Forum Spelling Correction Etiquette

Bob Callahan said:
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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That's a great analogy. :thumbup:

We got into a really heated debate about serial commas on my industry forum, and somebody posted up this cartoon. Everybody had a good chuckle and quit arguing about the serial commas thereafter. :o
 

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JAM said:
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:
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Thanks Jen! (And thanks to Brian, too!)

I rarely use ellipsis as well -- with one exception, and that's at the end of a sentence, to indicate the trailing off, or to express that I want the reader to do his/her own exercise in completing the sentence. (Not so much as a sentence joiner as you state above -- dashes are more appropriate for that -- but more in that I want you to complete my sentence. Perhaps that's unique to my industry, I.T., because when you "let" someone complete your sentence for you -- not all the time of course, but in key situations -- you can win concurrence and compliance with the very idea you're trying to sell.) And as for ellipsis in the middle of a sentence, I agree, it's just plain ugly, except if you want to shorten the quoted material to the key words or phrases, to give the reader the "aha! I recognize that!" trigger.

Also guilty as charged:

  • Two spaces after the sentence's ending period. (Comes from my manual typewriter days in middle/high school.)
  • Was taught, use, and advocate "serial commas." To me, the omittance of that last comma in the series looks like, well, laziness -- like the writer wants to get to the end of the sentence as quickly as he/she can. That last comma, to me, indicates a pause which comes across when spoken.
Great stuff! I picked up a few nibbles of knowledge just in this thread alone!

Thanks a bunch, guys,
-Sean
 
I cannut do anything rite on here. Ill go prictice my 11 ball. Skippy
 
Bob Callahan said:
There's another problem--here's a sentence that can be written, but not spoken:

There are two ways to say "record."
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How do you spell the three hums? Meaning when somebody shrugs their shoulders and hums three times, with the middle hum being a higher pitch than the first and third hum. :grin-square:
 
Bob Callahan said:
There's another problem--here's a sentence that can be written, but not spoken:

There are two ways to say "record."
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If we're talking American English here, that really depends on what region of the country you're from.

You cite one example with "record" (the hint being which syllable does one accent?).

Here are two more:

  • display
  • vehicle
Any dictionary will show the proper syllable to accent (Wiktionary being a quick one, for those that want to look these up). But if you find yourself down south, you'll find a, shall we say, very unique way to pronounce these words.

-Sean
 
JAM said:
How do you spell the three hums? Meaning when somebody shrugs their shoulders and hums three times, with the middle hum being a higher pitch than the first and third hum. :grin-square:
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I hum it like the old NBC peacock tune, "hum HUM Hum"

Or like the Intel tune, "Hum hum HUMMM!!"

:D

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)
-Sean
 
I've got to quit posting to this thread....but I can't help it. I'm leaving for a while, but before I go:

Candidate for a Pullet Surprise by Mark Eckman and Jerrold H. Zar

I have a spelling checker,
It came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.

Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it’s weigh.
My checker tolled me sew.

A checker is a bless sing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when eye rime.

Each frays come posed up on my screen
Eye trussed too bee a joule.
The checker pours o’er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.

Bee fore a veiling checker’s
Hour spelling mite decline,
And if we’re lacks oar have a laps,
We wood bee maid too wine.

Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flare,
Their are know fault’s with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a wear.

Now spelling does knot phase me,
It does knot bring a tier.
My pay purrs awl due glad den
With wrapped word’s fare as hear.

To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should bee proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaw’s are knot aloud.

Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays
Such soft wear four pea seas,
And why eye brake in two averse
Buy righting want too pleas.
 
sfleinen said:
...Any dictionary will show the proper syllable to accent (Wiktionary being a quick one, for those that want to look these up). But if you find yourself down south, you'll find a, shall we say, very uniue way to pronounce these words.
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There is a great deal of British influence on Wikipedia. Sometimes they do display the American spellings and punctuation styles, but I have had British editors take my quotation marks and insert them inside the period. Drives me bonkers. :grin-square:
 
JAM said:
There is a great deal of British influence on Wikipedia. Sometimes they do display the American spellings and punctuation styles, but I have had British editors take my quotation marks and insert them inside the period. Drives me bonkers. :grin-square:
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Jen, good point about the Brit influence on these wiki sites.

I know you're technically "down south" there in DC, but the Merriam Webster American English dictionary says the word is "display" (not display), and "vehicle" (not vehicle).

Sorry, couldn't resist. :p
-Sean

P.S.: oh, and yes -- I concur with the dominant/regressive punctuation thing. Same thing for me, with periods inside/outside parenthesis.
 
I bearly made it out of High School, and I am too old to learn grammer, speling of punchuation. Please understand I am a CRETIN.
 
Hierovision said:
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 :)
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I feel that way about 'your' being used for 'you're'.
First time I've mentioned it...what a wimp I am.

I don't mind being corrected,especially humorously.
But grammatically I feel the forum can be experimental.
Read White Jazz by James Ellroy....breaks a lot of rules...
..but I loved it.

And thanx , Joey for this thread...I've learned a lot....
...and yeah,that's how I always spell 'thanx'
 
pt109 said:
I feel that way about 'your' being used for 'you're'.
First time I've mentioned it...what a wimp I am.

I don't mind being corrected,especially humorously.
But grammatically I feel the forum can be experimental.
Read White Jazz by James Ellroy....breaks a lot of rules...
..but I loved it.

And thanx , Joey for this thread...I've learned a lot....
...and yeah,that's how I always spell 'thanx'
Click to expand...

pt:

I concur! (Both with the off-the-beaten-path "interesting-ness" of this thread and the thanx to Joey.) White Jazz is GREAT! And one of my all-time favorite poets is the rogue himself, E.E. Cummings. A master at using punctuation's very "hints" themselves to grease the skids in getting his point across.

-Sean
 
The issue, for me, is why would I correct someone’s grammar, spelling, and punctuation?

In general, I suggest alternatives for those who might be interested. Most people have little interest in such matters. Like many areas of life it is best not to tell all that you know. Most people simply do not care.

Though my daughter, a professor of English, disagrees, I encourage people to write like they talk. This encourages people to write and think in words. Learning to express one’s self ithrough the written word is a formidable task for some and one that should be encouraged, not discouraged with corrections.

Finally, most anything I have written professionally has been through at least two, usually several proofreaders and they often disagree with each other. The time for correction is after I have created my communication and the extent of corrections depends upon the venue where it will be displayed. I would suggest that an internet forum is not the place to worry about the correctness of one’s presentation.

In academia I found that I learned much about students from the quality of their written word. The same evaluations of content are often valuable here as in other areas of life.

BTW -- how many mistakes can you find?
 
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Typically, as long as the message is relayed as intended.

Now move this thread to the NPR thread, where it belongs.

Jay P.
 
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