The English Monster Strikes Again

[momof3inTN]

I find several things annoying. Most of which I can deal with in some way of form, or simply ignore. However, there are a few things that I have a great deal of difficulty ignoring. One more so than others...

the complete absence of respect for the English language, punctuation and grammar.

Yes, this is something that is more annoying online than off. This is because every misspelled word or missing comma is very noticeable.

I was raised by a mom who got her Bachelor's degree when I was in the third grade. What did she get her Bachelor's degree in? English.

So I was raised by my wonderful mother (Hi Mom!!!) the Queen of Grammar. I was taught by the Queen of Grammar. She sent me to parochial school for most of my younger years. She finally yanked me out of school altogether when I was in 7th grade. She homeschooled me. I was diagramming sentences by the end of that year (much as I hated it).

Grammar and I were best friends growing up. I had always loved reading and writing, even before being homeschooled. I really loved learning the process of writing. There is a beginning, a middle, and an end to every story. Reread your work and check your punctuation. Is there a pause in the sentence? Did you put a comma there? Are the words that need to be capitalized, capitalized? Where do you use a semi-colon again?

All of this has followed me through life. In college, I was one of the few who didn't need much correction in the Composition classes. In law school, my papers came back with more legal disagreements than grammar errors.

While writing is not the end to everyone's life, we should all know how to write, the process or writing, proper grammer and punctuation. For those who want to go on to college (or even farther), in most cases, they will need to take a writing course of some kind. Even if they do not have to take a course in Composition, there are a great many courses that required paper to be written. Even if one doesn't go on to college, there is still a lot of writing in daily life.

Look at us here on this site. We write journals, we write posts in the groups, we write questions. We send emails. Some of us still even send letters via snail mail! Many are more than just members here, they are members of facebook or myspace or twitter or other social networking sites.

Reading and writing are all around us!

So why is it that there is a complete disregard for English, this essential element to life?

Many times I have read the blogs of friends (oh, see, there's another one! Blogs! So many people have them nowadays) and seen the misspelled words, the lack of capitalization and punctuation. The basics of grammar are lacking. There is a lot of text-typing too (you know, like.... y r u going 2 the store?).

Now, I can understand a mess up every once in awhile. I have them, everyone does. My brain gets to moving so fast that my fingers can't keep up! I forget a word or misspell a word now and then. But at least here, on Cafemom, we have a wonderful tool. It is called the "Check Spelling" button. So if we do misspell a word, the spell check can help us out a bit. Of course the spell check goes nuts when I type in my kids' names! Who's ever heard of the word "Nafeeza?" Yes, that one is always underlined by the spell check.

Ok, so we have a spell check button. That cuts down on a lot of problems right there. 

Let's move on to punctuation. Periods, commas, semi-colons, exclamation points, question marks... Please use these keys! There are so many times when I run through a post and there is no punctuation. It is simply a run on of word after word after word with no breaks, no pauses and it goes on for lines and lines and lines. It is not difficult. It doesn't take much time to add a period. It is one key-stroke. Am I really asking for much? If your sentence has a pause in it, but the two parts of the sentence do not EACH make a sentence, use a comma. If the two parts of your sentence can be two complete and separate thoughts, use a period to separate them or use a semi-colon. Want to show enthusiasm? Use an exclamation point!

Capitalization is another point. Capitalization denotes the beginning of a sentence (and is also used with names and names of places, etc.). It helps to show that a new sentence is beginning. When writing, if you are talking about yourself and use the word I, the "i" is capitalized.

Text-typing. Really, does it save that much time? "i want 2 b w/ u" versus "I want to be with you." Maybe it is because I have never gotten into the whole "texting" thing. I have even had the texting disabled on my cell phone service. If someone wants to talk to me, they can call me. But text-typing is something I will never understand.

I am just needing to vent a little bit today. Sorry about that. All day long I have seen combinations of the above mistakes, some all in one post. Trying to read a post which uses no punctuation, no capitalization, and has horrible spelling is difficult at best, impossible in most cases. Especially if the post is also 4 paragraphs long. Paragraphs are for another journal altogether. There are many times when a post should be broken down into paragraphs.

Thank you again, the English Monster is retiring for the night.

Helpful grammar hints:

1) i before e, except after c, or when sounded like "ay" as in neighbor and weigh. Examples: Friend, siege, ceiling, receive. There are some words that defy this rule, they just need to be memorized: species, science, ancient (exception because it is "ie" after the c) and caffeine, either, neither, weird, leisure, height ("ei" but not after c and not sounding like "ay"). There are a few more of these exceptions but I cannot think of them all at the moment.

2) there - as in "over there," their is a positive possession ("All of them have their own lunches."), they're is a contraction of "they are," ("They're going to the store." or "They are going to the store." If you can't use "They are" in that place in the sentence, you shouldn't use "they're").

3) It's and its: it's is a contraction for "It is." When reading your sentence, if you cannot use the phrase "it is" in that sentence, use its.

4) A lot, is 2 words, "A" and "lot."

[NorahSethsMommy]

Mar. 9, 2009 at 12:00 AM

Great post. I am guilty of a little bit of abbreviated writing online...like LOLs or IMOs, etc., but I try to keep it to a minimum. There are a lot of simple errors that annoy me really bad too, like "they're" and "there" or "your" and "you're" being misused!

[tngrandma]

Mar. 26, 2009 at 10:55 AM

I do love it; it is well written and inciteful.  Yes, that is a proper use of a semi-colon.  LOL

Keep up the good work.