5 ms·

If you believe this you are destined for a lifetime of being misunderstood and probably laughed at. "Loose-yet-intelligible grammar, spelling and punctuation"

by epo 15y ago

If you believe this you are destined for a lifetime of being misunderstood and probably laughed at. "Loose-yet-intelligible grammar, spelling and punctuation" doesn't mean friendly to me, it means ill-educated at best, retarded at worst.

cookiecaper 15y ago
I think it depends on the context, as above. If your friend that you know is well-educated sends you a message with loose grammar, are you going to go on thinking he's retarded now? I don't do this personally, just taking a potential angle on the letter. It is interesting that some people are so judgmental and stringent about this, though.
- tallanvor 15y ago
  It doesn't matter how well-educated you are - if you can't be bothered to write a coherent sentence and take a couple of seconds to make sure you're using capitalization and punctuation correctly, why should we believe you're going to be careful in other areas of your work? You're allowed to make mistakes, but not caring about how you write would make me worried that you're more likely to be lax in other areas that are even more important.
  - eavc 15y ago
    >if you can't be bothered to write a coherent sentence and take a couple of seconds to make sure you're using capitalization and punctuation correctly That's a flagrantly strawman version of what he or she was saying.
eavc 15y ago
"Loose-yet-intelligble" is exactly the kind of grammar you have used in this comment, though. You should have put a comma after "this" in your first sentence, and you've got a comma splice in the second sentence. The point they were making is that violations of formal grammar can be useful in some contexts and for some purposes. What I just wrote is an apt example, actually. I used "they" as a gender-neutral third-person pronoun because, though it's not standard grammar, it suits the tone I want to convey here.
- epo 15y ago
  This is a silly game, you mispelt "intelligible". The missing comma is well spotted and down to my lack of proofreading, the comma splice is more stylistic than anything in my view. However, by concentrating on how I wrote, rather than what I wrote, you are reinforcing my view that "loose-yet-intelligible" is not OK. You provided further reinforcement by writing a clumsy sentence which you then felt the need to justify.

by epo 15y ago

cookiecaper 15y ago

I think it depends on the context, as above. If your friend that you know is well-educated sends you a message with loose grammar, are you going to go on thinking he's retarded now? I don't do this personally, just taking a potential angle on the letter. It is interesting that some people are so judgmental and stringent about this, though.

tallanvor 15y ago
It doesn't matter how well-educated you are - if you can't be bothered to write a coherent sentence and take a couple of seconds to make sure you're using capitalization and punctuation correctly, why should we believe you're going to be careful in other areas of your work? You're allowed to make mistakes, but not caring about how you write would make me worried that you're more likely to be lax in other areas that are even more important.
- eavc 15y ago
  >if you can't be bothered to write a coherent sentence and take a couple of seconds to make sure you're using capitalization and punctuation correctly That's a flagrantly strawman version of what he or she was saying.

eavc 15y ago

"Loose-yet-intelligble" is exactly the kind of grammar you have used in this comment, though. You should have put a comma after "this" in your first sentence, and you've got a comma splice in the second sentence. The point they were making is that violations of formal grammar can be useful in some contexts and for some purposes. What I just wrote is an apt example, actually. I used "they" as a gender-neutral third-person pronoun because, though it's not standard grammar, it suits the tone I want to convey here.

epo 15y ago
This is a silly game, you mispelt "intelligible". The missing comma is well spotted and down to my lack of proofreading, the comma splice is more stylistic than anything in my view. However, by concentrating on how I wrote, rather than what I wrote, you are reinforcing my view that "loose-yet-intelligible" is not OK. You provided further reinforcement by writing a clumsy sentence which you then felt the need to justify.