The BDOTGNZA's American Division is hard at work!

[chubby]

Thank goodness that someone has finally got their priorities right. Lets forget about Burma, bugga the Chinese earthquake, lets not worry about global warming, the price of petrol nor who murdered what child. Let's get down to the real crimes against humanity, the things that effect every single person out there. The most heinous of crimes... bad gramma.

A worthy fight me thinks and well worth a full page spread in every newspaper. I seen it everywhere.

[007XX]

Minor crime compared to some others but I get anal over the extent to which the language is murdered (probably stems from a ruler repeatedly descending across the knuckles at junior school). I hope that the vendor of Boat's got a discount from the Sighnwroiter.

That actually raises an interesting point...How does one know why one has or has not a fascination or even a compulsion to respect / disrespect the proper rules of punctuation, grammar and suchlike fun?

Has anyone got any ideas?

[jrandom]

How does one know why one has or has not a fascination or even a compulsion to respect / disrespect the proper rules of punctuation, grammar and suchlike fun?

That sentence, right there, earns you a formal written Enforcement Division warning.

[Blackbird]

That actually raises an interesting point...How does one know why one has or has not a fascination or even a compulsion to respect / disrespect the proper rules of punctuation, grammar and suchlike fun?

Has anyone got any ideas?

The reasons must be myriad, starting with poor teaching or laziness. I'm not actually quite as anal about it as I sound, it's fun to be a grumpy old bastard. Our eldest son who has 2 degrees and a pretty good job will be on the shortlist for Crappiest Speller in the Galaxy and he gets by just fine with the aid of a spell checker

My age has probably got the most to do with my attitude. Born in the late 40's, parents who encouraged good English, both spoken and written; and I wasn't joking about the ruler over the knuckles either, haha.

[KoroJ]

At the northern end of Tapu on the Thames coast road, a sign about 1 metre high and 5 metres long has recently been prominently attached to a house saying Boat's For Hire. This really effing irritates me and a ninja mission might be called for under cover of darkness. Perhaps a piss-taking letter to the Peninsula Times at the very least

He might only have one boat....?!

[007XX]

That sentence, right there, earns you a formal written Enforcement Division warning.

Oh my! Am I finally in trouble?? How many warnings before punishment?

The reasons must be myriad, starting with poor teaching or laziness. I'm not actually quite as anal about it as I sound, it's fun to be a grumpy old bastard. Our eldest son who has 2 degrees and a pretty good job will be on the shortlist for Crappiest Speller in the Galaxy and he gets by just fine with the aid of a spell checker

My age has probably got the most to do with my attitude. Born in the late 40's, parents who encouraged good English, both spoken and written; and I wasn't joking about the ruler over the knuckles either, haha.

Fair enough...I've always been a bit of a stickler for proper grammar and suchlike. I can remember being a complete nerd at school around my teenage years, with such pastimes as reading the dictionary for fun (I kid you not!).

I think that I owe my love and ability to spell to my dad...he stopped me from reading comics and pushed a lovely fiction book called Maria Magdalena. I fell in love with words there and then.

[James Deuce]

Thank goodness that someone has finally got their priorities right. Lets forget about Burma, bugga the Chinese earthquake, lets not worry about global warming, the price of petrol nor who murdered what child. Let's get down to the real crimes against humanity, the things that effect every single person out there. The most heinous of crimes... bad gramma.

A worthy fight me thinks and well worth a full page spread in every newspaper. I seen it everywhere.

You're an idiot.

Which is to say, you ARE an idiot as opposed to the request for your "an idiot" that the average KBer posits when attempting to proclaim someone lacking in mental processing capacity.

Clear communication is important.

"Tens of thousand's killed in cyclones rampaging path" makes little sense unless thousands is a Myanmar noun for a member of a tribe and there was more than one cyclone that took the same path.

But I guess that doesn't really matter. If you can't communicate clearly, you can't direct all the freighters you obviously own to deliver all that aid to all those people you feel so terrible about.

Or can you?

[Blackbird]

James me ol' mate..... are you practicing for Grumpy Bugger of the Year too? On call for the long weekend are ya?

[avgas]

equally.

The same?
Zero/None?
A lot?
In proportion?
To a set predetermined level amount?
To the same dimension?
To the same amplification?
For the same amount of effort?
Or exactly the same?
Which one is equal?
hehehe
Just reminding you that it is not always the user, it can be the language.....

[Flatcap]

Thank goodness that someone has finally got their priorities right. Lets forget about Burma, bugga the Chinese earthquake, lets not worry about global warming, the price of petrol nor who murdered what child. Let's get down to the real crimes against humanity, the things that effect every single person out there. The most heinous of crimes... bad gramma.

A worthy fight me thinks and well worth a full page spread in every newspaper. I seen it everywhere.

...Let's not worry about global warming, the price of petrol or whom murdered which child...

[chubby]

Clear communication is important.

That part of what you said was correct. The rest was, in my view, a waste of space. Communication and gramma, while intersecting, can be mutually exclusive. You appear moderately intelligent, so i'll assume I don't need to bore you with a long description of why you don't need to have perfect gramma to convey your intent.

Going back to the original thread we are talking about a group that wants to perform a world wide attack on badly worded signs. Is that really worthy of the effort? What next an attack on street signs that don't exactly follow the line of the road? Of corner signs that don't fully convery the angle of turn?

If the intent is clear to a reasonable person then what is the problem.

[MisterD]

That part of what you said was correct. The rest was, in my view, a waste of space. Communication and gramma, while intersecting, can be mutually exclusive. You appear moderately intelligent, so i'll assume I don't need to bore you with a long description of why you don't need to have perfect gramma to convey your intent.

That's like saying we don't need to follow the rules of the road, just because a reasonable person could drive from A to B even if they were a little bit dented when they arrived.

As Al Murray said "Them's the rules and where would we be, if we didn't have rules? That's right, France."

[Flatcap]

If the intent is clear to a reasonable person then what is the problem.

So it's alright to dress like a moron as long as your intention to cover your genitals is achieved?

[Swoop]

Communication and gramma

What are you referring to here?

gra·ma – noun any grass of the genus Bouteloua, of South America and western North America, as B. gracilis (blue grama).

Also, gramma.
Also called grama grass.

gra·ma also gram·ma n. Any of various grasses of the genus Bouteloua of western North America and South America, forming dense tufts or mats and often used as pasturage.


Or are you referring to grammar?





Has anyone investigated this "Merkin" position on ass/arse???

[Hitcher]

That part of what you said was correct. The rest was, in my view, a waste of space. Communication and gramma, while intersecting, can be mutually exclusive. You appear moderately intelligent, so i'll assume I don't need to bore you with a long description of why you don't need to have perfect gramma to convey your intent.

If one is writing things down, and expects what one is trying to communicate to be taken seriously, then one needs to expend a little effort and take some care in how one presents one's written work. As an extreme example perhaps, I am a person who when reading somebody's CV, will be immediately distracted by mistakes in spelling and grammar. If they can't write properly, what else can't they do? Anal you may say. But all other things being equal, would you buy the motorcycle with the dented tank or the pristinely unmarked one?

Indeed your point about imprecision not being important to convey intent may have merit. At times. But if you are relying on your readers to cover your sloppiness by interpreting correctly what you have to say, then that is a risk you have to take. With a bit of care and attention you can significantly reduce the risk of being misunderstood or mocked.