English Writing Skills

[ozsamurai]

exactly Mr Toad!

[Geekfreaklover]

Only during the weekends. In the week she don't have much on her plate.

doesn't

[Soutpeel]

While we are discussing use of the English language as means of communication.....What does anyone make of this thread title on TV...??

"Thai Classes In French? Or Home In English"

Confused as to the intent of the question ??...... I am....!!!

[PhilHarries]

DYJMTU?

(Did You Just Make That Up)

NIUIATT

(No I use it all the time).

TTFN

(Ta ta for now)

[mauGR1]

When i discovered 'ThaiVisa' i thought:

"Great,i'm going to keep myself informed and learn English too!"

Well,for the first i was right...

While i understand that jokes are more fun when spoken in dialect,i miss many of them.

My point is,often posts from 'non native' are more intelligible than others.

[twschw]

From the Forum Rules:

"Please preview and proofread what you have written before posting. Posting in all capitals or in all bold, and using large or unusual fonts and colors is bad netiquette. Misspellings and grammatical errors can make posts difficult to understand. However English is not always the first language of our members so don't waste space correcting other members' grammar and spelling where it isn't necessary."

When would it be necessary?

[PhilHarries]

They are the loosers.

As opposed to the winers.

[bina]

some of us are just too lazy when having to post on a thread. for instance, if i have to first print out and cut and paste and put all that in to a thread, it would take me a good ten minutes since my computer is 'slow as molasses in the winter' and the time i would spend answering, or modding would be much longer. since i have four others in the household waiting in line for the computer, time is a factor.

secondly, i speak three languages, english being mother tongue, but in addition, hebrew and thai (one of which goes backwards). after working a physical job in a night shift, the last thing i have is patience to stick with perfect english. as a matter of fact, i seem to be devoloping many glitches in the linguistic area and cannot find the correct word in the proper language at the time. this means that when i speak with my children, i sometimes end up describing the object i want, since in at least two languages i cannot remember what its called. not sure what neurological problem this is, but there must be a name for it.

third: i type as i think, fix up what i see right away (and my 48 yr old eyes just got a new, even thicker, set of glasses and additional prisms, so my vision is tired) and count to five to make sure i didnt reply in anger. then i hit send.

and according to my american parents, my english, which was originally in the highest percentile i u beleive in test scores, has deteriorated to my using only simple one and two syllable word english, heblish (hebrew and english mixed sentences) and pidgin thai/hebrew.

trust me that if i have to write an essay in english, i can be erudite, precise and even as pedantic as a writer for the NEW YORKER mag. (i once, long ago, found a typo -horror of horrors- sent a letter to them and received a rather funny reply. but that was in the 1970's. i actually still have the letter filed somewhere).

and i detest the control/shift for caps, and cap locks on this keyboard. hence the lack of... thereof...

apart from a really strangely garbled post here and there, i manage to decode most peoples' posts, and dont mind. i never understand dr. pat pong's answers though. and i still dont know what 'my bad' means. haent been in the states for ages so dork is the last slang i remember.

bina

israel

[MB1]

Why is it that most posts on Thaivisa seem to end up with members ripping into other posters about the poor standard writing and grammar?

Do the ones who do the ripping have nothing better to do?

My English isn't perfect, I know that and do not need to be told.

There are many non native English speakers here so maybe we should cut them some slack.

Unless it's in a language forum then IMO it's wrong to do so with an exception, only time I like to see this kind of behaviour is when a person is trying to correct a poster and then makes a mistake himself/herself, they deserve ripping apart IMO.

Most of us understand what a poster is saying in their post so why do they feeel the need to say nothing on the subject/thread at hand, but just post bellittling a posters writing/grammar skills, IMO it's nothing more than trolling.

Read the below which I picked up from another forum quite a while ago, if you can read it then I'm sure most people can understand what most posters on Thaivisa have written without feeling the need to belittle them for spelling/grammar mistakes.

All spelling and grammar mistakes correct at time of going to press.

"Aoccdrnig to extnesvie rseeacrh conudcetd at Oxofrd Uinervtisy in Enlgnad, it deosn't raelly mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae.

The rset can be in a toatl mses and you usulaly can sitll raed it wouthit much porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but

the wrod as a wlohe."

Edited October 28, 2009 by MB1

[Geekfreaklover]

"netiquette."

How did that one sneak it's dirty little name into the Oxford dictionary. Must have been added by a man-about-town of some questionable descprition that normally meets you the day after Monday.

Edit: I forgot to use a question mark ? after the word dictionary.

Edited October 28, 2009 by Geekfreaklover

[nidge]

"Aoccdrnig to extnesvie rseeacrh conudcetd at Oxofrd Uinervtisy in Enlgnad, it deosn't raelly mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae.

The rset can be in a toatl mses and you usulaly can sitll raed it wouthit much porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but

the wrod as a wlohe."

Easy to read but even if you wrote a whole book with perfect spelling and grammar there would still be one turtles head that would point out the single typo on page 431

[phetaroi]

i do find it quite amusing tho when peple ask about teaching jobs with english like this. english is not the first language for many on here so mistakes are quite forgivable. but when people who are claiming the intellectual high ground make the common 'their vs there and 'your vs you're' mistake its amusing to see some of the regular culprits jump on them. also the no paragraph posters make their own posts difficult to read.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. Spelling, grammar, and punctuation is rarely mentioned, except when:

1. Someone gets uppity

2. Someone is asking about becoming a teacher of English

3. The English skills are grossly horrible

And, in those situations, in my view...fair enough.

[Geekfreaklover]

i do find it quite amusing tho when peple ask about teaching jobs with english like this. english is not the first language for many on here so mistakes are quite forgivable. but when people who are claiming the intellectual high ground make the common 'their vs there and 'your vs you're' mistake its amusing to see some of the regular culprits jump on them. also the no paragraph posters make their own posts difficult to read.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. Spelling, grammar, and punctuation is rarely mentioned, except when:

1. Someone gets uppity

2. Someone is asking about becoming a teacher of English

3. The English skills are grossly horrible

And, in those situations, in my view...fair enough.

I agree with both the above comments.

We can understand what everyone is typing. So why worry?

[villagefarang]

Misusing THEN and THAN is one of my favorite irritations. Brings to mind fingernails on a chalkboard.

[Rumfoord]

Its painful to read.....end of story. People who use THEN rather than THAN. I am not talking non natives, who make a slip. If anyone has seen Discovery Channel adds recently, they have started as well, making mistakes in their promo blurbs, where do you put a stop to it and where do you draw the line, American drama series, live programs, the grammar and language is off, it just serves to make them look stupid. It is wrong on so many levels..

Oz

i wouldn't mind if others would correct my syntax from time to time. or point out such THEN and THAN errors and give me some teacher like advice. explain me the grammar rule. i guess we non-natives make often the same common mistakes.

i had a few basic back in school, i taught the most myself with reading and can follow the most written text you come across in daily live. newspapers, books, literature. i have a sense to recognise style.

my writing skills are much less develop. my active vocabulary small. my syntax a mix of echoes from the syntax of my native language, a third language and 'easy' but bad english that i picked somewhere up while reading.

so some mistakes/errors i will make over and over again, always in the same pattern.

i don't need to be corrected for some typos or missing capitals.

i like to write, i is a good brain exercise, but my english is wild, sentence construction guess work. if someone would like to spend time on correcting my past perfect, modal auxiliary, passive voice and relative clause and so on i would greatly appreciate that assistance. i can improve my skills, can learn.

[Ulysses G.]

I find that most people ignore spelling and grammatical errors unless the poster starts claiming that he/she is cleverer than someone else. IMHO any post that puts down someone else’s intelligence better be written perfectly.

[nidge]

I find that most people ignore spelling and grammatical errors unless the poster starts claiming that he/she is cleverer than someone else. IMHO any post that puts down someone else’s intelligence better be written perfectly.

Any post that puts down someone else's intelligence isn't even worth reading.

[twschw]

I knew there had to be a time when it was necessary

Thanks UG

Edit: grammar mistake

Edited October 28, 2009 by twschw

[villagefarang]

i wouldn't mind if others would correct my syntax from time to time. or point out such THEN and THAN errors and give me some teacher like advice. explain me the grammar rule. i guess we non-natives make often the same common mistakes.

i had a few basic back in school, i taught the most myself with reading and can follow the most written text you come across in daily live. newspapers, books, literature. i have a sense to recognise style.

my writing skills are much less develop. my active vocabulary small. my syntax a mix of echoes from the syntax of my native language, a third language and 'easy' but bad english that i picked somewhere up while reading.

so some mistakes/errors i will make over and over again, always in the same pattern.

i don't need to be corrected for some typos or missing capitals.

i like to write, i is a good brain exercise, but my english is wild, sentence construction guess work. if someone would like to spend time on correcting my past perfect, modal auxiliary, passive voice and relative clause and so on i would greatly appreciate that assistance. i can improve my skills, can learn.

When someone writes like this, with "wild english", I find it quite charming in a way. For me, it is not those who are trying on another language that irritate. It is those who should know better.

[dumball]

Shouldn't that be "More clever" LOLmmmmmmmmm555 .

[mrtoad]

To be honest, it really shouldn't matter too much, as long as the poster puts across his point in an understandable fashion. I'd guess that there are very few of us, that are actually grammatically perfect when writing. I notice some of the comments are often retorts, and I have been guilty of doing it myself, when some posters get a bit uppity. As for those English as a second language speakers, I admire the fact that they get up on the board an post - their English is probably a lot better than my ability and lot of other natives English speakers, in their native language.

BTG!!

[chiang mai]

I find that most people ignore spelling and grammatical errors unless the poster starts claiming that he/she is cleverer than someone else. IMHO any post that puts down someone else’s intelligence better be written perfectly.

"Should be written perfectly" UG, "should be..."

[gvallee2]

Why is it that most posts on Thaivisa seem to end up with members ripping into other posters about the poor standard writing and grammar?

Do the ones who do the ripping have nothing better to do?

My English isn't perfect, I know that and do not need to be told.

There are many non native English speakers here so maybe we should cut them some slack.

it's the only way to feel better about yourself when you buy yourself an ugly wife and move to a ricefield and speak to a wall all day

don't get offended, just laugh it off.

[Ulysses G.]

Shouldn't that be "More clever" LOLmmmmmmmmm555 .

Not according to spell check.

[nidge]

Why is it that most posts on Thaivisa seem to end up with members ripping into other posters about the poor standard writing and grammar?

Do the ones who do the ripping have nothing better to do?

My English isn't perfect, I know that and do not need to be told.

There are many non native English speakers here so maybe we should cut them some slack.

it's the only way to feel better about yourself when you buy yourself an ugly wife and move to a ricefield and speak to a wall all day

don't get offended, just laugh it off.

I did that for a couple of years but i don't remember ripping into people for their lack of english skills. Perhaps I had a nicer wall to talk to than most guys!

[maccaroni man]

i have even had idiots pm me to complain about my spelling, run on sentences, etc...... whata bunch of prats.

[webfact]

Forum-Netiquette

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Forum-Netiquette-t254949.html

3. If possible please proofread your post first, poor grammar and spelling can make the post difficult to understand. However be aware that not every member is a native english speaker and excessive posts regarding others spelling and grammar not only hijacks the topic but is poor netiquette.

[ignoramus]

They PM you maccaroni man??? "Prats" is indeed the right word. Intellectual snobbery coupled with an inferiority complex is a parttish combo. Should have done that university course people. Mind you, one has met some basically clueless degreed types. I find, as I age, that I need to check my spelling more frequently. Senility? Likely. On a slightly more serious note, I find that abbreviations (like GR8 etc) eat up more reading time than plain words. For a while there I ignorantly ignored, for lack of immediate understanding, time-savers like IMO, IMHO, <deleted> et al. Of course after a while the meaning of such devices became apparent, such that they do in fact simplify understanding, TTL.

[PhilHarries]

In a recent survey in the UK it was found that the word most often spelt incorrectly is diahorea, diaria, diaorhea.........

that's why I always get the sh1ts.

btw spell checkers are no bluddy use when the misspelt word is a worm in itself.

[GungaDin]

Its painful to read.....end of story. People who use THEN rather than THAN. I am not talking non natives, who make a slip. If anyone has seen Discovery Channel adds recently, they have started as well, making mistakes in their promo blurbs, where do you put a stop to it and where do you draw the line, American drama series, live programs, the grammar and language is off, it just serves to make them look stupid. It is wrong on so many levels..

Oz

And improper use of "advise" and "advice" on this forum.......... Jeeezus, that pisses me off!

There is no excuse for not using a spellchecker before posting.

Just lazy bastards.....

Grammar, that's a lot different, not much help out there for that.