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

Competition Thanks and/or Congrats
1

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… :frowning: :frowning: :frowning: :frowning:
<Almost as sad as not being able to go to Atlanta this year… Almost…>

2

quit work… you don’t need to work =P

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

3

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

4


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. :slight_smile:

5

“Congratulations is spelled with a “T” and not a “D”!!”

Just for the record congratulations is splet with TWO T’s… :smiley:

6

And Spell Check is your friend!

7

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: )

8

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

9

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.

:slight_smile:

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

10

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

11

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

12

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.

13

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.

14

Ah, but there is an E in Grammer…

:smiley:

15

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.

16

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.

17

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®s sometimes… :slight_smile: :cool:

w00t!
^ Perfectly acceptable as far as a word is concerned by the way… :smiley:

18

Accepts.

duck

19

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!

20

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!