What is there about writing online that causes people to be unable to spell or punctuate?

Question

In most questions or answers in this forum, or in comments in response to news stories, or in almost anything where people can enter text online, you can expect to find serious mistakes. These include gross misspellings, poor punctuation, absence of proper capitalization (capitalisation if you are British), question marks terminating statements and periods (full stops for Brits) terminating questions, a complete inability to correctly use or avoid apostrophes, and every other writing error known to man. Yahoo Answers thoughtfully provides Preview and Modify functions; am I the only person who uses them? What is there about the computer that causes the IQ to drop into the single digits, at least as regards writing?

I have read that spelling or punctuation errors distract the reader from the meaning of the text. In fact, I have found this to be true. An example of this was once presented to me. It was a poem, in which every word was a homonym of the word that SHOULD have been there. Were it read out loud, its meaning would have been perfectly clear to a listener. But in reading it (silently), I found it incomprehensible the first time around.

Answer 1

Writing online is about *communicating*! It can be done with "proper" language (spelling, grammar, and punctuation)... or u can do it w/ telegraphic txt that carries meaning 2 b/c thats the nature of ppl.

However, nobody should forget that "the medium is the message". Thoughts conveyed in formal, standard language are more likely to be understood by a wider audience and to be taken seriously.

I am willing to accept and decipher messages that come in less-than-perfect language *if* there is understandable content that is worth my time. A complaint of mine is that much of what is "written" online (and especially in Yahoo! Answers) reflects very little thought, even less original thought, and very little documentation. This problem comes over and above the (often extreme) difficulty of trying to figure out people's meaning when they use lax language skills.

Answer 2

Well, in my opinion...

Computer culture is primarily youth culture, or at least it began as youth culture, and younger people are less likely to spell correctly. Everyone got used to this being the case and standards dropped. For a brief period "l33t speak" became popular among the... well... l33t as a fun status symbol, and a lot of non-l33t picked up some of the spelling habits that these people used. Spelling with "u" for "you" and other such habits also came out of the first chat rooms, so that the people chatting could write fast enough to keep up with the others, which was difficult in early chat rooms and more difficult if you hadn't yet memorized the keyboard. The low standards and nobody bothering to correct them resulted in even lower standards over time.

Web 2.0 doesn't need such habits, but it's set into our minds now that that's just the way people talk online. Maybe Web 3.0 will be better...

Answer 3

And why is it that those contained in the global Warming faith oftentimes use murky innuendo as a mind-set to personality assassination hostile to those who do not worship as they do? "those that dispute global warming have a tendency to be unable to spell and punctuate properly - twist of destiny?".... "have a tendency"??? Does that propose "each and every from time to time" we received't spell and punctuate properly? Does it propose "oftentimes" we received't spell and punctuate properly? possibly it means that we may be able to "not in any respect" spell and punctuate properly. precisely how pervasive is this lack of ability to spell and punctuate properly? Is it latest in all global Warming Athiests? Is it latest in only a particular share of global Warming Athiests? From someone who belongs to a faith that asserts to be an exact technology, this unsupported fact about the punctuation and spelling ability of others looks very inexact and open to wildly various interpretation. ought to you care to be extra particular on your fact? i ought to also favor to inform you that " - twist of destiny" isn't a sentence, yet really an inexact sentence fragment. i'm purely guessing, yet i think what you meant to say changed into, "Do you think that is a twist of destiny?" if that is the case then you're soliciting for evaluations. on the different hand, you'll have meant to ask, "is this a twist of destiny". if it extremely is the case, then you're soliciting for assertions of reality, which will of route favor to be observed with helping documentation to verify them as such.

Answer 4

My inquisitive wife wants to know the answer as well, unfortunately she answered too many questions this evening and is blocked now. Thanks for asking and in the immortal words of George W. Bush...."Children's can learn..." Is the leader of our country any indication on where our country is headed? Oops, now I'm asking the question.

Answer 5

lol, well i dont think it has anything to do with iq(most of the time). it has to do with ppl not knowing how to type accuratly. yea we could use spell check but for the most part...the main idea is understood. its just faster anyway...

but i have seen some horrible grammatical errors...

but interesting question..

-chai ♥