Since we seem to have reached a quiet patch on this board (temporarily, I'm sure), I figured it might be a good moment to ask a question of my fellow politics board posters that's been nagging at me for a long time. I notice that quite a few of you have apparently completely abandoned conventional punctuation and grammar in your posts. The most common deviation is the omission of capitalization of all kinds, including at the beginning of sentences and of proper nouns. Some leave out periods at the end of sentences (which, since this a pet peeve thread, I have to say is the most annoying affectation of all). My time on this board being limited, I tend to skip over posts that throw such unnecessary reading comprehension challenges at me. So my question is, what's up with that? Why do you do it?
I agree with you, it drives me wild as well, but I have to admit I am very guilty of it when posting from my P.D.A. I would have to say that my biggest pet peeve is the use of post icons in threads. I hate them. They tend to convey a very negative tone for the most part, and I think they detract from the conversation. Oh, and no matter what I say or do, I can't make IJ Reilly happy.
i tend not to capitalize as a stylistic choice. to make up for it, i try to spell correctly, use correct grammar and express my thoughts clearly. i'll sometimes omit a period, but only if it's a sentence that's its own paragraph, or a post that consists of only a few words. is that what you're referring to, or are there people not using periods in the middle of a paragraph?
I didn't know that was your mission in life.... We do seem to agree on the punctuation issues, though. I don't much care for similies, either (but one pet peeve at a time).
Why make this stylistic choice? Understand, I'm not criticizing anyone's ability to express themselves clearly. That's not the issue at all. I simply don't get why anyone would cheat themselves by making it more difficult for others to read what they've written, and for me at least, omitting capitalization does that. Yes, at least one poster uses no periods at all.
HA! Na, I have tried to bring myself closer to the middle because of many arguements that you have made, because you always use logic, and not 3 grade name calling tactics.
Gentlemen, I agree; well, almost wholeheartedly. I dont mind the smiley icons as much as you do, BacktotheMac. However, I do agree that they most always convey negativity or sarcasm. As for non-capitalization, I can appreciate it being used as a stylistic flair just as Zimv20 does/pointed out. But you are correct: if you are going to use flamboyances such as those, it's irritating to spell like a second grader and grammatically make yourself look illiterate. On the other hand, if you are a [truly] illiterate Macintosh lover and enjoy posting on these boards, then I say, Mo powah to ya, my bruthah! Oh by the way, I am using Microsoft Word as we speak just as I always do. Its constructive for checking spelling in real time. As far as pet peeves go, I just cant get into all the instant messenger culture abbreviations you see. In addition, I have a tough time reading long posts which have no paragraph breaks. Come on people, separate your ideas! A Side note: I've had to edit this post four times in order to free myself from self-incrimination.
I suppose then I'll detract from using smilies in this post and let you determine the humor. The only political pet peeve I have -- if you want to call it that -- can be determined from my signature. I have problems with people debating supposed political bias in news reports. Yes, I know that there are situations in which one report claims this group to be [condition A] while a second reports claims the same group to be [condition B], in which conditions A and B are different. But if you don't trust the news report, go find another one, and debate the truth from false there. Thus, you can find out which article reported false information, or information that was sort of accurate, rather than debate left/right bs. But, seriously...in overlooking discussions of political bias in news, I've seen people argue over such bias because of two words/conditions that mean almost the same thing. (Don't make me search for examples...searching is a big pet peeve of mine, so take my word for it.) I mean, how stupid! I thought that all the "product to be updated at..." vs. "product to be updater after..." debating in the MacRumors News section several months back was horsecrap. But after reading some of the political bias threads in the past three months, people took references to political parties rather personally. Therefore, I feel that not only do people pay way too much attention to such supposed political news bias, but nothing positive comes out of discussing it. On a quick note: I feel that political news bias is nonexistant, but rather one's view of news reports as being politically biased and focus on such context exist. Basically, if a news source seems to lean "to one side" of the political spectrum because of differing conditions, then I think we're all better off discussing the "This reporter should have asked more authorities" or the "I don't think this reporter knows what he is talking about" from involving politics. All right people?
Well, if anyone notices (ha ha), I have a habit of ending my sentences like this...I do this because it is (to me) approaching the cadence of my thoughts and probably my speech, if it was relevant... I cannot comment on how annoying this is to other posters, if it proves to be a barrier to comprehension, I will probably stop. My peeve is spelling, but I usually keep it to myself...(sentence-structure sometimes gets me too.)
Same here. I think that's gotten worse for me in the past two months or so. See, that's the only pet peeve others have that I find unfair. I know that many people nowadays use a lot of text software with automatic spelling checks, so there shouldn't be any reason to misspell. But I don't. I use Appleworks, Mozilla, sometimes the HTML editing area within Geocities, and Taco HTML edit, and I think none of them have automatic spell checks. In addition, even after I review my posts, there are still sometimes mistakes. So I can't help it if a spelling error occurs. Now I feel the need to ask something. Why do you have a pet peeve of spelling? I thought this whole thread was about political peeves. I guess not, though. Well then, here are some more pet peeves of mine.
Drat, you beat me to it. For what it's worth, if anyone else here is a punctuation stickler and has not yet read Lynne Truss' book Eats, Shoots & Leaves, stop whatever you're doing and go buy a copy.
Well no, it was supposed to be about posting peeves. I zeroed in on a lack of punctuation and capitalization, which is rampant around here.
+capitalization of letters: i (try to) force myself into small letter because i easily fall back in my native language, where capitalization of letters is used excessivly,which wouldn't look good... +grammar: i try my best...but i'm not a linguist... +punctation: i tend to write in very long sentences in my native language which, ,leads to lot's of punctations errors (after itried to translate them into english) yeah and lacking grammar is a reason too everyday i'm learning at least one new word in here.... because i either don't understand one or i fail to translate one ....
How well I'm typing, including puncuation and capitalization, is usually postively correlated to how tired I am when I'm posting. I don't mind if people leave off various punctuation or leave out capitalization so long as I can actually understand what they are saying. What I do mind is when people do the: r u going 2morrow 2 da beach?
i guess i'm peeving a few people off with my lack of capitalization...ntm, my frequent use of ellipsis( or "..." ). as far as my peeves...none significant enough to mention.
guilty as charged as far as the lack of capitalization. I kind of like small letters: I find them more friendly and, ehm, democratic? I do try to capitalize "I" and people's names, although i might slip occasionally. Also, I am a dyslexic typist, so I frequently invert the order of letters, or use doubles inappropriately. I invariably miss them when I check, so I end up editing most of my posts for corrections.