Better spelling/grammar/punctuation

[TylerDurden]

I have been most annoyed by the huge number of spelling-mistakes, punctuation-mistakes, and grammatical  errors made by members here. KD and Sabertooth are the worst in this regard. As a former prize-winning spelling-bee at school, I constantly feel compelled to edit peoples' posts in order to make their English more correct, and make this forum look better in the public eye. I mean, it is  damned irritating to see words like "scared arteries" instead of "scarred arteries", for example. Please could people always check their posts afterwards in order to correct any possible mistakes?

Also, for the foreigners among us, the singular of the word "species" is also "species", NOT "specie".

[eveheart]

(1) spelling-mistakes... (2) punctuation-mistakes... (3) spelling-bee... (4) peoples' posts... (5) "scared arteries"

(1) omit hyphen: spelling mistakes
(2) omit hyphen: punctuation mistakes
(3) insert word: e. g., winner or champion
(4) move apostrophe: people's posts (the posts of people)
(5) why not scared arteries? Sometimes arteries git reely reely frigthened.

Confidential to TD: Never, ever even think about emigrating to the US to become a teacher. It would drive you completely insane. We are beyond hope.

[jessica]

no mention huh? 

[eveheart]

no mention huh? 

The trouble is, Jessica, that your spelling and grammar are decent. This thread is for spelling/punctuation/grammar. One category alone does not qualify you for the coveted triple crown. In addition, your punctuation is often missing, but not incorrect. For now, just work. On making some punctuation errors?

edit: I left out a space between a full stop and the beginning of the next sentence. Yikes!

[TylerDurden]

I'm not really so bothered with punctuation errors as that isn't so important on the Internet. It's just the bad spelling and bad grammar( eg:- wrongly using "is" instead of "are" when describing more than one thing etc.)

[miles]

Haha omfg I almost uber-failed. I don't care about grammatical errors, but what I do love is re-correcting people who falsely correct other people.

I was going to write that Eveheart's correction of Tyler's "Peoples'" was incorrect and that he was right. Glad I realised quickly enough to remove that post before anyone saw xD I was so eager to do it that I blundered in without really thinking about it. It's late.

[goodsamaritan]

Also, for the foreigners among us, the singular of the word "species" is also "species", NOT "specie".

You mean non-native-English speakers.

[TylerDurden]

You mean non-native-English speakers.

Sorry, yes that's what I meant.

[wodgina]

This is why I keep coming back here!

[eveheart]

So, how would you define a native speaker of English? This question was posed in another forum http://www.englishforums.com/English/HowWouldDefineNativeSpeakerEnglish/xwmc/post.htm

Q: How would you define "native speaker of english"? Someone who has been speaking English since the day he was born? Or someone who come from a race which orginally speaks English?

A: My first instinctive answer - anyone from an English speaking country who learns from birth from a parent - falls apart now I stop to consider. A person could be raised in a non-English speaking country by native-English speaking parents and that would, in my opinion, also make them a native speaker.

Tricky. I could say they need to learn it from birth and have native English speaking parents but on the other hand, there are plenty of second generation British people, whose parents may not actually have good English, but who themselves I would consider native speakers as they have grown up in a native English environment, and their English is perfectly 'native'.

So I guess I would say there needs to be at least one of two conditions:
To grow up exposed to the language of a native English speaking country and/or
To have native English speaking parents.

But again, on consideration there are problems with this. Someone whose parents are native speakers of a different language to the country they are growing up in, quite often are not completely fluent in their parents' original language. (Again with the example of second generation immigrants in mind).

Also, some countries are officially English speaking, but it is not the same as what I would call a native version of the language. Again, an example, I know a lot of people from Nigeria, whose official language is English and have learnt it from virtual babyhood along with an African language, and have done all their schooling in English. However, they are not native speakers and would not describe themselves as such once they have encountered actual native speakers. One said it came as a terrible shock to come to Britain and find a terrible language barrier after speaking what he thought was British English for nearly 50 years. He was unable to understand most people, and most people were unable to understand him.

... It is just people from Britain, USA, Australia and NZ who are the native speakers or do other versions of English also count as 'native'? ... perhaps only British people speak native English - as even the USA has left the British version behind....

[TylerDurden]

Look, it was just an oversight, nothing more to read into it!  I just used that word because I was writing fast and wanted to use a simple word rather than something convoluted like "non-native english-speakers".

[raw-al]

Here's a question,,, How do you spell paleo  ?

I disagree that fat is all that important - and wild animals have always been very lean due to doing exercise, it's only domesticated animals that can build up large amounts of fat. Plus, HGs in palaeo times would have eaten the raw organs as well, some of which are very fatty indeed. The meats I get currently are mostly raw muscle-meats.

[raw-al]

Let's try that again, class, how do you spell "paleolithic" ?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2055067/Back-Stone-Age-Trendy-restau
rant-serves-food-available-caveman-ancestors.html

Can't personally access the website due to PC difficulties but this is about a Berlin restaurant, apparently, serving cooked, palaeolithic diet menus.

Hopefully, some German member here can point out to them that people were eating all-raw for 90 percent of the palaeolithic era, so that we can also have raw-meat dishes there as well.

[raw-al]

Answer
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/paleolithic

[raw-al]

I have been most annoyed by the huge number of spelling-mistakes, punctuation-mistakes, and grammatical  errors made by members here. KD and Sabertooth are the worst in this regard. As a former prize-winning spelling-bee at school, I constantly feel compelled to edit peoples' posts in order to make their English more correct, and make this forum look better in the public eye. I mean, it is  damned irritating to see words like "scared arteries" instead of "scarred arteries", for example. Please could people always check their posts afterwards in order to correct any possible mistakes?

Also, for the foreigners among us, the singular of the word "species" is also "species", NOT "specie".

Something is either correct or not correct. Something cannot be "more" correct anymore than one can make a woman "more pregnant". She is either pregnant or not pregnant.

I used to be a spelling bee winner also but I do not presume to know more than others. However Tyler, I do notice occasional spelling errors, but when you read the spelling from an American, you must bear in mind that their spelling is different. It is for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with England's superiority 

'mericans spells tings a wee bit different, ie. colour becomes color, valour, flavour, ardour, splendour, drop the u.

Indeed English spelling was all over the map until a dictionary was compiled. Some languages do not have a dictionary at all and so people spell things as they wish.

Just read an olde manuscripte from Shakespeare and you be befuddled by the spelling.

[raw-al]

I believe the official American dictionary is the Webster. The Canadian is the Oxford.

[eveheart]

Palaeo/paleo belongs in a different thread, perhaps Colour/color, or some such. In Latin, as I'm sure you know, the long-e sound was written as the diphthong ae.

Trouble is, of the thousands of spoken languages in the world, only a couple of hundred have a written form. Language is defined by usage, not by script. Since language is dynamic, not static, pronunciation and grammar change over time, and script lags behind. In addition, language fluctuates most when there are great numbers of non-native ("not born") speakers of that language. As a global language, English is in a major flux right now. Some of the so-called errors are vernacular shifts in usage. For example, here in my area, the irregular past participle form of verbs is vanishing. It used to be go-went-gone, now it's go-went-went. (I haven't went to the store yet.) Interrogative sentences have been taking a double-past form. (Did you went to the store?) Auxiliary verbs are changed or truncated. (We should of/shoulda went to the store.)

My reaction when I see this happen is (1) cringe and cry, then (2) sit back, accept the dynamic, and enjoy the ride. I have a first row seat to linguistics in action.

[Haai]

"We should of" or "we should have"?

[TylerDurden]

I never said that we should stick solely to British English spelling. Obviously, that is at a person's whim - but I do think people should at least get their own particular version's spelling right.

Personally, I find British English to make more sense. The British English words are spelt more like they did originally in Latin and Greek(excepting those which derived from other languages, of course), which is why British people who do Classics at school usually develop a much larger English vocabulary than others, as Boris Johnson once pointed out, I believe. I guess American English is more phonetic, though(-ize instead of -ise etc.)

[eveheart]

I say, vocabulary be damned, otherwise we would be dismissing the good, constructive thoughts of adult English learners and people whose schools did not offer courses in the Classics.

If written English expresses a writer's true thoughts, and if it is spelled in such a way so as to be understandable, I say, "Good enough!" Of the posters you referenced, I do not have trouble comprehending their informative posts. From one, I have gotten excellent understanding of how to handle raw meat on a carcass. From the other, I am learning much about effective fitness routines.

[TylerDurden]

We have to maintain certain standards. Otherwise, we will inevitably reach the point where people write "gr8" instead of "great", "U" instead of "you",is" instead of "are", where applicable etc. - it makes internet forums more unreadable and creates an impression of illiteracy, even if it was rather just a question of laziness on the author's part.

[PaleoPhil]

I have been most annoyed by the huge number of spelling-mistakes, punctuation-mistakes, and grammatical  errors made by members here. KD and Sabertooth are the worst in this regard. As a former prize-winning spelling-bee at school, I constantly feel compelled to edit peoples' posts in order to make their English more correct, and make this forum look better in the public eye. ....

OMG, HAHAHAHA this is classic over-the-top TylerDurden stuff. Fascinating to learn that you're a spelling bee. Thanks for the humorous interlude, Tyler! Too bad Ian Kalver isn't here to see this. He would love it! I may have to start intentionally misspelling to keep the fun going.

[TylerDurden]

Hmm, it seems "spelling bee" refers only to the spelling contest, not the participants. Well, it is a vague American expression I got from the TV series "Frasier".

[PaleoPhil]

I was just joking about your writing of "As a former prize-winning spelling-bee" instead of "As a former prize-winning spelling-bee participant...."

[Muhammad.Sunshine]

A good tip for improving readability is breaking up your ideas into small paragraphs. This technique makes it easy for your audience to read large bodies of text.