I'm mean, and I know that we've all had this conversation before, but...
Posted by Tkitty96 on Nov 25, 2007 · Member since May 2006 · 1789 posts
When you make a post... to the right of the "Post" button, there is a "Preview" button. To the right of that, there is <gasp> a "Spell Check" button. Please, please, make an effort to click it! My inner English teacher begs you!
And, yes, I realize that typos happen, and we all goof up sometimes. But I am so tired of seeing "werid".
By the way, I must admit that I was a little disappointed that I didn't get the slightest rise out of you after using you in the sample simile I offered back in post #130. :(
I have nothing that I want to contribute to this thread, and I mean that in the most kind way, toward both sides of the court. I think I'd rather keep my thoughts on other people's grammar/spelling to myself (and those thoughts are good and bad...just not interested in sharing...could get ugly...OR it could turn into another lovefest :-* depending on who I'm talking about ;D). All I can say, is that it doesn't *hurt* to use the spellcheck, which is all that Tkitty is trying to say.
But I DID want to say...damn! I had no idea posts were numbered! That's cool. Man, I'm seriously oblivious not to have noticed that before. That's so helpful when referencing something...and it must come in handy (uhh...I said "come in hand-y") when I don't feel like quoting a whole long post.
But I DID want to say...d**n! I had no idea posts were numbered! That's cool. Man, I'm seriously oblivious not to have noticed that before. That's so helpful when referencing something...and it must come in handy (uhh...I said "come in hand-y") when I don't feel like quoting a whole long post.
HECK YES! I had noticed but I never noticed it until Kbone mentioned it. *smacks self in head*
So there are a few examples, as you requested, of types of linguistic evolution that don't spring out of laziness or ignorance.
Those were interesting, and that is a cool way that the language can change, but it wasn't actually what I requested -- I requested examples that weren't cases of new words or phrases. My worry was that you seemed to be allowing no evolution of syntax, meaning (for existing words), pronunciation or spelling, and that evolution that is only addition of new words and phrases isn't much evolution at all. (By the way, isn't the use of new contractions a pretty clear violation of the "rules" of the language? 'mI wr'ng ab't t't? Y' d'n't have a p'blem w' p'pl' writ'n' th' way?)
Your point about genetic variations is interesting. And of course genetic mutations generally suck. If you are about to be born, and God asks you whether you'd like to have a random genetic mutation or not, it'd be pretty irrational for you to choose to have one. Chances are, if it has any noticeable effect at all, it will be a bad one. Similarly, individual violations of the linguistic "rules" are generally harmful to individual expressive success, even if the aggregate of those violations cause the language-community to become more expressive overall. Just like individual mutations are generally unadaptive for the individual, but the entire genetic community becomes more adaptive by virtue of the mutations. The point that individual mutations are individually harmful, of course, doesn't make me wish that those mutations never happened, specifically because the aggregate of those mutations has an effect that I admire. Similarly, I'm glad we're not still speaking the first language ever spoken -- which it seems to me we would, under the guidelines you support, albeit with a vocabulary much larger than that with which the language was originally spoken.
That doesn't mean that I think we should maximize the number of errors we make, or increase it; it doesn't even mean I think we shouldn't minimize it. I try to minimize my own errors, and I cross out my students' errors in thick red ink in their papers -- because correction is appropriate in that setting. If one of my students started posting on vegweb, I wouldn't correct her grammar here -- unless she asked me to. You are right that the community needs mechanisms to support the minimization of error -- to "exhort fellow members to improve" their writing, as you put it, but you are wrong if you conclude that any time and place is appropriate for this. The health of the community also requires that its members have sex; that doesn't mean it's appropriate for me to start humping your leg right here in vegweb (if that were possible).
So my point about how cool the current linguistic trends are is pretty separable from the original debate in this thread. We can admire those trends even if no particular instance of the advance of those trends is itself individually admirable. You can like linguistic evolution even if you always cringe at individual "errors" (I didn't fully appreciate this until I considered your genetic analogy, so thanks for that).
Other than your personal testimony about the kindness and goodness of Gotskates's personality... you didn't add anything to this thread. All you did was bring the topic back up.
I also don't see how it's unkind of me to say that I don't bother with posts that are hard to understand. I value everyone's input here, but I prefer not having "to see around the misspellings" to understand that input.
I'm sorry you believe I didn't add anything to this thread. I stuck to the topic and voiced my opinion. "All you did was bring the topic back up." Geez, I thought topics that had been posted on 3 hours prior to my post were still "alive." I didn't realize I was bringing a topic "back up."
I never said it was unkind of you to say you don't bother with posts that are hard to understand. If I did say that, please point it out to me. On the contrary, I do think one should not bother with posts that they find hard to understand, rather than make hurtful comments such as these:
Oh, stop!! Nobody needs to apologize!! I just cringe everytime I see a post by Gotskates using the word "weird". I just don't understand how she has never noticed that the word is not "werid", and has never thought to spell check. It bothers me that by - what, 14? 15? - it hasn't occurred to her to check that her spelling is correct.
If you find a thread hard to read, then just leave it alone. I do not believe that you were trying to help GS "improve herself." If you were, you would have addressed it with her privately, not on a thinly veiled public thread.
Nor do I believe you value everyone's input on here. If you truly did, you would not have said that I didn't add anything to this thread. That is completely contradictory. I realize that I've pissed off a lot of people with my comments, but I stand by what I've said. There is no need to be rude to people who are not hurting anyone with their misspellings.
Other than your personal testimony about the kindness and goodness of Gotskates's personality... you didn't add anything to this thread. All you did was bring the topic back up.
I also don't see how it's unkind of me to say that I don't bother with posts that are hard to understand. I value everyone's input here, but I prefer not having "to see around the misspellings" to understand that input.
I'm sorry you believe I didn't add anything to this thread. I stuck to the topic and voiced my opinion. "All you did was bring the topic back up." Geez, I thought topics that had been posted on 3 hours prior to my post were still "alive." I didn't realize I was bringing a topic "back up."
I never said it was unkind of you to say you don't bother with posts that are hard to understand. If I did say that, please point it out to me. On the contrary, I do think one should not bother with posts that they find hard to understand, rather than make hurtful comments such as these:
Oh, stop!! Nobody needs to apologize!! I just cringe everytime I see a post by Gotskates using the word "weird". I just don't understand how she has never noticed that the word is not "werid", and has never thought to spell check. It bothers me that by - what, 14? 15? - it hasn't occurred to her to check that her spelling is correct.
If you find a thread hard to read, then just leave it alone. I do not believe that you were trying to help GS "improve herself." If you were, you would have addressed it with her privately, not on a thinly veiled public thread.
Nor do I believe you value everyone's input on here. If you truly did, you would not have said that I didn't add anything to this thread. That is completely contradictory. I realize that I've pissed off a lot of people with my comments, but I stand by what I've said. There is no need to be rude to people who are not hurting anyone with their misspellings.
I'm not sure that pointing out multiple misspellings is hurtful. And yes, I do value what everyone has to say. But this subject has pissed a lot of people off, so I think it's best at this point to let it go. You're not going to convince me that I was hurtful or rude. If someone wants to point out a mistake I made, so be it. I'll be annoyed with myself for having made it, but I won't be in tears because someone was "hurtful". That's just silly.
Yes, you did stay on topic, and you voiced your opinions. Great. But all of your major points were previously made by other posters. So yeah, you made your point. And also brought up a thread that was on its way to page 2, and eventual death.
Oh, stop!! Nobody needs to apologize!! I just cringe everytime I see a post by Gotskates using the word "weird". I just don't understand how she has never noticed that the word is not "werid", and has never thought to spell check. It bothers me that by - what, 14? 15? - it hasn't occurred to her to check that her spelling is correct.
If you find a thread hard to read, then just leave it alone. I do not believe that you were trying to help GS "improve herself." If you were, you would have addressed it with her privately, not on a thinly veiled public thread.
The whole point of a thread is to address the whole board. Tk itty knows this, and she knows how to use the messaging feature. So if she made a thread about something, one can assume that she's addressing multiple people. Where she names gotskates and points out the spelling of "weird" is an example. You can say tkitty is mean for using gotskates as an example (if that's your opinion), but I don't understand why everyone thinks this is a matter that should have been handled privately. Everyone on this board reads the same posts
If I hated gotskates I would probably just ignore all of her posts all together, but I don't do that, nor do I want to do that. We all have things to contribute sometimes and I value gotskates's contributions as much as the next person. And I'd like to be able to understand all of them
Now where's that lovefest?
Veggeroni,
I tried to send you a PM but vegweb couldn't find you as a user. It wouldn't even let me wave hello to you! Are you still here?
Send me a message if so.....
Other than your personal testimony about the kindness and goodness of Gotskates's personality... you didn't add anything to this thread. All you did was bring the topic back up.
I also don't see how it's unkind of me to say that I don't bother with posts that are hard to understand. I value everyone's input here, but I prefer not having "to see around the misspellings" to understand that input.
I'm sorry you believe I didn't add anything to this thread. I stuck to the topic and voiced my opinion. "All you did was bring the topic back up." Geez, I thought topics that had been posted on 3 hours prior to my post were still "alive." I didn't realize I was bringing a topic "back up."
I never said it was unkind of you to say you don't bother with posts that are hard to understand. If I did say that, please point it out to me. On the contrary, I do think one should not bother with posts that they find hard to understand, rather than make hurtful comments such as these:
Oh, stop!! Nobody needs to apologize!! I just cringe everytime I see a post by Gotskates using the word "weird". I just don't understand how she has never noticed that the word is not "werid", and has never thought to spell check. It bothers me that by - what, 14? 15? - it hasn't occurred to her to check that her spelling is correct.
If you find a thread hard to read, then just leave it alone. I do not believe that you were trying to help GS "improve herself." If you were, you would have addressed it with her privately, not on a thinly veiled public thread.
Nor do I believe you value everyone's input on here. If you truly did, you would not have said that I didn't add anything to this thread. That is completely contradictory. I realize that I've pissed off a lot of people with my comments, but I stand by what I've said. There is no need to be rude to people who are not hurting anyone with their misspellings.
I believe what I have to say falls under the category of "I'm mean...". And I realize that this post should be in another thread however that thread was closed before I could respond.
TK & FF,
I'm so sorry that I have only been a member since August. But you know, you can go back and read old posts to get a handle on what has been going on. I guess I'm not going to be invited into the "club" now that I've offended you both. Offended you both? or just didn't let your tactless vigilante to single out someone for posting offensive messages die out in a "veg*n lovefest". I wasn't the only one on that thread offended by the whole topic, some even said they were going to leave because of it. I know, FF you apologized for offending everyone and are sorry if it caused people to want to leave VW, but the one person you didn't apologize to was V20, oh but if she doesn't apologize first then well... I admit I posted those quotes knowing it would upset some people. I really do apologize for bringing up negativity, I'd rather everyone get along. But every one can't always get along. And you can't take back things you say, especially things you post on the net. V20 can't take back her remarks just as neither you, nor I can. We all have to live with that. What you can do when someone truly offends you is report them for it. Maybe you all have been reporting her for months now, I wouldn't know because that kind of thing is anonymous. But still that is the only really mature way to deal with a situation such as the one with the boycott.
So, If any one does not like me for what I said then fine, don't like me and go ahead and post rude comments about me too.
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