Forum Spelling Correction Etiquette

btoneill said:
AP in this case is the Associated Press, see http://www.apstylebook.com.

Brian
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Ah, thanks Brian! When she included "academic settings" in the same sentence, it kinda threw me off the "presses" train of thought. Kinda had "Advanced Placement" in mind, a la SAT.

Well, that's one question down. Would love to know about that "serial commas" thing... (using periods, not commas, to indicate the trailing off... :D )

-Sean
 
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peteypooldude said:
Dont boder me nun lol :D
I see nothing wrong with correcting someones spelling in a quote.
I goof up all the time. I have been using my daughters laptop and it is running on IE, unlike Firefox
it does not have spell-check. Makes it hard on me lol
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Sometimes I cut and paste to MS Word and compose my post with spell and grammar check that is in there before I paste back into AZB Forums.

Mostly, I don't care and I don't.

There are fewer spelling Nazis as of late....where's hondo?:wink::thumbup:
 
sfleinen said:
Ah, thanks Brian! When she included "academic settings" in the same sentence, it kinda through me off the "presses" train of thought. Kinda had "Advanced Placement" in mind, a la SAT.

Well, that's one question down. Would love to know about that "serial commas" thing... (using periods, not commas, to indicate the trailing off... :D )

-Sean
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There is a strong debate about the usage of serial commas in my industry.

Example with serial comma: The flag is red, white, and blue.
Example without serial comma: The flag is red, white and blue.

I am a strong advocate for serial commas.

Another thing they're doing in school these days is instructing their students to only place one space after the ending punctuation mark. I will always, always, always use two spaces, unless I am getting paid by somebody not to. :wink:

This forum's software only allows one space after the period, even though I always type two spaces.

About the ellipsis, that is another bone of contention. I never use an ellipsis or ellipses (plural) unless it is in quoted material.

Example: Lincoln said, "Four score...our fathers brought forth...."

Some people insert an ellipsis at the end of a broken thought, showing a person was trailing off and did not complete their sentence. Bulldingy on that. You use a double hyphen for those instances.

And don't even get me started on the en and em dashes. :grin-square:
 
You know, sometimes even though I use the 'spell check' it's those Dang Homonyms that gets me.

There are just two many words in English that sound alike. Although, I got skewed in US later years of my life, it steel doesn't make since too me at thymes.

I even have stockers who constantly pick on my replies and correct my spellings :(

S.

ps. I used my spell check on this reply - so don't peak on me :P
 
sfleinen said:
Ah, thanks Brian! When she included "academic settings" in the same sentence, it kinda threw me off the "presses" train of thought. Kinda had "Advanced Placement" in mind, a la SAT.

Well, that's one question down. Would love to know about that "serial commas" thing... (using periods, not commas, to indicate the trailing off... :D )

-Sean
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DIVA lol :killingme:
j/k of course
 
sfleinen said:
Well, that's one question down. Would love to know about that "serial commas" thing... (using periods, not commas, to indicate the trailing off... :D )

-Sean
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What you are wondering about is called an ellipsis. Serial commas has do with or without using commas before the "and" in a list. Depending on your use of ellipses it can actually be permissible according the the AP stylebook. There is a specific style of journalism that has been coined "three-dot journalism" in which ellipses are used to separate rambling thoughts.

Brian "The Grammar Nazi"
 
In my humble opinion...

Being a pool forum, I don't believe someone's ability to spell, or a lack thereof, should matter much at all. As long as we can understand one another, that is good enough for me.

I would always encourage people to try to do better with their spelling, along with all other aspects of grammar, however, I do not feel that it is my place to point out when they make a mistake or to correct their errors when quoting them.

Now, if we were in a writing composition forum, then...

Best,
Brian kc
 
I corrected someone recently when they used "peak" instead of "pique". Some misspelled words don't bother me at all, while others bother me quite a bit. I don't question my subconscious, I just do what it says.

Doesn't make me a diva, just makes me OCD :)
 
sunnyday said:
You know, sometimes even though I use the 'spell check' it's those Dang Homonyms that gets me.

There are just two many words in English that sound alike. Although, I got skewed in US later years of my life, it steel doesn't make since too me at thymes.

I even have stockers who constantly pick on my replies and correct my spellings :(

S.

ps. I used my spell check on this reply - so don't peak on me :P
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Everybody has their toughies. For me, it's immanent, eminent, and imminent. I have to look up the meaning of those words each and every time. I just cannot remember their meanings and get them mixed up. :o

On this forum, some common errors are these:

lose/loose
our/are
to/too
rediculous when it should be ridiculous

Texting has hurt our youth today when it comes to using proper spellings. The text champions are always under the age of 12 at the national championships. At a championship held in Arizona, when a 16-year-old came to compete, the other competitors laughed at him for even trying. He didn't have a prayer to win. :eek:

In the old days, we used to do math from scratch. Today's youth use calculators. :grin-square:
 
JAM said:
I've got my eye on the Optimus Maximum model which costs $1,600. Heck, they got keyboards that warm your fingers, and there's keyboards that light up the letters. There's egonomic keyboards, and there's even rubber keyboards. Keyboards makes a big different when banging posts.


Anyone care for a game of Scrabble? :eek:
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I may never get this chance again. :wink:
 
peteypooldude said:
DIVA lol :killingme:
j/k of course
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Of course, Petey; no offense taken. Yup, if that's the case -- that I care about how I present myself on these forums (remember, a rag-tag mixture of people from all walks of life) -- I'm guilty as charged. I'm a diva. :D

Now, how many balls did you say I have to spot you in a race to 150? :p

-Sean
 
These types of threads pop up on nearly every forum I've ever haunted, across a broad range of interests and topics. I would never correct grammar or punctuation issues in a quoted post, as I think that people often experiment with language, and this leads to communicating in different ways. However, if you gave me an essay to grade, I would be much more critical, and people would reasonably expect this. In the hallowed halls of academia, great emphasis is placed on such pursuits, but I realize this is not the case for other professions. No problem for me.
 
sfleinen said:
Of course, Petey; no offense taken. Yup, if that's the case -- that I care about how I present myself on these forums (remember, a rag-tag mixture of people from all walks of life) -- I'm guilty as charged. I'm a diva. :D

Now, how many balls did you say I have to spot you in a race to 150? :p

-Sean
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The question may be, How many do you need lol
 
JAM said:
There is a strong debate about the usage of serial commas in my industry.
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Therer's a good book about this: Eats, Shoots & Leaves

Here's where the title comes from:

"The title of the book is an amphibology—a verbal fallacy arising from an ambiguous grammatical construction—and derived from a joke on bad punctuation:

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.
'Why?' asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

'Well, I'm a panda,' he says, at the door. 'Look it up.'

The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. 'Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.'"



I've been a technical writer and newspaper guy. I've learned an important thing about grammar--it's constantly changing. I try to tone things down in forums, where the most important thing is getting a point across.

Know your audience.
 
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