Pet peeve about abbreviations, grammar, etc.

Lynn voiced my opinion exactly. I do not believe the thread should be closed.

The weather?...
Outside my window is bright, sunny, and although it's mid-morn and still a bit chilly, looks as though it will be a pleasant day in mid 70's, I'm guessing.

Inside this window (the one I'm viewing here with all of you), seems a bit overcast and cloudy, with a possible chance of closure, or perhaps a ray of acceptance, depending on how we all just allow other's to be without the hazy hint of personalized irritability?...(if that's what I'm sensing).
The day's still early...hard to say which way this virtual weather pattern will take.

As far as I'm concerned, though.....It's ALL good......

How's the weather with you all?...lol.

Shangrala

LOL - it a beautiful sunny day, about 70 degrees. You sound like you would be a great weather lady Shangrala..............who knew you had all these talents.....weather forecaster, computer technician, possible psychic

On a lighter note or should I say, gassy note - I usually put a chair next to mine so Bella can sleep beside me. She's been dreaming and farting like crazy lol. The air is so thick, I could cut it with a knife.

Perpetuallysad - sorry for going off topic for a bit. I'll stop my silliness now.

I was going to ask you how Bella was doing..but, like you've already said, it's off topic.
"Cut it with a knife"...roflmao....Must be the med's she's on?
This is funny....Here you are attempting to lighten the load of the direction of this thread, yet you choose to use heavy dog farts as the tool of choice...THAT'S funny.....

My apologies, too, Ps...didn't mean to feed the off topic.

I know there are several posts this could be in reply to, so I'm not sure if mine is included with them or not. Since it was late and I didn't put a summary paragraph in, I can see how my post could have been misinterpreted though. Allow me to clarify (if necessary).

I believe national, cultural, ethnic, socioeconomic, etc. backgrounds greatly influence speaking styles and the type of slang one uses. I also believe abbreviations and lax grammar online are a part of internet slang and thus the 'net subculture. This is why I was drawing those comparisons. I see many people are okay with certain types of subcultures, yet are unhappy with speaking styles used in the internet subculture.

Personally, I use a lot of abbreviations, as well as lax grammar in chat. I also use these amongst my like minded friends offline. I don't see it as being any different from the drawl my southern friend speaks in, or the lingo of a Rastafarian. It has to do with my interests and background, and I know several people to whom it adds character.

As for the rest of my counterpoints: most were to specific arguments made earlier on in the thread; such as net lingo leading to lack of communication and being responsible for poor performance in schools.

No this wasn't directed to you Araya - your post was very articulate/informative. It was to calm those who may feel insulted by this discussion or in response to people wanting it closed. I totally understand the use of abbrev. while texting, chatting and the internet. I'm just trying to help the original poster out. I think the original person who was offended finally understood this, but was re-triggered by some re-hashing.

Oh, okay! Heh, I was just making sure. As you can tell from my long winded posts, I often have trouble summarizing. Sometimes the point gets lost in all my blah blah. Glad it didn't happen in this instance.

I am paranoid to even send this post on this thread. LOL. I think I'm guilty.

(((((Lynn)))))--I loved your "off topic"--made me feel so much better.
Thanks all- I love reading this thread!!!

................................

Yesterday I started reading Fahrenheit 451 and came across a quote that I think is very apt for this topic.

Bradbury, Ray Fahrenheit 451 p 55-56

Very interesting PS. I know this is off topic a bit but, I've thought about this before when it comes to phone numbers. We know longer have to remember phone numbers. I hope we never lose site, how important education is.

Also, a bit off topic....(sorta)...

I've noticed how the practice of education has been replaced with the emphasis of attendance (indirectly, once again, the almighty dollar takes precedence).

Your child misses a day of school, the school doesn't get paid for that child's presence for the day. Therefore, the school enforces a strong emphasis on how important their attendance is (using the excuse that a "day missed in the classroom disrupts the entire class" scenario..though, granted, it is disruptive, but they neglect to back that theory up with actually attending to their individual learning).

Case in point: My step-son was graduating the 6th grade. I personally strongly felt that he should repeat the grade as he was severely suffering.
I requested to his teacher that he be held back. She pointed me in the direction of the principal and take it up with him. I did. The principal told me that the chances of having him repeat the same grade was VERY unlikely as he had a perfect attendance.
I insisted that despite his attendance, he hadn't learned much. The principal told me that my only hope was to take it up with the school board (but with a low chance of positive results).

I found that to be absolutely appalling.
Needless to say, my step-son dropped out of high school in his junior year.

Shangrala

I guess I am damaged by my training. I have been so linguist-inundated that when I see the texting I generally go into decode mode and chug through it. This is something I have basically had to do since i started working with languages and later with therapy since I was 17. I don't get much of an irritation from it, but if I am very tired I tend to skip over and come back when the wiring works better.

Fun facts about grammar: all you prescriptive grammar folks: are you aware that most of our grmammar texts are STILL based on LATIN grammars that were written by "educated" folks who had lots of training in Latin, but none in their native tongues? The result was an understanding of grammar that had no relation to the fact that English as a mainly Germanic language had a different structure than Latin. This gave us, among other things, the rule that you can't separate infinities. It was once done even in "proper" Enlish, but is impossible to do in Latin and therefore banned. Thank the Georgetown priests for that bit of historical (or hysterical) linguistics.
Good night Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea. Huggs too!

I dunno, lonegael, but when I was transferred out of Public School into a private prep school for girls; I learned to love languages.

We were taught to diagram sentences, which helped in learning both Latin and French. It all fit in perfectly for me--English, Latin, and French......knowing the proponents of each english word, I was able to ken the same for the others......

I'm probably just weird..I love idiomatic phrases, and irregular verbs.

The word "To be" in all languages is irregular.

I always thought that fact amazingly profound--as is all of Humankind---unique and profound......theo

Error--s'cuse me all-- I meant the Verb "to be"------conjugations of such verbs in all three of these languages was a source of amazement for me.

A true learning experience of even my own language: English...theo

I loved to diagram sentences too. One of my classes in college was made up entirely of diagramming the most complicated, complex sentences on the planet. Sometimes I would have to tape pieces of paper to get it all together. Needless to say, there were only a few people in that class. Tee hee.

ohh I love digraming sentences! I"m an english major and I just love what I"m learning in class, and I'm loving this thread! So many fun random tidbits One thing I would love to study more in depth is the regionality of languages. I'm only fluent in English and my Spanish is just horrific (I hope that changes once I get to my Spanish courses) but I love to hear and read on the diffrences in both languages based on region, *geeks out*

Off topic I apologize

Fellow lovers of diagraming sentences--I salute you one and all!!!

Surprised it is not introduced until College these days.

We were diagraming in the 7th grade in that Private Prep school I mentioned.
That was the doing of my church--when the Public Schools were trashed after Martin Luther King was killed---I got to get beaten up every day as one of the 5 white girls in my junior high hair pulled out, etc--so my church stepped in and paid my way through Mayflower Queen finishing school for girls---I was the "outcast".

Hey- it was cool- only 5-7 girls in a class- you had to be on your toes!!! Prefects and such!!!

Learning foreign languages simultaneously; with the understanding that each English word had it's place; helped tremendously.

I doubt the average High School kid knows what a gerund is....i forgot anyway-ugh!

One of you must know?

Oh no, I had it starting in the 7th grade. But I took an entire class devoted to it when I was working on my English degree.

OOh, ooo, I know what a gerund is! Its a non-finite verb like: I was walking down the street. Walking isn't past or future, its happening perpetually.

I wasn't sure--I thought it was like the ablative--in les mots autres--perpetually happening, as you say; but I looked it up:
1.In Latin, a form of a verb used like a noun in all cases of the singular except the nominative, as "the art of singing"
2.In English, the -ing form of a verb, as doing, or a compound tense of the verb made with the -ing form of an auxilliary, as "having done", when used as the subject or object of a verb, or the object of a preposition, as doing in "Doing the work carefully is essential."--Funk and Wagnalls

Ya know what-- I forget!!!---sooo long ago--Thanks Perpetuallysad---now I dun confusing myself-----I love this thread------hugs- theo

LOL...
All this talk of proper English....The thought popped into my head.....
"Hmmm...I wonder if those who use all the abbreviations and shortcuts can understand what you all are even talking about?"

I write fairly well, I think. But to understand all the the prepositions, conjunctions, adverbs and pronouns, (and all others)....and where they belong in a sentence and WHY...lmao...

This is interesting.

Shangrala

I understand them too, because anyone who grasps a good grammar in his/her native language understands easily the theory. To apply the knowledge is harder. My daughter talks a reasonably good English, of course more polite, less slang, at home otherwise I start to use any strange word like "***- " till I learn from her reaction what exactly it's the meaning, if positive or negative, pejorative or not and the intensity of the word because there I have a lot of problems and create misunderstandings. Even if I make a lot of mistakes and I could not express myself well, I can still see her mistakes (same for sites; even for Princeton dictionary with the mis-spelt word "syntax" - of course a typo) and the vocabulary/or understanding the meaning of words that are less used, is greater than her. Of course because of my language the majority of people look down on me.
One day my sister told me that is easy to write well in anyone mother's language and I said "Do you want me to correct your emails? You wouldn't like it, because it is not Swedish, is your mother language and we have the same mother."(I meant education!)
In my homeland I have had friends that were doctors, dentists, even teachers who made mistakes and I fussed about like an idiot any time they brag about their titles ... while they were great specialists in their fields and that was really important!!

It's worse and you talk perfectly but you can't communicate because some people do not get the message no matter they have a good grammar and a large, wide vocabulary.

It took me to immigrate here to change my point of view. :-)

Hi Gabi--You are Swedish? Wow flicka, I'm half Swedish (2nd generation).

I think, once you know a foreign language, you have something of an understanding of the way other languages work.
You've done quite well!!!----English is a very difficult language to learn.

By all means, not the hardest--I'd put German, all the different dialects in Chinese
up there with the most difficult.

Did you know that they elected Swedish as the most beautiful language once?

You are a marvel-----that's tough, learning English from Swedish--Tox--theo

......"written language as an art form"..... I think that says it all. The written English language as we know it in all its 'proper' forms is an evolving art. Just as hand writting is a dying art form. Soon the pencil will be a museum item. I don't know about kids in your area but here there are very few who can write in scipt form. They all print. It really bugged me when my son hit the age when I remembered moving on from print to script writing. I even won a penmenship award for my writing. My dad made us practise our hand writing every night for an hour. It was a high priority in that time. Now it isn't. Hand writing is a dying art. It is what it is.

I appreciate how some changes in our culture can trigger reactions. Change is hard and when one has a particular interest in preserving a particular practise it is even harder to accept the change let alone make the adjustment.

As a Canadian it really bugs me how much pressure is being put on Canadian-British English to conform to American English. I will miss the placement of the 'u' and 'e' as they are increasingly being dropped from our language useage. For example.... 'I looked in the catalogue for my favourite coloured pyjamas and then asked my mum to send them a cheque to pay for them.'

My pet peeve are cell phones period. Butchered language useage aside I am having a real hard time adjusting to every second person on the street, in the restaurant, on the bus.... you name it..... people everywhere babbling their private business for all to hear. Cutting off a face to face conversation to answer their cell phone. Texting every step they take and endlessing checking for messages.

I am hugely triggered...... I mean it can send me over the edge to the point that I feel dizzy when a cell phone rings or buzzs or plays music. I am hypersensitive to sounds and the constant noise from people's cell phones drives me batty. Literally. Its a cultural shift and while it doesn't work for me it is what it is. I need ear plugs to leave my home now a days.

opps.... off topic.... my bad.