Grammar Naziism and You

[The Chosen]

Statement.

I, as are many others across the world wide web, am often accused of being a "grammar Nazi."

Question!

How do you all feel about people correcting your grammar online? I'm talking punctuation, spelling, capitalization, proper apostrophe placement...does it offend you? Does it bother you at all?

Personally...I don't mind it when people correct my grammar if they aren't complete asshats about it. (Mostly 'cause I don't like dealing with jerks in any context.) Then again, I really like English and getting that kind of stuff right...and I know it's just not as important to some people. (Which is totally fine!)

So, BB...what's your take on grammar Naziness?

 

[Lyri]

Where's Mr. P?! This is a thread for him! LMFAO

Personally, I'm pretty okay with grammar, reading and writing as much as I do, you learn and it's easy to pick up. Spelling is usually where my downfall lies and is usually when Mr. P comes out of the woodwork to yell at me 😉

It doesn't bother me when people correct my spelling or grammar, though. Like I said, that's how you learn and I've learned a hell of a lot more through betas looking over my work and posting online than I EVER did at school, lol.

 

[Joan the Vampire Slayer]

I'm fine with people correcting me, and I've been know to correct others, myself.

 

[Blaze]

This is a tricky one, I'm all for grammar Nazis when it comes to people using dumb grammar like "u" instead of you, I just hate that kind of language, and how it's become the "in" thing. Other stuff like capitalization, punctuation etc, I think it's pretty fair game too because this is also common sense and you should know how to use it.

But when it comes to people being very picky and wanting to correct every single word that a person writes, it can bother me a bit because people need to realize that not everyone on the internet has English as a first language. If people were to try and write in French (which has much more complicated grammar than English in my opinion), I would not try to correct them, simply because they are probably already trying really hard.

Althought, if you are being polite about it and just wanting to help the person improve their English or any other language, than I think it's fine to correct them (I learnt the difference between than and then online, same as your and you're, so it can be a good thing). But often, people can be asshat about it, if you're not then I'd be happy for you to correct me, I just don't think people need to go overboard with this. Again, the only exception is when people use internet slang, that just grinds my teeth so much.

 

[SRMarx]

I don't mind if someone is polite.

I am always embarrassed if I make grammar mistakes, so I am usually thankful if someone politely points it out.

 

[Mr. Pointy]

I'm mellowing in my dotage but The Spelling Nazi still shows up from time to time 🙂 Really bad spelling still makes me cringe but I'm learning to control my baser instincts 😉

 

[Black Eye Guy]

I hate "kool talk" - u, hav, nxt, h8 are just annoying. (even on twitter I would rather rewrite a tweet to make it work then resort to kool talk)

I have absolutely no problem with that stuff being corrected.

I honestly don't know where I stand on general grammer and spell correction though, cuz you don't know the writers circumstances, it may not be the writers first language or there might be other circumstances.

Me personally, I don't mind people correcting me. I'm terrible at spelling and grammer, I use too many commas and exclamation marks, I'm dyslexic so it's all part of that. So becasue of that I know my spelling/grammar is bad and I've always had to be corrected, so for me I don't have a problem being corrected.

The only time I'd correct someone else would be in they were continuously making a mistake and it was clear they just didn't know the word correctly, but if it was just a one off spelling mistake I wouldn't point it out.

But I also dont know that I'd correct spelling without knowing the person was okay with it. Though I do correct spelling on here as a mod, but only really if it's kool talk or in a thread title, which is more about presentation.

If I wasn't a mod I wouldn't correct anyone.

 

[BuffyElevated]

If someone corrects me once I'm ok. Twice is even alright, if I'm being really horrible. But if they continue to do it (which is kinda unlikely since I, too, consider myself a grammar Nazi, but what the hell), then I'd get pissed and go off on them. LOL

 

[sk]

I don't really see the point in correcting every little mistake people do.
Most of them are probably just that, a simple mistake. It doesn't necessary means that they are in need of a teaching lesson.

But if I make that same mistake over and over again, I really would like to be told about it.
So I can stop embarrassing myself. 🙂

/SK

 

[ILLYRIAN]

I love it when people spell words wrong, but when people tell you off for getting the spelling wrong then proceed to show you how they say it is spelt. The usual one if 'folk'
I often have people tell me the plural is folks. But I never make it noticeable (as if) when I point out that the word folk is both singular and plural, I must remember to take the caps lock off when I reply.

Don't worry Mr. Pointy when you get a bit older you'll enjoy the pleasure gained from being a spelling nazi more.
Me, I've had problems with spelling, the last one was past or passed, until I saw that the 't' is time.

 

[Blaze]

[MENTION=7336]ILLYRIAN[/MENTION]

agrees: Where did you learn the difference between then and than, 'cos I'd suggest you look up the meanings of the words in a dictionary. (use of than at the 25th(?) word in the third paragraph.) (English-English)

I do know the difference. Then is when it is time related (I did this then did this), than is a comparison (I like this better than this). You've illustrated my problem with grammar naziism perfectly though, I think it's ridiculous for people to correct one word out of three paragraphs, I think at that point it's just being picky, especially considering it might just be a mistake like in my case (where I do know the difference). Yes in this case it's ironic that I made the mistake (I did have a good laugh at myself), I should have been more careful on a thread about grammar, but on a forum like this I don't always have time to proof check 100% of my messages before posting them (although I do re-read my messages before posting them, but I certainly won't be as thorough as if I was writing an English essay).

 

[patriot1123]

How do you all feel about people correcting your grammar online? I'm talking punctuation, spelling, capitalization, proper apostrophe placement...does it offend you? Does it bother you at all?

I wouldn't mind it, though in all honesty I don't know if it happens to me very often. For my part, though, if I know what someone means I usually don't correct them in Internet discussions. There's no point and it runs the risk of embarrassing someone.

Since you said you are a grammar nazi and that you don't mind it, though 🙂 allow me to point out that punctuation, spelling, and capitalization are more properly referred to as "orthography," not grammar. Grammar refers to the structure of a sentence ("Me and Jim went to the store" vs. "Jim and I went to the store.").

 

[Lyri]

[MENTION=7336]ILLYRIAN[/MENTION]

I'm British, born and raised in the UK, so English is my first language - only language actually, lol. But even I mix up 'then' and 'than', and more often than not, it's a slip of the fingers when typing, which I assume is what happened here with [MENTION=8404]Blaze[/MENTION] . I would never point something like that out though, because I know I make the same mistake.

In fact, I don't remember ever correcting someone's grammar or spelling unless I was beta'ing someone's fic for them and they expressly asked me to check both, or, like [MENTION=5973]Black Eye Guy[/MENTION] says, when I was Mod here when I would look out for spelling mistakes or 'kool speak', mostly in thread titles.

Though I do correct spelling on here as a mod, but only really if it's kool talk or in a thread title, which is more about presentation.

If I wasn't a mod I wouldn't correct anyone.

This is actually where I learned a lot of what does and doesn't work on the net and when and where it was okay to correct people. Like, for example, if I corrected someone's spelling in a thread title, or edited a post for 'kool speak', people were generally okay with that. But if I edited a post or thread to change grammar (too my exclamation points, adding a question mark, etc.) then more often than not, I would have gotten a PM asking why the thread/post was edited.

People seem to take corrections to spelling better than grammar.

Also, as a Brit who writes American character exclusively, American spelling has actually started to take over in my real life and I now pretty much use American spelling exclusively. 'Realize' instead of 'realise', 'pajamas' instead of pyjamas. This is what mostly gets up Pointy's nose when he's reading my tweets, I can tell, lol. 😉

---------- Post added at 12:34 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:30 AM ----------

For my part, though, if I know what someone means I usually don't correct them in Internet discussions. There's no point and it runs the risk of embarrassing someone.

This reminds me of something I read on FML. A guy (an American, I presume) corrected someone on a forum similar to BB. The person (a British person, I think) posted something with the word 'learnt' in it. The guy corrected the word to 'learned', quite obnoxiously, it seems, because he got a lot of backlash from his post and ended up getting banned from the forum, all because he'd never heard of the word 'learnt' and thought he'd make fun of someone, lol.

 

[patriot1123]

This reminds me of something I read on FML. A guy (an American, I presume) corrected someone on a forum similar to BB. The person (a British person, I think) posted something with the word 'learnt' in it. The guy corrected the word to 'learned', quite obnoxiously, it seems, because he got a lot of backlash from his post and ended up getting banned from the forum, all because he'd never heard of the word 'learnt' and thought he'd make fun of someone, lol.

Quite so. And, as others have pointed out, correcting someone is also risky because that person might not have English as a first language. Personally I'm in awe of anyone who knows two or more languages and I wouldn't dream of nitpicking their use of a second language when I don't even have one. 🙂

 

[ILLYRIAN]

Blaze,
about the then and than, it was just an excuse to high light how to comment. I've seen from your past posts you wouldn't be easily offended so I decided I could 'add a bit of punch' without you reacting negatively to it. Also, by high lighting it (then and than) others might take notice of it. Plus it gave me a reason to look up what the differences are.

 

[Robb Stark]

It's a little bad, but I only really correct the spelling or grammar of someone else if I'm in a heated discussion with them. The vast majority of the time, I really don't care how you spell or word your posts. If it were up to me then yeah, I'd prefer if everything was grammatically correct, but I do recognize that this is an informal setting encompassing people from all over the world who speak a variety of languages, and it isn't a burden to make allowances for that.

However, and this has rarely happened here, if someone calls me stupid or insults my intelligence while at the same time badly misspelling words, then I have no hesitation in pointing out their mistakes. That bugs me a bit when that happens.

 

[Kean]

I'm pedantic about spelling and grammar so I don't really mind if someone corrects me, just once I don't feel like they are doing it to be confrontational or rude. The fact of the matter is that I'd rather have my spelling and grammar be correct than continue making mistakes.

However, despite all of this, I'd never correct anyone elses' grammar because a) I don't feel the desire to do it, and b) I don't know of a way to do it without feeling like a total arse.

 

[buffffy]

I like to be corrected, it helps me learn..

 

[Mr. Pointy]

How to simultaneously comfort and annoy a Spelling/Grammar Nazi…there, their, they're 😉

 

[The Thirst Evil]

People should read more.

To read makes our speaking english good.