Reputations. Do they deserve more careful thought?

[ChrisH]

Originally Posted by computhief263

Like he said, "no one likes a spelling and grammar nazi". Especially when the spelling/grammar mistake was just that... a MISTAKE.

Mastikes heppan, I even make one or two a year . If it is just a mistake, then that will be evident from the rest of what that person has posted. Many times I personally won't even notice misspellings and other minor errors because my brain automatically "fixes" things to what it thinks it should be. Most of the time the only reason I even notice other's mistakes is my "autofix routine" produces something that doesn't make sense. So I have to look twice.

I am not concerned with mistakes nor do I jump on people for obvious mistyping or misspelling of uncommon words. I am concerned that standards of good english be upheld and that those who practice them be recognized in a positive way. I feel that it is especially important for those of us who are mentors to provide an example in this area. Though I can not recall any mentors who have a problem with this.

Maybe that is the best argument. Those of us who are professionals and trying to be examples to you all CHOOSE to communicate using standard english. We work to make our posts examples of clear thinking and understandable to all. If you are trying to be like us, to eventually do the jobs we do, shouldn't you be striving to do the same?

Writing well takes practice. But once you have learned to do it, it is actually harder to use slang, because you have to think about it. This is a great place to practice your writing skills, because there is no real penalty if you do not do it well. Yes, your "Reputation" might suffer for a little while. But what does that cost you? It is not like it goes on your transcript and stays there forever like failing an English class would.

On the other hand, if you only can type IM speak, because that is all you have practiced, what are the chances that your resume will be accepted at a large company? It might be good enough at "Joe's Computers" down the street, but it will not work at Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Rolls Royce, or NASA to name a prominent few.

If you do start to communicate well using a language we can all read, maybe your "Reputation" will grow too. Stranger things have happened.

By the way. Some of you may have noticed that the first two words of my response are misspelled. That was deliberate and intended for a humorous effect (and therefore not a mistake). If I habitually misspelled words or took other shortcuts, then the joke would not "work". I can take liberties and use them to effect because I know what is "supposed to be" and you know that I know because of my other writing, even within this post. If I wrote the rest of this post in IM speak and slang, then you would think I was just another ignoramus.