3 ms·

I suspect it all started with two Ukrainian who got tired of checking how much of "a" and "the" they forgot to sprinkle into their texts.

notpachet 3y ago
I have far more understanding and patience for non-native English speakers making those sorts of mistakes than I do for native speakers.
pavel_lishin 3y ago
I read comments online, and in my experience the most difficult writing to parse isn't from foreign speakers who drop articles or mis-conjugate things - it's from people whose writing is just, for the lack of a better term, bad. This is very common on places like Nextdoor or Facebook. It's things like: - total stream-of-consciousness gibberish that could probably be assembled into a coherent statement if the writer would re-read what they wrote and edit it - A complete lack of punctuation, or even understanding of sentence and paragraph structure; at a glance, it looks like what I described above, but it's different because there's definitely a topic and a point they're looking to make, but they can't put the words together correctly. - spelling so bad, that even with context, it's unclear what word they're intending to use. - A wild misunderstanding of how to start and stop conversations online. (One recent example is me asking someone on Facebook if I could stop by to check out a garage sale, and a clarifying question about a term they used, only to get the response "ok." Note that in their post, they didn't specify an address beyond the name of the town they live in.) You can definitely point out flaws in the way I grew up - somewhat solitary, spending a lot of time alone in my room on a computer connected to the internet - but I think that it at least taught me how to make myself understood in written form.
- jvanderbot 3y ago
  > - total stream-of-consciousness gibberish that could probably be assembled into a coherent statement if the writer would re-read what they wrote and edit it This drives me nuts. Did anyone see this [1] on HN the other day? People in comments were springing up to defend this atrocious writing style. Make a paragraph. Make a point. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38275905 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38275905
  - pavel_lishin 3y ago
    I'm not a huge fan of that, but it looks like poetry, and what's more, it looks intentional. The author was going for something, and is probably aware that some folks won't like it. That's a whole different beast from an email I'll get from a coworker/neighbor where I cannot parse what's even being asked of me, and where the writing is so confusing I don't even know how to ask them to clarify their statement other than to tell them to start over, possibly all the way from kindergarten.
  - mattnewton 3y ago
    I think that writing style has a point in _realtime_ text chat, where you are racing to get your comment in and turn in the conversation. It’s like a way of streaming your thoughts, not unlike voice conversation - many of the defenses seemed to be talking about that. Not defending it in non-realtime scenarios though.
    - pavel_lishin 3y ago
      Oh yeah, I didn't even think about context switching for different communication mediums - maybe my complaints are mostly about people who are used to texting people a series of text messages, in a more conversational way, that doesn't really translate to something like an email or a Facebook/forum post?

notpachet 3y ago

I have far more understanding and patience for non-native English speakers making those sorts of mistakes than I do for native speakers.

pavel_lishin 3y ago

I read comments online, and in my experience the most difficult writing to parse isn't from foreign speakers who drop articles or mis-conjugate things - it's from people whose writing is just, for the lack of a better term, bad. This is very common on places like Nextdoor or Facebook. It's things like: - total stream-of-consciousness gibberish that could probably be assembled into a coherent statement if the writer would re-read what they wrote and edit it - A complete lack of punctuation, or even understanding of sentence and paragraph structure; at a glance, it looks like what I described above, but it's different because there's definitely a topic and a point they're looking to make, but they can't put the words together correctly. - spelling so bad, that even with context, it's unclear what word they're intending to use. - A wild misunderstanding of how to start and stop conversations online. (One recent example is me asking someone on Facebook if I could stop by to check out a garage sale, and a clarifying question about a term they used, only to get the response "ok." Note that in their post, they didn't specify an address beyond the name of the town they live in.) You can definitely point out flaws in the way I grew up - somewhat solitary, spending a lot of time alone in my room on a computer connected to the internet - but I think that it at least taught me how to make myself understood in written form.

jvanderbot 3y ago
> - total stream-of-consciousness gibberish that could probably be assembled into a coherent statement if the writer would re-read what they wrote and edit it This drives me nuts. Did anyone see this [1] on HN the other day? People in comments were springing up to defend this atrocious writing style. Make a paragraph. Make a point. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38275905 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38275905
- pavel_lishin 3y ago
  I'm not a huge fan of that, but it looks like poetry, and what's more, it looks intentional. The author was going for something, and is probably aware that some folks won't like it. That's a whole different beast from an email I'll get from a coworker/neighbor where I cannot parse what's even being asked of me, and where the writing is so confusing I don't even know how to ask them to clarify their statement other than to tell them to start over, possibly all the way from kindergarten.
- mattnewton 3y ago
  I think that writing style has a point in _realtime_ text chat, where you are racing to get your comment in and turn in the conversation. It’s like a way of streaming your thoughts, not unlike voice conversation - many of the defenses seemed to be talking about that. Not defending it in non-realtime scenarios though.
  - pavel_lishin 3y ago
    Oh yeah, I didn't even think about context switching for different communication mediums - maybe my complaints are mostly about people who are used to texting people a series of text messages, in a more conversational way, that doesn't really translate to something like an email or a Facebook/forum post?