4 ms·

Am I to understand from the title that we are equating “poor spelling/grammar in English” with “idiot”? Or is there some more subtle mechanism at work, such as

Am I to understand from the title that we are equating “poor spelling/grammar in English” with “idiot”? Or is there some more subtle mechanism at work, such as equating “can’t be bothered to stare at hard-to-read-text just to post lulz, wat?” with “idiot”?

JonLim 15y ago
I hate to do this, but it's "grammar". Not that I'm calling you an idiot, you have a very fair point.
- raganwald 15y ago
  Thanks!
dhimes 15y ago
Excellent point. Mathematics would be better. Simple questions or sequences.
ianterrell 15y ago
There's no excuse not to know common homonyms and misspellings. A smart person who has trouble with them knows they have trouble with them, knows what they are, and knows to double check himself. If you don't do at least that, you probably aren't that bright. We'll forgive the less common words like your "grammer".
- Iv 15y ago
  I'm not an English native speaker. Their/they're/their also stings my eyes when incorrectly used, but I must admit that I often do the lose/loose mistake. But that's fair, whoever uses a grammar that is loose, lose.
  - dredmorbius 15y ago
    whomever. loses. :)
    - SoftwareMaven 15y ago
      Are you sure "whomever"? Isn't that the objective form and, in this case, "whoever" is the subject?
      - StavrosK 15y ago
        I'll go with "whoever" too. "He uses grammar", not "him uses".
        dredmorbius 15y ago
        On reflection, I'll buy that as well.
      - Iv 15y ago
        I spent 10 minutes on grammar links before picking one... Originally I wanted to write something along the line "whoever's grammar is loose lose" but I am almost sure this is not a correct form
- cromulent 15y ago
  >There's no excuse not to know common homonyms and misspellings. Would you consider dyslexia an excuse, or English as a second language? Or even semi-illiteracy? I think it's definitely possible to be very clever and still not a good speller, and not bother to double-check on an Internet forum. Einstein was notorious as a poor speller, which suggests he didn't double-check himself.
  - Terretta 15y ago
    English as a second language is not an explanation for the "your/you're" errors which are generally sheer ignorance. Ignorance and IQ are certainly different. But IQ is generally measuring "problem solving ability", and when to use a contraction is a problem. If one is very clever, one tends to have that particular problem solved. But, whether the misuse is from inability to solve the problem, or a choice to not solve the problem ("can't be bothered"), either of those is a reasonable predictor of job performance, health, and various other life outcomes. On "Einstein was notorious as a poor speller" – after moving to the US, Einstein became completely bilingual but could never recall how to spell words correctly in both German and English. This is not the same issue as when to use a contraction, and isn't the same as "not bothering". The ESL student learns, understands the theory of, and tends to be careful with contractions. ESL errors look and sound quite different than most of these errors encountered online. The illiterate "I'm too cool for your TL;DR grammar-nazi wall-of-text" types have failed to prime they're Baysian neural networks by reading or doing homework, and generally have no idea their "doing it wrong".
    - lylejohnson 15y ago
      > The illiterate "I'm too cool for your TL;DR grammar-nazi wall-of-text" types have failed to prime they're Baysian neural networks by reading or doing homework, and generally have no idea their "doing it wrong". I see what you did there.
    - SoftwareMaven 15y ago
      "Because you are not Einstein, it is not OK for you to make mistakes"?
- raganwald 15y ago
  This sounds like a social signal, not a cause-and-effect relationship. You are not establishing that some quality of being an idiot causes someone to have poor grammer, you are saying that the ought to know their grammar “just because.” Your argument reminds me of the argument that someone ought to wear a suit and tie to work: There is no excuse for not knowing that a suit and tie is what people wear to work, and anyone who doesn’t do so is not fit to work here.
  - StavrosK 15y ago
    You don't always need causation, sometimes correlation is enough. EDIT: To clarify, it doesn't have to be that stupidity causes bad grammar, but if bad spellers are likely to be bad commenters, that's all you need.
    - raganwald 15y ago
      Thanks for a good point. Establishing correlation without causation is a minefield, IMO, although each of us may come to different conclusions. Filtering people on the basis of correlation and not the primary attribute is discrimination. I doubt filtering a forum is illegal discrimination, but I’m uneasy about where that might lead me personally if it were my forum. Giving a ridiculous example, at a certain time in history, correlation might have established that 90% of the people who used AOL to get onto the Internet posted idiotic things. Should all AOL users have been banned from forums? I suspect that many forums would have had a net positive benefit from such a policy, however the 10% false negatives disturb me greatly. I would morally prefer other mechanisms for filtering the 90% out, preferably mechanisms that directly test user’s propensity to the “post idiotic things.” This is a personal view, and I can accept that others may not agree. p.s. And then there’s the question of gathering actual data and not anecdotes. The worst way to proceed would be to claim that since we seem to remember that 90% of all idiotic comments contained grammar mistakes, there’s a 90% chance that a comment containing a grammar mistake is idiotic.
      - stcredzero 15y ago
        Establishing correlation without causation is a minefield, IMO... Those who miss nuances of thought and logic are often the same folks who miss nuances of grammar. It's a skill one can learn. Using that as a membership filter would be no different than forming a programming group and restricting it to programmers.
silverbax88 15y ago
We are equating that after years of education, with the subject of English (albeit American English) being a core class for EVERY YEAR of attendance, and with spell checkers on most forum communities, that if someone still goes out of their way to transpose "lose" with "loose", then, yes, they are probably an idiot.
- clstrfckr 15y ago
  *then
  - silverbax88 15y ago
    upvoted for calling me on my BS
  - darklajid 15y ago
    I know this is not appropriate, but it made me laugh so hard. I'm trying to write as correct as I can, but the GP just proved that these mistakes happen to everyone, even the people that think that it might make sense. What about non-native speakers? Their point might be valuable, the participation in a discussion really help- and meaningful, but still - these now/know, there/their, you're/your mistakes are common. And not an indication of intelligence. Edit: Just to be sure here and kind of answering the posts below: Guys, I'm a non-native speaker as well (in fact, my accent is terrible. I try to write as decent as possible, but that's a different thing). So - my data point, without any backing but my past experience, is that this is indeed an error that non-native speakers do just as well. I didn't want to imply that non-native speakers are idiots per se according to the criteria of this blog.
    - argv_empty 15y ago
      These are not mistakes I typically see from non-native speakers. (YMMV)
    - snitko 15y ago
      For non-native speakers these captchas would be easy. These are very basic things we tend to learn very well when we first start learning english.

JonLim 15y ago

I hate to do this, but it's "grammar". Not that I'm calling you an idiot, you have a very fair point.

raganwald 15y ago
Thanks!

dhimes 15y ago

Excellent point. Mathematics would be better. Simple questions or sequences.

ianterrell 15y ago

There's no excuse not to know common homonyms and misspellings. A smart person who has trouble with them knows they have trouble with them, knows what they are, and knows to double check himself. If you don't do at least that, you probably aren't that bright. We'll forgive the less common words like your "grammer".

Iv 15y ago
I'm not an English native speaker. Their/they're/their also stings my eyes when incorrectly used, but I must admit that I often do the lose/loose mistake. But that's fair, whoever uses a grammar that is loose, lose.
- dredmorbius 15y ago
  whomever. loses. :)
  - SoftwareMaven 15y ago
    Are you sure "whomever"? Isn't that the objective form and, in this case, "whoever" is the subject?
    - StavrosK 15y ago
      I'll go with "whoever" too. "He uses grammar", not "him uses".
      - dredmorbius 15y ago
        On reflection, I'll buy that as well.
    - Iv 15y ago
      I spent 10 minutes on grammar links before picking one... Originally I wanted to write something along the line "whoever's grammar is loose lose" but I am almost sure this is not a correct form
cromulent 15y ago
>There's no excuse not to know common homonyms and misspellings. Would you consider dyslexia an excuse, or English as a second language? Or even semi-illiteracy? I think it's definitely possible to be very clever and still not a good speller, and not bother to double-check on an Internet forum. Einstein was notorious as a poor speller, which suggests he didn't double-check himself.
- Terretta 15y ago
  English as a second language is not an explanation for the "your/you're" errors which are generally sheer ignorance. Ignorance and IQ are certainly different. But IQ is generally measuring "problem solving ability", and when to use a contraction is a problem. If one is very clever, one tends to have that particular problem solved. But, whether the misuse is from inability to solve the problem, or a choice to not solve the problem ("can't be bothered"), either of those is a reasonable predictor of job performance, health, and various other life outcomes. On "Einstein was notorious as a poor speller" – after moving to the US, Einstein became completely bilingual but could never recall how to spell words correctly in both German and English. This is not the same issue as when to use a contraction, and isn't the same as "not bothering". The ESL student learns, understands the theory of, and tends to be careful with contractions. ESL errors look and sound quite different than most of these errors encountered online. The illiterate "I'm too cool for your TL;DR grammar-nazi wall-of-text" types have failed to prime they're Baysian neural networks by reading or doing homework, and generally have no idea their "doing it wrong".
  - lylejohnson 15y ago
    > The illiterate "I'm too cool for your TL;DR grammar-nazi wall-of-text" types have failed to prime they're Baysian neural networks by reading or doing homework, and generally have no idea their "doing it wrong". I see what you did there.
  - SoftwareMaven 15y ago
    "Because you are not Einstein, it is not OK for you to make mistakes"?
raganwald 15y ago
This sounds like a social signal, not a cause-and-effect relationship. You are not establishing that some quality of being an idiot causes someone to have poor grammer, you are saying that the ought to know their grammar “just because.” Your argument reminds me of the argument that someone ought to wear a suit and tie to work: There is no excuse for not knowing that a suit and tie is what people wear to work, and anyone who doesn’t do so is not fit to work here.
- StavrosK 15y ago
  You don't always need causation, sometimes correlation is enough. EDIT: To clarify, it doesn't have to be that stupidity causes bad grammar, but if bad spellers are likely to be bad commenters, that's all you need.
  - raganwald 15y ago
    Thanks for a good point. Establishing correlation without causation is a minefield, IMO, although each of us may come to different conclusions. Filtering people on the basis of correlation and not the primary attribute is discrimination. I doubt filtering a forum is illegal discrimination, but I’m uneasy about where that might lead me personally if it were my forum. Giving a ridiculous example, at a certain time in history, correlation might have established that 90% of the people who used AOL to get onto the Internet posted idiotic things. Should all AOL users have been banned from forums? I suspect that many forums would have had a net positive benefit from such a policy, however the 10% false negatives disturb me greatly. I would morally prefer other mechanisms for filtering the 90% out, preferably mechanisms that directly test user’s propensity to the “post idiotic things.” This is a personal view, and I can accept that others may not agree. p.s. And then there’s the question of gathering actual data and not anecdotes. The worst way to proceed would be to claim that since we seem to remember that 90% of all idiotic comments contained grammar mistakes, there’s a 90% chance that a comment containing a grammar mistake is idiotic.
    - stcredzero 15y ago
      Establishing correlation without causation is a minefield, IMO... Those who miss nuances of thought and logic are often the same folks who miss nuances of grammar. It's a skill one can learn. Using that as a membership filter would be no different than forming a programming group and restricting it to programmers.

silverbax88 15y ago

We are equating that after years of education, with the subject of English (albeit American English) being a core class for EVERY YEAR of attendance, and with spell checkers on most forum communities, that if someone still goes out of their way to transpose "lose" with "loose", then, yes, they are probably an idiot.

clstrfckr 15y ago
*then
- silverbax88 15y ago
  upvoted for calling me on my BS
- darklajid 15y ago
  I know this is not appropriate, but it made me laugh so hard. I'm trying to write as correct as I can, but the GP just proved that these mistakes happen to everyone, even the people that think that it might make sense. What about non-native speakers? Their point might be valuable, the participation in a discussion really help- and meaningful, but still - these now/know, there/their, you're/your mistakes are common. And not an indication of intelligence. Edit: Just to be sure here and kind of answering the posts below: Guys, I'm a non-native speaker as well (in fact, my accent is terrible. I try to write as decent as possible, but that's a different thing). So - my data point, without any backing but my past experience, is that this is indeed an error that non-native speakers do just as well. I didn't want to imply that non-native speakers are idiots per se according to the criteria of this blog.
  - argv_empty 15y ago
    These are not mistakes I typically see from non-native speakers. (YMMV)
  - snitko 15y ago
    For non-native speakers these captchas would be easy. These are very basic things we tend to learn very well when we first start learning english.