4 ms·

I don't know what grammar points they were discussing, since the post was taken down, but usually when I see comments about grammar on the internet, they're abo

I don't know what grammar points they were discussing, since the post was taken down, but usually when I see comments about grammar on the internet, they're about pretty egregious mistakes - usually the kind that very, very uneducated people make. Here's the thing that you "I'm not writing a college essay!" people seem to miss - for a lot of us, keeping track of the difference between "your" and "you're" or "their", "there" and "they're" takes literally zero concentration. I'd go so far as to say that a majority of native English speakers have never, ever (since elementary school, anyway), mixed those words up accidentally. These aren't mistakes that non-native English speakers make either. Keeping track of proper grammar is, by far, the least difficult part of expressing thoughts in written form. If you're prone to making mistakes like that... you probably aren't very smart. And what you have to say probably isn't very profound. You really shouldn't be writing, you should be reading. You shouldn't be talking, you should be listening.

kevin42 10y ago
> "You really shouldn't be writing, you should be reading" So basically you are the type of person that caused the problem being discussed here. There is a difference between someone making mistakes and someone feeling the need to point them out in public or private, or to judge who should be writing. Maybe they should be reading more. But who are you or any other anonymous person to comment on that. If you don't have anything nice to say...
CaptSpify 10y ago
> keeping track of the difference between "your" and "you're" or "their", "there" and "they're" takes literally zero concentration For you. People think differently, and something that comes natural to you does not come natural to others.
- clifanatic 10y ago
  Sure. There are people who are actually incapable of learning how to tie their own shoelaces, too. We (rightly) pity those people, but we don't turn to them for deep intellectual insights.
  - CaptSpify 10y ago
    So because people have learning issues when it comes to language, that means they can't have any useful insights for the rest of us? I find it hard to take that argument seriously
Houshalter 10y ago
Here's one datapoint, as a native English speaker I used to mix up "your" and "to" and still always mix up "it's", use "alot", etc. I learned English orally so in my brain they are literally the same words. Over time I've learned to distinguish them. I think you vastly overestimate how many people are aware of these things. The people that are aware, are only aware because of experience with assholes like you. You don't need to show off how clever you are that you know some pointless rule. Like Jesus, how fucking arrogant and smug you must be to say "you probably aren't very smart" over a trivial grammar mistake. There may be some correlation between spelling errors and intelligence, but certainly not a 100% correlation.
- clifanatic 10y ago
  I'm going to double down here - you, Houshalter, are not very smart. Smart people don't make those mistakes, and they aren't trivial. Smart people don't learn English "orally" as their native language. Illiterate people do.

kevin42 10y ago

> "You really shouldn't be writing, you should be reading" So basically you are the type of person that caused the problem being discussed here. There is a difference between someone making mistakes and someone feeling the need to point them out in public or private, or to judge who should be writing. Maybe they should be reading more. But who are you or any other anonymous person to comment on that. If you don't have anything nice to say...

CaptSpify 10y ago

> keeping track of the difference between "your" and "you're" or "their", "there" and "they're" takes literally zero concentration For you. People think differently, and something that comes natural to you does not come natural to others.

clifanatic 10y ago
Sure. There are people who are actually incapable of learning how to tie their own shoelaces, too. We (rightly) pity those people, but we don't turn to them for deep intellectual insights.
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  So because people have learning issues when it comes to language, that means they can't have any useful insights for the rest of us? I find it hard to take that argument seriously

Houshalter 10y ago

Here's one datapoint, as a native English speaker I used to mix up "your" and "to" and still always mix up "it's", use "alot", etc. I learned English orally so in my brain they are literally the same words. Over time I've learned to distinguish them. I think you vastly overestimate how many people are aware of these things. The people that are aware, are only aware because of experience with assholes like you. You don't need to show off how clever you are that you know some pointless rule. Like Jesus, how fucking arrogant and smug you must be to say "you probably aren't very smart" over a trivial grammar mistake. There may be some correlation between spelling errors and intelligence, but certainly not a 100% correlation.

clifanatic 10y ago
I'm going to double down here - you, Houshalter, are not very smart. Smart people don't make those mistakes, and they aren't trivial. Smart people don't learn English "orally" as their native language. Illiterate people do.