Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

As we approach the time when a lot of Congratulations are going to be thrown around on CD it's time for a grammar lesson.

As shown in this forum's title, Congrats is the correct way to abbreviate or short spell the actual word Congratulations..

Not Congrads.. :ahh: No D!!!


Spelling mistakes make me sad... :( :( :( :(
<Almost as sad as not being able to go to Atlanta this year.. Almost..>

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

quit work... you don't need to work =P

and people... spell check is your friend <3!!!

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

Elgin -

THANK YOU!

The "D/T" replacement in "congratulations" is one of my pet peeves. Every time I read it I just sit and grind my teeth in frustration, and think about how the nuns used to smack the back of my hand with a wooden ruler when I made a mistake like that. Here are a few others that appear with remarkable regularity on these boards:

- Dr. Flowers is "Woodie Flowers" (not "Woody").
- The other co-founder of FIRST is "Dean Kamen" (not "Camen").
- "There" is NOT the same as "their," which is NOT the same as "they're."
- "Ur" is not a word. Niether is "cuz," nor "ppl," nor "lol" (although "ROTFLMAO" may be acceptable in the proper context).
- "Your" is NOT the same as "you're."
- "Y'all" is perfectly permissible if you are currently located south of the Mason-Dixon line and you are speaking aloud. It is not permissible in written prose at any time.
- Punctuation is your friend. Use it.
- "FIRST" is not a verb (yet - give us time, and we will see what happens).
- When referring to yourself, "I" is capitalized.
- And my all-time favorite: "Nuclear" is pronounced "nu kli Er." It is NOT pronounced "nu kU ler." When you use this pronunciation, no matter how smart you may actually be, you sound like an illiterate dolt (are you listening, Mr. Bush?).

(Doug Ross, feel free to jump in any time!)

Some may feel that this is just the ranting of a few old farts that don't know how to lighten up. I would counter that one of the purposes of FIRST is to expose students - and some adults - to the realities of the professional world (in engineering and other disciplines). Well, in the professional world, spelling mistakes, grammatical shortcuts, leet-speek, and misused verbiage are not interpreted as signs of cute, efficient communications. They are indicators of illiteracy, inefficiency, unprofessional behavior, and sloppy work habits. The same happens here. This is not an effort to insult anyone or put anyone down. This is said as a wake-up call - "hey folks, do you really understand how what you write and the way you write make you appear to the community that reads these boards?" Your peers will come to know you by the way you present yourself. And one day your boss, who probably had the same nuns for English teachers that I had, will also.

-dave

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...books&n=507846
You will love this book Dave. I highly recommend it for those who care how they write and speak.

Hopefully I can be one of those people that learns how to do that. Somehow I doubt it though, thanks USF. :)

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

"Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!"


Just for the record congratulations is splet with TWO T's.... :D

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

And Spell Check is your friend!

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

Actually, "spelt" is perfectly acceptable... "spelt"* the British past tense of "to spell", whereas the American past tense of "to spell" is "spelled"

Same with "learnt" vs. "learned"

* = spelt is also defined as "a hardy wheat grown in europe for livestock feed"

EDIT:Ermm, of course, "splet" isn't really a word at all ... more like a sound (see Dave's (disturbing) note below :yikes: )

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

I think that you mean "spelt," not "splet."

"Spelt" may be an acceptable alternate form of "spelled," depending on the country of origin (see Katie's note above), and pertains to the construction of a word through the use of specific letters in a predefined order.

"Splet" is the sound a frog makes when it hits pavement at 187 feet per second. Don't ask me how I know.

-dave

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

Can I ask for an extension of the mason-dixon line thing? I happen to be from Indiana, and having completed my learning of the English language here, y'all has been pushed into my vocabulary.

:)

So either south of the Mason-Dixon line, or in Indiana. Is that reasonable?

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

One of the best books written about punctuation is Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss. The hall of shame on this site is funny, yet disturbing.

Heidi

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

Elgin, you've provided an excellent opportunity for a reminder to everyone to SPEAK ENGLISH on this and any other online forum, chat room, etc. I can't stand acronyms and short versions of words being thrown at me at random when I'm involved in such discussions, it literally messes with my head and gives me a head ache. However, in the case that acronyms and other twisted English words hit your eyes online, there is the acronym finder for some aid. If anyone else knows of any other 'interpreters' online for other words of twisted English, please share them here. Thanks.

-Joe

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

I am glad someone else started this thread, I am not one to complain about grammar.(that what my wife is for.just joking) With that said, the one thing that drive me nuts is at almost every regional I have been to is the phrase " team blah blah graciously excepts " the team member should state " team blah blah humbly excepts teams blah blah Gracious offer" calling oneself gracious is not gracious .

just my 2 cents

Jim Schaddelee
Team 107

After getting a few private message on this subject, I was thinking instead of complaining I should try to do something.I was thinking maybe I should offer a prize to the teams that correctly excepts when being picked.After thinking about that this could get very expensive.So this is what I am thinking ,I could get a prize about $100 dollars in value and any team that stops by our pit and fills out I pledge to accept Correctly form would be entered into a raffle for prize.

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

While I am a huge stickler for not using chatspeak on a forum (just ask the people I've given negative rep to) or in email, I would say that it is acceptable in chatrooms, instant messaging, SMS or any other real time conversation where speed is an excuse. However, I still say that there is no excuse for it on a forum such as this where your time to mull over, spell check, and proofread your post is virtually unlimited. Frankly, it takes time and effort to decode chatspeak, and if someone isn't willing to put the time into writing their post properly, people won't put in the time to read it.

Oh, and while we're on pet peeves, there is no E in grammar.

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

Ah, but there is an E in Grammer...

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001288/

:D

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

That systemic misuse of "gracious" has bothered me for many, many years!

Ur was a city in ancient Mesopotamia. Also, Ur is the name given to the earliest known continental landmass.

While spelling and word choice are easy, real nitpickers mull over things like proper form for ellipses (not the geometric shape :rolleyes: ) and the distinctions between the minus sign, the hyphen and the various dashes.

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

Since we are on a rant about spelling and grammar and what not, can I please ask that anybody starting a thread please capitalize. Please. They just look unimportant when they are all lowercased.

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

Holy cow. I am amazed at how many people responded so positively to this thread; and in a short amount of time too.


See.. I do have good idea(r)s sometimes.. :) :cool:

w00t!
^ Perfectly acceptable as far as a word is concerned by the way.. :D

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

Accepts.

*duck*

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

I have to say that referring to Dave's post about "the real world," if you are going to be an engineer... get used to the headaches. I literally sit through 3-6 2 hour meetings a week, where I would say 50% of the words uttered are acronyms. It even gets as bad as people saying "but if we check GP[General Practice] 2.9 you will see that CM[Configuration Management] does not follow that PC[Process Control]." Or something like that.

And I have to respectfully disagree with Dave on not using LOL. Its an acronym of this generation. Its dorky to type in "laugh out loud" when you want to respond to someone and acknowledge that what they just said was funny. I even got my grandmother using LOL and she is like the chief of grammar police!

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

THANK YOU! As part of my job (I maintain a college web site) I am always looking for spelling errors, typos, style guide errors, etc. that come in the content that is sent to me for posting. I am terrible at grammar and punctuation, and my typing is horrendous, but I really hate it when I catch myself misspelling something!
And another note - if you take minutes at your team meetings, write them properly as they are a record of your team's transactions!

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

OK then, I concede to the fact that you should use acronyms, but only if it makes what you are saying more efficient AND understandable. Otherwise, don't use them.

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

I do believe that you should have used *ducks* in your post.

Of course, everyone who has corrected somebody else's grammar gets corrected themselves. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything... ;)

If I get to represent 818 in the alliance selection, I'll be sure to use the "gracious offer" phrasing instead of "graciously accepts." It really does sound better, and it's more correct to boot.

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

speeking uv acranims, wut duz ROTFLMAO stand four, Dav?

I have to agree with everyone here that a solid command of the English language and all of its subtle nuances is critical to personal and professional success. I have encountered far too many fellow educators who, to quote Michael Douglas in The American President, "couldn't find a coherent sentence with both hands and a flashlight." Students, both secondary and post-secondary, take your English/Communication Arts/Speech classes very seriously. It will have a significant impact on how you are perceived both personally and professionally. Just because your profession may require you to apply a high level of knowledge of math and science does not mean that oral and written communications can be ignored. Excel in all areas and you will reap the rewards.

Dave, I'll be waiting for an explanation of the ROTFLMAO acronym. Thanks!

Sean

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

Umm.. no.

"Rolling On The Floor Laughing My (Butt) Off"

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

You talkin' to me Jim? :p

I agree with everything except:
In particular, the last sentence: I say ANY grammar or punctuation rule may be broken, creative spelling may be employed, acronyms may be used liberally, etc. to produce a desired effect. HOWEVER, YOU NEED TO KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE!

As to "Team X graciously accepts": the first time I heard the phrase, I felt embarrassed for the person who malappropriately used "graciously" in place of "gratefully". It saddens me that ever since then, I have (almost) never heard anyone get it right.

I told you it was ok Dave.
 

Oh oh...curmudgeon fight!

Jeff "I've got someone on my side" Wetzel

Re: I told you it was ok Dave.
 

Yeah, it's me any my copy of "The American Heritage Book of English Usage" along with Clyde and "The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation." But instead of going head-to-head, it's us against all the bad-grammar-usin', "ya know"-slingin', graciously excepting, "congradulations"-totin', "nu kU ler"-spoutin' linguistic Luddites out there. We'll see who wins! :D

-Norm

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...glance&s=books
or that one, its very helpful :)

Re: I told you it was ok Dave.
 

And you know you just illustrated my point, right? :D

Re: I told you it was ok Dave.
 

Sam-

Sshhhh! I was trying to be subtle!

-phil

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

FTM TLA in this CDP.

I am LOL.

OO - Now POS.

GTG, BCNU at FIRST -

CBF

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

TLAs (three letter acronyms) are irritating
-Daniel

Re: I told you it was ok Dave.
 

I think you mean "and". ;)

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

lol an example of spell check being evil

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

I am so proud.. :) :) :)

I have only seen the word congratulations spelled wrong (by accident :rolleyes: ) here on CD only one time since I started this thread.

w00t to starting threads on CD, raising awareness, and changing the culture for the better!!!

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

First of all, if you're defining a php variable, you need a dollar sign:

$ROTFLMAO = "Rolling On The Floor Laughing Out Loud";

And, what this whole discussion have to do with gramm<u>a</u>r? If you're talking about how things are <i>spelled</i>, then this isn't an issue of gramm<u>a</u>r!

Now I'm pretty sure I haven't made any spelling <i>or</i> grammer mistakes in this post...

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

Coding is another issue :-)

Instead of using < and > (HTML) use brackets instead (like below but without spaces
[ u ]Underline[ /u ], [ b ]Bold[ /b ], [ i ]italic[ /i ], etc.

HTH,
Daniel

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

Thanks!

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

Although that's acceptable code, it's inefficient. The quotations cause PHP to check the string for the presence of variables, where as with apostrophes PHP just outputs the text directly. That is why
Will show Rolling On The Floor Laughing My $bad Off

You could however, do

Code:

---

$bad = '(Butt)';
$ROTFLMAO = 'Rolling On The Floor Laughing My '.$bad.' Off';

---

Code:

---

echo $ROTFLMAO;

---

Which would show Rolling On The Floor Laughing My (Butt) Off

Where

Code:

---

$bad = '(Butt)';
$ROTFLMAO = "Rolling On The Floor Laughing My $bad Off";
echo $ROTFLMAO;

---

Will show Rolling On The Floor Laughing My (Butt) Off

My bad if I steered us horribly off topic :o

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

it should be: Walking into a HS with no FIRST team, dlavery declares, "lets FIRST this place!"

FIRST'D: past tense. Teacher: Billy, whats gotten into you? You were such a slacker, and now you are a top notch student!"

Billy: I got FIRST'D!

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

Im not really good at spelling, so i usually break up the words and try to go from there. so like congratualations, i would automatically think of the word "congrats" then "ulations". so then when i look back on spelling congratulations with a "d" instead of a "t" it would sound and look funny.

-Court-

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

I was so disappointed this weekend. I walked into the Naval Academy restaurant near the hockey rink at the Annapolis regional and was amused/saddened.

On the 3rd day since I had to stand in a long line to get food I saw a huge banner hanging in the middle of the restaurant, and Congratulations was spelled with a D. It was Congratulating a General or an Admiral on an accomplishment of some kind.

I was gonna say something to someone but I don't think it's wise to question Naval officers with weapons on their belts. lol :ahh:

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

I have to say, this thread is cracking me up. :) Especially the above post by Dave, because I am a HUGE offender. I tend to take the position, however, that since I worked for 8.5 years on Naval nuclear propulsion plants, I can say it any way I please. :D There are many words in the English language that acquire regional pronunciations: wash vs. warsh, roof vs. ruff, car vs. cah, to name just a few. For some reason nuclear seems to draw the most criticism. One could argue that the dictionary only offers one pronunciation option for nuclear (actually there's two, but the alternate isn't germane), but the same argument is true for the other examples I presented. Believe it or not, different parts of the country pronounce different words differently (my redundant statement of the obvious). Without exaggerating, it has been my experience that the people that tend to get the most upset about how certain words are pronounced hail from the part of the country where eating "mahs bahs" in their "cah" is perfectly acceptable. In my younger Navy years, while stationed in Connecticut, some locals actually wanted to FIGHT because I said "Hey! How are y'all doin?" Response: "Y'all? Y'all? Where the <bleeeepin> <bleep> <bleep> are you from?" :eek: It STILL blows my mind!

So a polite request: Please don't criticize pronunciations that are regionally derived.

Now the issue of spelling/grammar/punctuation is a different matter. It would be nice if we all spent a little time to organize our thoughts before we post and present them in a legible manner. Sometimes I read a post and have absolutely no idea what the poster is trying to say. If you are going to take the time to express an idea by posting, then at least take the time to consider what it looks like to someone else who is reading it!

Chatspeak/abbreviations/LOLs/etc. I'm not sure, but I presume all of these little acronyms came about during the not so distant past when bandwidth and storage was fairly costly. I remember my first e-mail account I ever had charged by the kilobyte! The same thing was true for Usenet groups (the original forums). Thus people adopted shortcuts to save money. Through the years these habits have carried on and been expanded, even though gigabyte storage is cheap and nearly everyone has access to broadband internet. So while the "chatisms" are no longer necessary, they are understandable.

Y'all have a good day!

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

I thought this was an engineering forum.

Why are y'all so worried about grammar, spelling and such!

It's all about the math!

(just be sure to spell your equations correctly - K?)

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

What sound does it make if it hits at only 100 mph?? :D


Spell checker is my BEST friend.

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

I know ROTFLMAO. What about ROTFLMAOWPMP? :)

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

Or this:

for congratulations:

Masul Tuff!

U jehst goht ursilph un vvineh!! :D :D :D :D

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

Close, but no cigar. Mazel Tov

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

Remember, it's definitely not definately.

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

and on that note, ridiculous, not rediculous.

red-iculous? sounds like a crayon color to me...

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

I know already! I was just trying to humor the thread and make a point.

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

Pour and pore are different also. Pour means that you are spilling cutting fluid in a controlled manner into somewhere; pore means that you are looking over the rules very closely, trying to find that hidden loophole.

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

one often spells curmudgeon, curmudgeon

(although without spell check, I could be wrong)

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

One that gets me is when the e is left out in awesome

Re: Congratulations is spelled with a "T" and not a "D"!!
 

Congratulation to all of the hard working teams that showed off their incredible robots this year. It was alot of fun, especially the finals. :) Everyone should be proud of their accomplishments this year. Our team was proud to be able to be there among you. We wish each team the best. Hope to see you in Atlanta!
:)