I shall say this more than once

Ah dinny ken what yer on aboot.

 

ah, well that's a relief!

 

They say aboot in canada too. Did the scots colonize canada?

 

Try looking it up in google, just for the hell of it. please?

 

so, Dok, i was comin dahn on de side o you bein righteous aboot ya opinyun. Hence 'sanctimonious'.

Tanks for puttin a smiley in ya reply. tizall i want ya know!

You say you can only go off what I write. To me this is a cop-out.
I always give people the benefit of the doubt. I think I'd get on with you better in person. On here your quote embedded, thorough and ruthless replies just make me sigh. I haven't the energy to type for a day and a half in order to remove all the ambiguities of communication through text. 75%+ is non-verbal.
Chiiiiiiiiiill Winstohn!
(Bahh, what am I saying, we're all different. You do your thing, I'll do mine. I'm off out to go CHILL )

 

sanc·ti·mo·ni·ous ( P ) Pronunciation Key (sngkt-mn-s)
adj. Feigning piety or righteousnessMain Entry: sanc·ti·mo·nious
Pronunciation: "sa[ng](k)-t&-'mO-nE-&s, -ny&s
Function: adjective
1 : affecting piousness : hypocritically devout; also : indicative of affected piousness <the king's sanctimonious rebuke -- G. B. Shaw>

Now ya see, that cuts both ways. If you expect me to give you the benefit of the doubt in what you write, shouldn't you also be willing to take some care with what you say?

In a forum, you only have the written word to go by. If you write something, surely I should assume that you mean what you say? Or else how do we communicate?

Well I agree. We probably would get on better in person. But on here, your smug, condescending comments just make me sigh.

Indeed. Most communication is non-verbal. This is why it's so easy to give the incorrect impression through the written word, and therefore even more reason to take some care with what we write, surely?

 

i aint smug dok, just laid back about it.

p.s.
I hope the '2' next to the dictionary definition didn't escape you....
I am wondering why you still felt the need to quote the '1'....

nanight

 

And I'm not sanctimonious about it, just something I care strongly about. Cuts both ways, see?

Language (as I imagine you should know, teaching English....) is all about the context within which words are used. If you use a word with an ambiguous meaning in the context of a slightly heated discussion, which interpretation do you think is likey to be selected? If nothing else, you should be more cautious in your choice of words if insult isn't intended. And let's not forget that the commonly accepted usage of the word in question is derogatory. Of course this is all so much bullshit though, because you're intelligent enough to know which meaning would be implied by the context of the word, and so the insult was intended.


Also, you've already pointed out that 70% of communication is non-verbal. So you of all people should understand the potential for misunderstanding when communicating through a written medium, and so again, I would expect that you'd be more careful with your choice of words. But of course, the insult was intended, and it's a bit cowardly of you to pretend otherwise.

 

dok, could you PM me your msn thingy please?

 

It's in my profile dude, but not sure if I'm gonna be signed in tonight. Just off to eat at the mo.

 

Fumbling through a bookshop in Singapore, we found a charming little publication entitled, "Better English Skills - Learning the American Accent".

 

I hope you set fire to every copy!

 

Save me a copy! lol

 

now in my oppinion, ( and feel free to slate it if thats how you like to spend ur time) you've got the whole idea of the forums a bit skew-whiff. they're not about trying to conserve any kind of language. they are for ppl to communicte to each other. and as communication is only really the translation of meaning from 1 party to another, then as long as u can understand it then its job is done(if that makes sense). ppl r generally intellegent enough to work out the odd spelling mistake or can work out that a "r" can mean are or our depending on context.(i think that makes sense) also i tend to be quite wasted most of the time i write a post and suffer from funky fingers which often go all james brown across the keyboard and make me spell things in a peculiar fassion. and then when i look back at it i cant be bothered to go through it checking for errors. Because i feel safe in the knowledge that evry1 who reads it will be able to work out what i mean... i think.

ok said my piece... not sure it makes any sense.. but i said it anyway.

 

bear in mind that the usefulness of language extends a LONG way beyond forums.

Why should we degrade any language just because people in forums are two lazy to use it properly? There is no excuse for it. When you write with poor spelling and grammar you convey not just the message you are trying to convey (if you succeed at all that is, depending on the severity of your linguistical crimes) but also that you are a lazy bastard who is too daft to see why we need to do things properly. Without using the language as it is meant to be used, things will fall apart pretty quickly, not just in the forums but everywhere. You'll end up with people in schools losing marks for their work because the bollocks they write is so inaccurate to the point of losing intelligeability. No-one will bother to read the news any more because it's too full of long and complicated words. These problems need to be nipped in the bud, and it starts with the word DEFINITELY WHICH DOES NOT CONTAIN AN A.

 

I read a story on cnn.com once that a kid in florida got an f on an english paper he wrote like an instant message. with lol and stuff like that.

 

yep, that one's done the rounds. although it's something of an urban myth though what with all the chinese-whispers-esque nature of it with multiple versions attributed to so many different parts of the english speaking world.

 

Not for the first time I find myself agreeing entirely with both points of view! The language thrives on change and innovation. English is particularly good at this and has constantly developed over the centuries, incorporating words from other languages and inventing new ones. None of this would ever have happened if people had always slavishly followed the rules, and this churning linguistic evolution might go some way to explain why english is one of the most widely spoken and subtly expressive languages there is. We need mistakes, broken rules and new formulations of words to keep the language vital; some of the "mistakes" will stick. The French try to legislate change out of their language, attempting to ban foreign words and new international words like "email" just to keep the language pure. People who do that are just condemning the language to stagnation and death. A good language is always open to newness, and is prepared to change the rules themselves to keep up with shifts in usage.

At the same time, only a few innovations will actually stick. The ones which do will tend to come about from people knowing the language well enough to know how to break its rules effectively, spying a need for another near-synonym and filling a gap, or using words or sentences in unusual and new ways. Some of the things we're criticising are just annoying little mistakes which will never drive the language forward and simply make things hard to read.

 

There have been several people that I've come across in the forums who just don't make sense. When people don't forumulate* their argument properly and mix it in with bad spelling and puctuation, it's incredibly hard to even grasp the points that they are making and then we have a breakdown of communication. You can see it so many times here in the smallest of ways.

What greatly amuses me is this:

I love the way you say this a lot, it's as if you don't believe a word that you've just written!!!

* A genuine mistake but I thought it was mildly amusing

 

but a small brerak down in communication isnt bad...

you say "blahdy blahdy blah" he says " no ididn't mean it like that, it was meant like this" you say "oh sorry.. well thats the problem with type.. no tone of phrase".
you both say sorry, kiss and make up and then there is no problem.
all this heated debate about ppl abreiviating and a few spelling mistakes is mildly amusing but ultimately unnecessary( see i can even spell unecessary..unessaseri.. unnnessasairy, but you still get what im trying to say. so where's the problem.)