do that online if most sites would let me. I occasionally have to use punctuation different than how I want here or leave a space sometimes because the punctuation displays a smile/emotion. i know it was probably wrong in the 1st place but still

Bad spelling and grammar annoy the schist out of me! I mean, I know I don't always have perfect grammar myself, but still ... And it's something I understand if someone has dyslexia, but besides that ...

It sounds like you don't belong on this forum.
You're new, and if it "infuriates" you so badly, just don't come on here. It's that simple.
You can't expect everyone to comply to your wants and use proper grammar just because a lack of proper grammar annoys you.

.s

Last edited by Jonsi on 09 Jan 2011, 4:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I find it annoying. Unless the person is of a different language, it annoys me greatly. Though, I've learned to not care.

It's a damn poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word. - Andrew Jackson

Poor grammar annoys me when it makes it difficult to understand what the person is saying or writing. I won't complain too much since my grammar and spelling are not always of the very finest, but I do appreciate it when someone makes the effort to make themselves understood clearly and plainly.

Ultimately, I feel the issue comes down to communication. If you can efficiently communicate your meaning in an utterly un-grammatical manner, then you have accomplished the assumed goal in the transaction. In that instance grammar is irrelevant. But mostly, good grammar is the best way to efficiently communicate, so I would advocate it.

Example:

"Don't kill Jagatai."

"Don't kill, Jagatai."

These two sentences are saying different things. Therefore, you are irritated because of the mistake of leaving out the comma, or are you not irritated because one has the ability to infer what the person meant based on context?

To the original poster... while I didn't use to get quite as annoyed with it as you do, less than three years back, I did get rather annoyed with it... but then I met a girl via the Internet that became my girlfriend, and her grammar was pretty bad, so I learnt having an easier time with people's poor grammar, because of her. The relationship eventually ended, but my experience with her has stayed with me, and it frustrates me far less, now... at least when in the English language, anyway; I still get rather bothered with poor grammar in the Swedish language... -_- but I don't keep to Swedish forums, and the grammatical errors that mainly bother me in Swedish are ones that show in text.

As a side note, while I am very good with English and Swedish grammar, I take liberties in both languages - in English, I mix British English with other sorts of English, to form what I like the most, and I also do enjoy using some "unofficial" words... and in Swedish, it's basically the same - I use words that do not yet exist in the Swedish language, but definitely should - new words that, when using, you get understood, anyway... I imagine that this may bother some, but I couldn't care less - why would I adjust to the incompetence of the Swedish academy? I am far more capable of forming the language than any of them.

I guess the grammatical errors that bother me the most are the ones that change the meaning of what you are saying... but I understand that it is difficult with these things, for many, so I do my best not to comment on it... and it's mostly just seen as annoying, if you do, anyway.

Last edited by Beauty_pact on 09 Jan 2011, 3:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm annoyed by the grammar police. Also the fact people play dumb over a typo. I now get snarky about it. I have this line in my head for next time on a forum if someone does it to me, "Go back and read my post and maybe your common sense will kick in and it will now be obvious to you what the word was supposed to say. I will just leave that typo just for you."

I just ignore poorly written posts and posts that are block texts because they are so hard to read and they do annoy me. But just as long as I can understand what is written, I don't care for errors.

Also some people have learning disabilities so I can understand why they have so many spelling and grammatical errors.

I'll state this for the record as, I have been on WP for almost 4yrs now I'm sure 95% of my posts probably don't make any sense due to my use of grammar structure and the rules that surround.
Yes, I'm not lazy or sloth-like by any means but, I do have sincere difficulty however, I try my utmost best..

+100

I couldn't give a rat't arse about alleged poor grammar of some posters. Apart from some obvious misspellings in the titles - the meaning was clear enough at most times, and that's what matters. People here are stressed enough and don't need some "grammar police" as it was accurately stated above.

What some don't like - they are free to ignore. I'm sure they won't be severely punished if they don't feel obliged to comment on the threads that they dislike.

But then again, for those that have troubles with spelling, there is a possibility of installing spell checkers - which a non native speaker like me finds very useful.

A case in point: It took me some time to figure out what was being said all because the apparent reversal of the words "are" and "you" (see bold text in above quote - last sentence) This kind of thing drives me nuts because I would just like to read the sentence and quickly understand the meaning without having to take apart the words and reconstruct an intelligible idea. And even then, I'm not sure I understood your meaning as well as you might want.

In the don't kill me example, if the meaning is obvious from the context, it only bothers me a little. How much I am bothered is usually a factor of how much extra effort is required to understand the meaning. If the grammar is so bad that I actually have to parse the sentence to figure it out, I might be inclined to say "to heck with it," and move on to some other message.

I think good written communication should should not feel as if you are reading. Ideally it should feel like your ideas are entering my mind in a smooth, uninterrupted flow of concepts, imagery, reason etc. If there are points in the sentences that I stumble over, like rocks on a sidewalk, then I get distracted from the communication between you and me and sometimes lose the thread of the idea. While I don't mind a bit of work in reading and I'm fairly forgiving especially in a forum like this, I prefer smooth, unencumbered communication.

Above, there are several grammatical mistakes that I have underlined, and I have included corrections.

EDIT: changed from "bold" to "underline" due to the fact that it is quite difficult to distinguish bold punctuation from non-bold punctuation.

Last edited by jmnixon95 on 09 Jan 2011, 6:25 pm, edited 3 times in total.

This thread is going to turn ugly, in short order.