no subject

[taimatsu]

I've been getting unusually pissed off recently with the number of people whose writing I read for various reasons who CANNOT SPELL or USE PUNCTUATION. I fully understand the difficulties of the dyslexic and those with similar problems, but still, there's a large bunch of email-writing, usenet-posting people out there who apparenty don't give a damn how they come across in a text-only medium.

It does vary, from the otherwise sane-sounding person on a mailing list who uses run-on sentences and makes the occasional stupid spelling error, to the Dragonball-obsessed teenies who write crap like 'Anyone in here live in tx? cuz im bored 'n I dun want to play Yu-Gi-Oh! with people in elementary school o.o; jus not right. umm, well if not guess im just collecting for awhile, so like bai bai.'

Oh yes, the subject line for that little effusion was 'Jus wonderin'.

I don't know what this kid would be like if I met him in real life. From his mailing list posts, however, he seems to be lazy, stupid, illiterate, and plain irritating. I don't understand why people can't try using basic English, and then, if they know they are not great at spelling, use the damn spell checker that comes with the integrated email systems the average surfer uses.

God, this annoys me. I only stay on that particular list because it's the announcements list of the owner of a very good, very friendly fansub ftp owner, and to stay up to date with settings I have to be there. I really wish she'd set it to newsletter status, though. The mindless crap is driving me up the wall.

Also, it surprises me that (thin ice alert, not trying to pick on anyone, just making observations) some of the people who hold positions in the Camarilla called 'Storyteller' roles have such apparently poor writing skills. Mainly it's spellchecker-solvable - 'inherantly'; 'protocalls' and the like, and serious apostrophe-loss - but some of it is just 'i am typing what ever is running through my head right now and i am not thinking at all about anything like punctuation sentence structure or making my ramblings in any way understandable to any of the people who might vote for me to this big position im running for'. I just would have thought that people who have to deal with complex plot, write much background and stuff, and really have a good grasp of fantasy description and so on don't seem to transfer that to email.

I'm really not picking on anyone personally, it's just a THING that people in general DO that ANNOYS me and these are the most recent real examples.

Comments

[sesquipedality.livejournal.com]

Dyslexia and depression have a lot in common. Both are mocked from time to time as not being real diseases (which you are *not* doing, I should point out), and both are sometimes used as an excuse for not making an effort.

Communication is difficult enough at the best of times. I have no problem with someone who is genuinely dyslexic, and will do my best to work around their disability, nor with someone who *isn't* dyslexic, but isn't good at spelling and grammar, but *tries* to get it right and learn from their mistakes. It's the ones that persistently write terrible English, which is a real effort to read, and fail to make any effort to get better. Mild dyslexia can be a reason for poor English, but it should never be an excuse.

Look at it this way. I occasionally have to get people to read the price lists in fast food resturaunts for me, because I don't see too well. However, if I refused to learn to read because of this, everyone would have every right to mock and condemn me, as far as I'm concerned. We all have our limitations. My sympathy for others limitations depends to a large degree on how they choose to deal with them. Those who try hard to work around them will always get a better response from me than those who use them as an excuse to underpeform.

[taimatsu]

I agree with everything you've said, I think. The fact that people are hopefully making a genuine effort doesn't do much to reduce my irritation though. And that's quite apart from the people who *aren't* making an effort. It's come up recently because I've joined new Cam lists which are fairly high-traffic, with a wide cross-section of writing style and, dare I say it, ability. Also, there's been a membership hike on the anime list I mentioned, and most of the new posters appear to be clueless teens. After a while it grates. I'm thinking of killfiling everyone but the list owner, but that might be a bit drastic.

Well I try...

[inskauldrak.livejournal.com]

...to write properly when on email. But given that it's often used as a halfway house between telephone and letter/fax it can be a bit rushed. I'd imagine you are talking about people who make 'typos' though : )

Punctuation's a bit scarier as whilst there is a 'proper' way to use it, when it comes to writing a story it kind of goes out the window when you're trying to create a certain pace or rhythm. I'll confess to maybe not doing it well but hey...

I do agree that willful illiteracy is annoying though...

Michael