A Question of Grammar....................

[Just Katie]

[quote user="Loiseau"][quote user="Will "]

...the use of the upper case I for the first person singular is something I have always wondered about. It seems to attach an undue importance to one's self. After all, you only write 'He' when referring to Jesus... 

[/quote]

It is odd. 
But we get off lightly compared to German-speaking countries, where every noun has to have a capital letter!

Angela

[/quote]

I always thought the Germans spoke fluently in capital letters.[Www]

[Clair]

[quote user="Christine Animal"]Someone who adopted a couple of dogs from us and has become a very good friend had not had a computer until very recently.  She has got on to internet (now should that have a capital I?) and regularly sends me emails. It is new to her and she is having a go.  At the beginning the typing was far from perfect, but that did not matter to me, it's what's behind it that counts. Just to say that not everyone is a dab hand at typing and/or spelling... [/quote]

You have an addded incentive to find out what the message is about: that person is a friend, you have affinities with him or her and you know he or she is new at computing, so it's obvious you will go straight to the content of the message rather than its form.

[Bastet]

[quote user="cooperlola"]

As a little aside about punctuation, capital letters and computers.  If you were taught to touch type, as I was, it is extremely irritating that some of the punctuation, plus the way the shift lock is organised, on a computer key board, is different from conventional typewriters . 

The thing that really gets my goat - "could of" and "should of" etc instead of could 've or have and should 've or have!  Grrr...

[/quote]

I agree.. and then to use a French keyboard with a ZERTY keyboard and completely different key functions is yet another challenge..

I cringe when I hear " got off of the..." instead of "got off the ..."      

[cooperlola]

Bastet, there are loads of these meaningless and useless little words creeping into things.  Why do we park and meet "up" these days?  I just used to park the car and meet people!

[Christine Animal]

[quote user="Clair"][quote user="Christine Animal"]Someone who adopted a couple of dogs from us and has become a very good friend had not had a computer until very recently.  She has got on to internet (now should that have a capital I?) and regularly sends me emails. It is new to her and she is having a go.  At the beginning the typing was far from perfect, but that did not matter to me, it's what's behind it that counts. Just to say that not everyone is a dab hand at typing and/or spelling... [/quote]
You have an addded incentive to find out what the message is about: that person is a friend, you have affinities with him or her and you know he or she is new at computing, so it's obvious you will go straight to the content of the message rather than its form.
[/quote]

No, that's not what I meant Clair.  Whether it's a friend or on here, that person probably is trying.  Not everyone has had the same education and they are probably doing their best, it's not always that they don't bother.  They may also be very more capable than some in other fields.  This type of thread may make certain people reluctant to post as they may feel judged by others.

Each person has his way of expressing himself and should be respected.  At least that's how I see it.

 

 

[Dick Smith]

[quote user="powerdesal"][quote user="Will"]

It's not as easy as you may think to be a journalist. Even the Daily Star has a style book.

[/quote]

I imagine it must be pretty bare [:P]

[/quote]

Possibly not. Like any publication the Star has a target audience and must use an appropriate register for that audience, and that will have been carefully assessed. The vocabulary will be smaller, probably by quite a lot, compared to that of the journalists themselves, and there will be forms and stylistic conventions which they will have to use to get ideas across with that smaller vocabulary.

As far as being new to computers is concerned, I don't think that mastery of the caps key is all that hard...

One of my bugbears (sorry, Gary) at the moment is the splash page for Blueyonder Webmail, which asks me if I am 'Fed up of puny mailboxes' - Aaaaaargh!

For it is written 'Eat it up before it gets cold'.

[cooperlola]

i srt ov tak yr pnt christeen but evn if u cn unnerstd ths is it stll ok 2 do it

[Dick Smith]

Even if it is lazy and almost impossible to understand?

I must try that line at work...

For it is said, 'Pull the other one, it has got Bells on it.'

[cooperlola]

[quote user="Dick Smith"]Even if it is lazy and almost impossible to understand?

I must try that line at work...



For it is said, 'Pull the other one, it has got Bells on it.'
[/quote]Quite.  I have every sympathy with those who have trouble expressing themselves and am quite happy to make allowances for those who have real problems such as dyslexia or are perhaps not intellectually gifted.  But when it is self-evident that somebody knows how to write correct English - albeit with the odd mistake or typing error - why won't they do so?  If it's OK to write lazily, Dick, don't you sometimes wonder why you're bothering to teach the next generation not to do so?

[Clair]

[quote user="Christine Animal"]This type of thread may make certain people reluctant to post as they may feel judged by others. Each person has his way of expressing himself and should be respected.  At least that's how I see it.[/quote]

2 points to answer here:

• the fact that I choose to ignore some posts, for whatever reason, does not mak me judgemental of the poster. I may simply be not interested, for whatever reason... I do not feel I have to make myself feel  annoyed just to make someone else feel better.

• I respect everyone's right to express himself or herself in whatever manner he or she chooses and in return, I respectfully ask the right to choose what I want to read... [:)]

[Christine Animal]

Absolutely Clair, noone is forcing you to read it.  It seems you missed my point again, so did Cooperlola with her sympathy and her allowances for others.

Eh ben !

 

[YCCMB]

[quote user="Dick Smith"][quote user="powerdesal"][quote user="Will"]

It's not as easy as you may think to be a journalist. Even the Daily Star has a style book.

[/quote]

I imagine it must be pretty bare [:P]
[/quote]

Possibly not. Like any publication the Star has a target audience and must use an appropriate register for that audience, and that will have been carefully assessed. The vocabulary will be smaller, probably by quite a lot, compared to that of the journalists themselves, and there will be forms and stylistic conventions which they will have to use to get ideas across with that smaller vocabulary.
.
[/quote]

I was surprised (no, maybe I wasn't) when I did a lesson on the different newspapers with my advanced-level ESOL students, to discover that they found the broadsheets easier to read and understand than any of the tabloids. The language and register used by the tabloids is, in general, so far removed from everything they had come across elsewhere, that they may as well (they said) have been reading another language altogether.

[Pads]

At the end of the day does it matter , as long as we arnt out there clubbing people to death, stealing from people worse off than our selfs , or abusing children , a few commas and capitals is squiddly dot really isnt it? Its people who belittle others that make such mistakes that I feel sorry for [Www] guess they need to make them selves feel big when they have little else to worry about.............  

[Christine Animal]

In a nutshell, well said again Pads.   [kiss]

 

[Bugsy]

"Can someone please advise as to what is correct in relation to the use of the letter ' i ' when used as in "I went out today". Several posters on here would write that as "i went out today".

There seems to be a slight misunderstanding on this thread. I merely asked a question, thats all. When I was at school we were taught to use a capital and I simply wondered if that had changed. No other reason, no 'hidden agenda'. simply a question.

Lighten up guys and gals.

[WJT]

I agree with Christine. A good example for me, I won't say who he is but is an older male relative of mine [Www]. He has an MBA and was very successful (retired now), he ran a very large corporation. He comes from the age before computers and used a secretary for dictation. His emails are similar to Christine's friend, those of you here that judge people on typing and grammar skills would think he was illiterate and he is far from it.

As Christine says I think threads such as this could deter some very intelligent and interesting people from participating. To my mind someone that is good at typing and grammar doesn't necessarily mean they are intelligent. To take it even further, I have known some professional students and academics in my life that didn't have any common sense, in fact, there was one that I believe would have had a hard time tying his shoes [:D].

Therefore I hope others can overlook some of my typing mistakes because it is certainly something I try to overlook in a post. I won't even mention the other very intelligent but poor typist and speller I happen to share a life with [:)].

[Will]

Hi Bugbear

No, it hasn't changed.

If that's all that was said, it may have done what you were looking for, but Dick and everybody else would not have had half as good a discussion.

Edit - looks like the discussion is still going on, I was replying to you and somebody slipped in another post

[YCCMB]

On a personal note,  my eldest son (20) went through a phase a couple of years ago of writing "i" when referring to himself. We had several arguments about this, as I tried to explain to him that, whilst he saw it as a form of self-expression (he's an art student, what can I tell you?) most other people would see it as an indication that he was illiterate, or, at best, poorly educated.What I found slightly odder was that he would type "I" but handwrite "i"............. He's grown out of it now.  I can understand and accept many mistakes, but I really do think that, however tolerant anyone says they are about this, they would accept that it's really not asking too much to know (and use) "I" when writing about oneself. Even ESOL students in my beginners' classes who come from countries with different alphabets, and who have trouble writing English, seem to master this quite easily. Punctuation is a different matter, as is use of language generally. If, however, we're sticking to the original question, then I'd be really surprised if anyone who does use "i" really believes that it's correct.

[Clair]

(big sigh)There are some who choose to write that way and it puts me off their posts.

Just because I choose to ignore some posts, for whatever reason, does not mean I label the posters as illiterate or unintelligent or whatever else...

For instance, I do not read posts about bikes, animals, schools, babies... unless someone reports them to the mods. I am simply not interested enough to read the posts... That's all...

big sigh there are some who choose to write that way and it puts me off their posts just

because i choose to ignore some posts for whatever reasondoes not

mean I label the posters as illiterate or unintelligent or whatever

else for instance i do not read posts about bikes animals schools babies unless someone reports them to the mods i am simply

not interested enough to read the posts that,s all

[Christine Animal]

Big sigh !  Clair I just had to read what you said twice.   [:D]

 

[Dick Smith]

[quote user="Pads"]At the end of the day does it matter , as long as we arnt out there clubbing people to death, stealing from people worse off than our selfs , or abusing children , a few commas and capitals is squiddly dot really isnt it? Its people who belittle others that make such mistakes that I feel sorry for [Www] guess they need to make them selves feel big when they have little else to worry about.............  [/quote]

Yes it matters. It matters when people need to make their meaning clear, either in terms of intellectual content or instructions, notes of agreement and many other cases. It isn't difficult to write well, and with clarity, to re-read what has been written and correct where necessary. And yes, when I read posts like this, I wonder why I bother. Seriously. What is the point of teaching anybody anything when all you can do is make paranoid statements about people 'making them selves feel big'?

How about addition and subtraction? No need for accuracy there, obviously. How about wiring a circuit? Close enough is good enough. And in medicine? Law? Make it up as you go along...

This has been a good-natured thread until now, but this is just daft. Sorry.

[Christine Animal]

Surely you cannot compare exchange on a forum with professional documents.  Obviously in this case it would not pass.

Maybe this forum should just be left to the "elite".   [:P]

You have often made mistakes in French Dick and noone has picked you up on it, such as your Gratin Dauphinoise.

 

[Clair]

But are we talking about mistakes or choices?

[Dick Smith]

[quote user="Christine Animal"]

Surely you cannot compare exchange on a forum with professional documents.  Obviously in this case it would not pass.

Maybe this forum should just be left to the "elite".   [:P]

You have often made mistakes in French Dick and noone has picked you up on it, such as your Gratin Dauphinoise.

 

[/quote]

Then do so - always willing to learn - maybe that's the difference? Did I leave the 'e' off? Or put it in?

And we aren't talking about a spelling error, we are talking about ignoring basic rules - don't try and work this up into some 'elitist' thing.

For example, you should really have put a comma after 'Dick'...

[Christine Animal]

Come on then, let's have a go !   [:P]

I thought you didn't put a comma before "and", but I see what you mean in the sense of the sentence.

Maybe some people don't have the basic rules, but are doing the best they can.  There are of course those who try to play the part of someone else as we see very often.

Yes, you put an e on Dauphinois, when gratin is masculine (but it doesn't matter!   [:)] ).