problems

There are a lot of posts that I cringe when I see. I can't say too much about it though considering that I am dyslexic so some of my mistakes I don't even catch! My daughter has to help me sometimes becasue it might look right to me even if it is completely wrong. The smaller words are often the wrost for me. I think my english skills are usually pretty good I think anyway lol. I come on here, and write articles to help with my writing skills. For some people here english is a second language and they come here to help with their english. But I do know what you mean hun!

very well said!!!but i guess some members are not so conscious about this grammar thing as long as anyone can understand it and did not violate the rules and guidelines here in this site..they still or we can still be paid..and i myself are not conscious either since i understand that all the members here resides from different countries..different languages and i guess theyre making their best to write legibly for anyone to understand...and thus for me.. its no big deal...but i can accept any corrections if its necessary

hi cobrateacher Could you be a teacher by any chance? I know we should all be more careful than we are but errors do slip by sometimes and its too late once you hit the post response.You know I am sure a lot of mylotters are from other countries and are trying hard to learn English. So please give a bit of slack. Also I had not thought we were' writing these for some college exam. I try to be very careful in punctuation and all but I sometimes do misspell a word. We should have a relaxed atmosphere here and if we are under scrutiny as to how good we are at grammar and other points where is the relaxation? I think on a whole given the mix here we all do pretty well.

Good day..Well, This just shows your passion as a teacher. Teachers by nature like to teach, correct if need be and are intolerant to mistakes, recurrent mistakes at that. I'm a Chinese who grew up in the Philippines thus English is my secondary language. I try to read efficiently and write correctly using proper grammar and correct spelling. Since English is my secondary language, naturally I made mistakes here and there but I try to correct it and learn not to commit the same error twice. Thanks it's an eye opener that if one chooses to use a foreign language try to master it or don't use it at all. Thanks.

I have always been extremely pedantic about spelling and punctuation - however, when I worked as a typesetter for a newspaper I was forced to accept there is an 'industry standard' for certain things, and I was no longer allowed to use 'programme' (which I had done all my life), as the shorter 'program' is now considered the acceptable spelling. It really went against the grain to do this, but as I get older I find I accept language is a means of communication, and as long as we can make ourselves understood, that's the main thing. I greatly admire myLotters from other countries who have English as a second language and are bravely using it - thus learning as they go. Good for them - I wouldn't attempt joining a forum in China, Japan, India or France, so more power to them! I also accept there are variations on spelling between England, Australia and America - for instance, Americans use 'z' where we use 's'. I think tolerance goes a long way. I never use a spellchecker on my computer, and as I get older there are plenty of weird words which my fingers inadvertently type although my brain has told them something different. I know a lot of extremely intelligent people who have never mastered the art of spelling - it comes easily to some, and not at all to others! Considering I have no understanding of the most basic maths, I'm happy these days to NOT be a wordsnob and I no longer feel the need to go through everything with a mental red pen in order to show my superiority ... because in the long run, that's all it comes down to!

Hi Cobra, Being a teacher must make you crazy to read and see all the bad grammar etc. But as I see it, there are a lot of people all over the world writing in. I understand how you feel, and I try not to let it get to me. As you said, this is a place where people shouldn't have to worry too much about their English. I believe people are here to converse with other people not to write literature. I hope you don't take any offense to what I have said, I'm just trying to respond honestly. I'm guessing you are an English Teacher? Hugssss leenie

Yes, I agree we should at least try to get it right! I try not to be too critical but sometimes I can't help myself. I understand there are people here from other countries who don't know the language that well but it's the Americans who actually try to pass themselves off as "smart" that get me. I get so mad at myself if I discover a typo I hadn't noticed before I'd hit the submit button and there are times when I really struggle over whether something is spelled correctly (I'll look it up if I'm not sure eventually!) or if I've used proper grammar or punctuation. We do get paid for posting here so we should be interested in the quality of our posts. I know if I make an error I'd like for someone to point it out to me because I've been out of school for a long time. Annie

I will admit that some days I just sit here in front of my monitor and shake my head in frustration. My grammar, spelling and punctuation are by no means perfect. Frankly, I'm a terrible typist. However, I care and I do my best. Over the last year that I've been on myLot I have come to the conclusion that humans make errors. Some because they have little education. Some because they don't pay attention. Some because they don't feel it's important as long as they can be understood. In the grand skeam of thing's maybe it ain't all that impotant and well just hav to remain fustrasted, Feel free to shoot me now!

You're like my grade school English teacher (laugh). Yes, I agree. But you see, not all of our fellow myLoters are that good in English. You seem so hard on the matter. But hey, for those who are knowledgeable enough of the language, try to make your posts (oops, not post's!) right. That way, you could exercise your fluency of the language. As for my case, I really find it hard organizing my ideas orally. But in writing, I seem to do fine.

HaHa you tell em teach...

I absolutely agree with you, and this came at the exact time that I am ticked about something else, but I won't get into that here. I type fast, often without even seeing what I'm doing, so you will find errors in my postings here on myLot, but it is usually due to speed and not from using an incorrect word. That is one of my major pet peeves as well. I think I know of the 'wright' one you speak of here, and I couldn't believe it either. Doesn't have any ideas to write about so he comes here for ideas, then can't write 'wright'. All I have to say is 'huh'?

I agree with you completely Cobrateacher but I do have a question for you. Are you taking into consideration the posters for whom English is a second language? This isn't the easiest language to master and some of the errors that I notice are due to that fact so I don't believe that those posters should be included.

I definitely agree. It's extremely difficult to wade through posts that have a lot of grammar and spelling mistakes. And considering the fact that we are paid for posting... There's only one part of me that feels guilty for complaining--I don't know if these posters are actually native speakers of English. If they are just learning the language, I'm fine if their English isn't up to par. But if they know the language quite well and choose to use chatspeak or omit punctuation at their leisure, that irks me. In fact, even those who don't know the language well should know basic punctuation, as this remains the same across all languages. I cringe when I see basic grammar errors like those involving "it's" and "its" or "your" and "you're". (Now, as a side note, I need read this post over doubly carefully, just to make sure that I don't fall victim to Muphry’s Law -- http://home.pacific.net.au/~bangsund/muphry.htm )

dear cobrateacher: i partially agreed with you at this point though i very respect you since i have a little comments about this topic from myself experince. like what you said, i read and said and wrote english from middle school to university, totally 10 years. but when i joined a company and when i needed to discuss something by english, i found i only can said several word, the more bad thing was i almost can heard and understood little word. but maybe i am a tough man, i never believe there is a real thing you can not get it if you insist and insist and insist. so i met strange method to learn english, it named crazy english which told me the english is just a language and must learn it as a language. like child or baby to learn language, they don't know whether it's right when they say something in beginning. but the adult encourage and correct them, then they grow and improve, they can use the language as mother language successfully. of course we need rectify the mistake, then we can improve and grow. finally, thanks for your reminding, i also need pay attention to my english expression though i can communicate with my boss who are a foreigner. and i can understand your feeling, like a teacher found his students making a mistake, she will correct it absolutely. in my remembering history, when i made a mistake to write a word determined by my teacher, the teacher would punish me by no dinner. compared with the situation, you are very warm teacher. you led me think about my teacher, i missed them very much. thank you for your teaching. yours naught student young

I always try to get everything right, but sometimes I type too fast and mess up and I don't notice. It really bothers me when I read it later. But...although I was an excellent speller in school, I recently found that there were a couple words I have been misspelling all along. I recently changed from Internet Explorer to Firefox. Firefox has a spell check that works here in mylot. It underlines the words I spell wrong. Some people never really learned to spell correctly. Others are from different countries and barely know English. So we must be patient with them. I don't know if it affects our pay rate or not.