To those who post questions with misspellings and grammar errors . . .?

Question

Without sounding judgmental, why do you post questions that are almost unreadable because of the spelling or grammar?

Is it because you don't know proper spelling or grammar? Are you new to English? Do you think it's cool? Are you lazy? Are you just having fun with it? Do you not care?

What's the logic behind it? I'm seriously trying to understand it, and I'm not trying to be a snob.

I'm not sure if you are correcting me or not, littlechrismary, but the number of spaces after a punctuation mark that ends a sentence depends upon the style guide you choose to follow (a.k.a. MLA, APA, etc.).

I use MLA, so I use one period.

As for everyone else calling me a snob, I'm really not. I can't be. I teach English. I'd go insane if I tried to be a snob about this stuff. I was asking out of curiosity.

Er, I use one space.

See? I do it, too!

Answer 1

There are so many answers to this question.

1. Some of the users of this website are non-native speakers of English, and their grammar reflects that.

2. Native speakers of English are sometimes not good spellers. English is famous for not having a one-to-one relationship between the letters used to spell a word and the sounds in a word. Our knowledge of our native language does not automatically include knowledge of how to spell any given word. Consider this: six-year-old children can speak English perfectly well, but they can't read or write (and therefore can't spell at all) before they go to school. So, knowing how to use English is not a guarantee that you know how to spell it. This is one reason that linguists believe our knowledge of spelling is somewhat external to our knowledge of language.

3. Grammar "rules" are often arbitrary, and don't work well in certain situations. As an English teacher, perhaps you know that different grammar books sometimes contradict each other about what they think people should do with their grammar. Almost all grammar rules that we use were created long after the grammar features that they prohibit were in common use. (The rule was created because the grammarian was trying to prevent something that people were already doing in English.) Therefore, many people speak as if English were "decaying" and decry the lack of correct grammar everywhere, when English speakers are usually just doing the same things they have been doing for hundreds of years, even since before the grammar rule they are supposedly breaking was created. Although they may have been doing this unconsciously, the grammarians were trying to make a way that people could distinguish themselves as having higher social status: if they followed the rules, they must be better people. This idea has continued to today, to varying degrees.

Besides, being an English teacher, you might also be aware that grammar rules aren't often taught in our public schools nowadays. I for one, only remember a couple of specific grammar lesson I received in my entire high-school career, and one of them involved puppets.

My personal feeling about grammar rules is, besides the arbitrariness and the fact that they are created to make some people seem better than others, they are also not flexible enough to respond to the numerous communicative situations that people find themselves in constantly. The advent of online communication has created a number of new writing genres. I just think that old grammar rules are too inflexible to be applied in new genres all the time.

Besides, being a linguist, I have made a career of studying the intricacy with which normal, everyday users of language use language to respond to complex social and communicative situations. In large part, prescriptive grammar rules are just too simple in comparison to the incredibly complex and fascinating language behavior that everyday people use for their personal benefit. So I guess I'm saying that I think there's not much of a point to having grammar rules, when people are so good at taking care of their linguistic needs on their own.

Nevertheless, I continue to follow grammar rules when I think it will be to my advantage, and don't when I don't. But I don't follow them all the time, and nobody does, really. If people think they do they are probably mistaken.

Answer 2

I feel your pain. I'm actually an editor and going on line to chat and reading these postings can be truly painful. But I've come to accept the fact that the Internet is where grammar and spelling have come to die. No one cares. No one tries. I mean for goodness sake there is a spell check on the page that you submit your question on.

I don't think you are being a snob at all. Some of these questions are so ridiculously spelled I don't even know what the person is asking. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said lazy. People are just lazy. I have a nephew who was told me he could type at 100 words per minute, he was really proud. When I told him to show me, it was the worst spelling and grammar I have ever seen. He said it was the Internet and no one cares about grammar, it's all about speed. It's a sad state of affairs for the English language.

Answer 3

I see it more as a new form of slang.

In the 1970s, slang was almost always verbal. On a street corner, one might hear: "Can You Dig It," "keep On Truckin," "what It Is, What It Is," "Far Out Man," "Cheese Weasel," "Plastic, man, plastic!," "Cool-o-roonie," "Shaggin' Wagon," "Smooth Play Shakespeare," and "Stop Dipping In My Kool-aid."

Rarely did people write/type during informal communication with one another. But, with the rise of the Internet (especially outside academia) a lot of informal communication occurs through the written 'electronic' word. As such, the slang has morphed from being just verbal phrases to now include how words are written, too.

One might note that in the past, with the telegraph, the operators had their own code for words. For example, "wilco" meant "will comply". And one could argue that it is not too different today. As people type their instant messages and e-mail, they introduce their own slang terms, partly for efficiency and partly just to speak the slang for the Internet.

However, I think it has run amok. People seem to refuse to follow any sensible guidelines. When asking a question here (or communicating as part of business), it would seem reasonable to expect people to type in an acceptable style, with at least of a modicum of clarity and grace. But, few seem willing to abide by any guidelines, or do so at a minimal level. One would not talk slang during a business meeting, so why would one write that way as part of business communication?

Sure Yahoo! Answers are not a formal forum for communication. But, I would like to think they are far from a forum where the rawest of raw slang would seem appropriate. I fear that such awful writing will carry over into formal communications overtime. The art of writing is being bastardized horribly.

I hope some of that made sense. I don't feel like editing it much. Alas, I am becoming lazy writing myself.

Answer 4

I can tell from reading countless witness statements and reports when I worked for the PD that the younger generation does not know how to spell. Now they shorten words for chat and texting and have almost created a new language.

Hand writing has gone down the tubes too since people do so much on keyboards. Heck, I remember having handwriting assignments in school.. to practice writing neat and legible. Now they have Keyboarding classes in the 3rd grade! With that class they learn spell and grammar check.. course they don't use it on here. lol

Answer 5

I don't post questions with errors (I try to be as accurate with spelling as I can) but I think I can help with this... and no you don't sound like a snob. I think sometimes people find it witty, but most of the time they are either:

1. accidentally typing things wrong without noticing it

2. thinking that however they are spelling things is correct when it really isn't

3. they're not sure about how to spell things or use correct grammar in places and they don't bother trying to find out

4. they're too lazy to type things correctly. After all, you type less letters with "I luv u" than with "I love you."

Answer 6

Finally an intelligent question. I have been wanting to ask that as well. Bravo. You are not a snob. You are simply one of the people on here that wish this was a sight that could automatically decipher who is illiterate or on here for a game.Yahoo is out to make a big buck on this site and they are....but it is up to people like us to write to them and their advertising big money to change this site. It is great but better rules and regulations need to apply and there needs to be some sort of age standard. Yahoo could start a whole new site called Yahoo teen relationships or Yahoo teen and they have not caught on to this yet. They could do a lot of beneficial things to everyone but I guess they are busy countin the dough. In time things will change. I hope....or they will lose the intelligent, adult posters......and with it their money advertising base.

Answer 7

I have 10 opinions about this...and most people agreeing with you I bet are over the age of 25...i'm 17 and actually quite busy, so I dont waste my time trying to be perfect just to answer your question

1. they just want a question answered
2. this is not school or an english paper!
3. maybe they did it by accident
4. why are you waisting ur time worrying about something so insignificant?
5. it's the internet! short-cuts are fun
6. maybe they don't really care, cuz I don't really care! as long is at makes sense, it's ok
7. I try not to do it as much anymore, just because I'm in school and I have a tendency to do the same when I write papers
8. just because they have a question doesn't mean english is their first language, or they have to be a grammar/spelling bee champ
9. the only thing I have a problem with is a run on sentence that never ends...thats really hard to understand...it doesn't let my brain rest
10. you're quite OCD! get a life...if this bothers you, i'm sure everything else does

Answer 8

I agree with you 100% and wondered that myself.
I know when you answer a question, it should be perfect in spelling. We have check spelling to help us which I always use.
I really believe the average person would fail a grammar and spelling test for a 3rd grader.
My 3rd grade grandson can spell better than most people on this site.
Most people are not logical anyway.

Answer 9

There are days my mind does not see the misspelling until later or the poor English until later. I think I am writing it correctly, have hit spell check, picked out a word I think I should be using and go back and read it a day later or so and say "DA" How did you do that, why did you do that.

Answer 10

I think they are either lazy or really bad typists. Yahoo answers has a spell check and if people know they are a bad speller or a bad typist they should use it. My nickname is "the spelling queen" so it slightly annoys me too.

But I've realized that I cannot change the world so I have to just accept it because you just don't have the power to change it.

People only bother you as much as you let them.

I'm sorry but N Andrews answer is dang funny!!!