TYPOS - OR , Bad Editing ?

I feel this is an issue even with posts to this forum.  I find many posts hard to read because of lack of capitalization, paragraph breaks, poor grammer that confuses clauses, etc.  There have been a few- admittedly only a few- long posts that I just gave up reading because they were just too hard to read.  If it was the original post starting a thread, I never went back to the thread.

I think in many cases it is just laziness, not caring that it makes things harder for the reader.  Have pity on the reader and help him read the posts you make.

Hi DON !

 You are so right . I got called out on this some years back , remember ? Now I try my best to do it right . There are some who are here and English is not their home language .Those I can forgive .

The young ones of course . But the rest ? I think , we don't think , when we type an answer .That's part of the problem . That  , and most folks don't write like they speak . Some would run out of breath , now wouldn't they ?

 Have a good day - Tanker - Builder

All goes to the current education model, and the lack of the old "3 R's".  Add in the abrevations in the texting world now and there you go.  In another thousand years we'll probably be back to sign language and grunts.

Blame it on Common Core.

i was 1 as a school kid--spelling bee winner i wrote perfectly  but

don i am 1 of those on here of which u speak run on sentences no punct. etc

in the beginning i cried after 2 mini strokes---my mind races in nine directions since   but i have grwon to live with my prob

I imagine I've spent more of my adult life writing than most Forum members have. And I'm thoroughly burnt out on marking up college students' papers. (I dream of the day I find a student who DOES know the difference between "it's" and "its." And so help me, the next time I get an ROTC cadet who can't spell "soldier"....Time to retire.)

But I claim no right to pass judgment on any other Forum contributor. I've made more than my share of grammatical mistakes here. I try to read over each of my posts after I post it. I've found some pretty awful goofs that way. But I'm sure I've missed plenty of others.

I have, though, noticed a couple of errors that seem to be showing up more frequently recently.

One is the misuse of the apostrophe. Some folks seem to have the notion that they're supposed to hit the apostrophe before every use of the letter S. No. The apostrophe (with a few exceptions) is just used for possessives and contractions. Not plurals. (Incorrect: "Jim's ship model's aren't rigged." Correct: "Jim's ship models aren't rigged." "Jim's" is a possessive. "Models" is a plural. "Aren't" is a contraction.)

The other increasingly common goof involves spacing and punctuation marks. Except in a few specific cases, you don't need to hit the space bar BEFORE a punctuation mark (like a comma or period). But (usually) you do need a space after the punctuation mark. (Wrong: "Jim , the first baseman , caught the ball .  " Right: "Jim, the first baseman, caught the ball.")

When somebody calls me a grammar nazi, I pat him or her on the head and say "there, their, they're."

I shall now head for work (five weeks to go), and inflict my Olde Phogey standards on a collection of innocent young minds.

P.S. I just proofread this post and found six mistakes in it - which I fixed. I suspect that if I read it again tomorrow I'll find some more.

What a weird thread. First of all TB, your posts are pretty much unreadable.

Second, if Squadron has a publication full of typos, what does that reflect of our education and standards here in the US? Maybe on those of Michigan, where they are located? Maybe on China, or where ever the thing is printed?

GM, you lost me. What does Squadron have to do with this thread? Did I fail to make a connection?

For what it's worth, I'm bugged by the Squadron website's insistance on putting numbers in parentheses. Like "(2)" or "(4)" or "(225)." I sent the site an e-mail about that once; I didn't get an answer.

Oh - and I believe Squadron is headquartered in Texas.

Tanker - Builder

I have seen attrocious editing even in Squadron's publication . And misidentification too .

This is way GM mentioned it. Also, I don't believe our grammar has anything to do with how other countries view us. Just my opinion.

Is that quote from TB in some other thread? It's not in this one.

And could somebody tell me what "This is way GM mentioned it" means?

Tilley - 

It's in TB's main thread post. It's in the first paragraph. And in my post I highlighted that statement for you too see, since you asked the question. Then I wrote "This is why GM mentioned it" because GM commented on it.

jtilley

Is that quote from TB in some other thread? It's not in this one.

And could somebody tell me what "This is way GM mentioned it" means?

 

 

That TB quote is from the opening paragraph of this thread.

As for the meat and potatoes of it, well I am no grammarphile myself. Although the biggest part of my daily job is writing (you mean playing cops and robbers for the rest of your life means having to write down what you did?), I try to do the best I can. For a guy with only a HS diploma and some college. Perhaps because I have loved reading so much that has helped?  Putting online abbreviations in posts does irk the bejeezus out of me. But hey, that appears to be where we are headed as a society.

As far as long run on paragraphs go here? Well lets just say that some posts I avoid as soon as I see due to knowing the likeliness of such happening. And others lose me along the way. Then I may ask a question for clarification if needed.

But anyways...

I guess "why" came through as "way." Pure typo. Glad to have it cleared up.

TB's first post in this thread does contain that quote; my apologies. He begins his first post with "I have read the thread." TB - which thread is that?

I could offer several theories on the reasons for young people's lousy writing skills. The truth is that I don't have any single, clear answer. I will say this, though. I started teaching freshman-level American history 42 years ago, when I was in grad school. In all honesty I haven't seen a consistent trend, upward or downward, in the quality of students' writing. In 1974 the typical undergraduate essay was a literary disaster, and it still is.

I think Stik's comment on long paragraphs is interesting. Quite a few of my students don't write in paragraphs; they just write and write until they're out of time. "Do you realize that your entire essay consists of one paragraph?" is one of my standard exam comments. (Others include "this sentence doesn't make sense," and "what does this expression mean?") A lot of people who write long paragraphs don't know they're doing it.

For what it's worth, Stik, I've always found your posts clear and readable - as well as well-informed.

modelcrazy

There is more in my life to worry about than someone’s posted errors or typos. I know what they mean and overlook them.

 

Very true! (we really could use a laughing emoji) If that sort of thing get's your goat, you probably have too much time on your hands, are too easily upset by little things, or some combination of the two.

JT, thank you for the feedback. I sometimes wonder about my ramblings on here. I can still hear my field training officer's words every now and then when writing reports: new idea, new paragraph.

stikpusher

 

 

 

modelcrazy

There is more in my life to worry about than someone’s posted errors or typos. I know what they mean and overlook them.

 

 

 

 

Very true! (we really could use a laughing emoji) If that sort of thing get's your goat, you probably have too much time on your hands, are too easily upset by little things, or some combination of the two.

JT, thank you for the feedback. I sometimes wonder about my ramblings on here. I can still hear my field training officer's words every now and then when writing reports: new idea, new paragraph.

 

 

Stik - 

Laughing my head off! Great photo..."The Dude" "Damnit Donnie"..."When I was in the muck and the mud in Nam" Great photo and movie. Hopefully I didn't use quotations too much (lol) 

I turned 75 a few weeks ago, in my mid sixties I had a few TIA's, commonly called "mini strokes," followed by a more severe stroke. I'm left with residual effects, both physical and mental, partial loss of arm/leg feeling, with some speech/memory issues.

I am aware that I often lack clarity, but I do try to be cautious and do my best when speaking, or posting here at FSM. If I have offended anyone by posting in a poor or confusing manner, I express my regrets. I have made my best attempts to contribute in a positive way. My wife helps out, but likely mistakes do get by.

Best to all.

Patrick 

Like I said, I find this discussion started by a wierd statement.

Tanker - Builder

 I have read the thread .

      I even commented on it .That got me to thinking ( I know , Dangereous , right ? ) I have seen attrocious editing even in Squadron's publication . And misidentification too .

 Would they put an old teacher of the language and spelling thereof , on the payroll . Nope . Why ? Well , it would cost to much . Sadly , I've worked with College grads in Media and such . they can't even spell Argentina !

      What is it that makes folks laugh at America ? It's our casual attitude toward that which should be normal , Like punctuation , spelling , and just plain good Grammar .

 The cavalier attitude in print and yes  , on T.V. Closed Captioning should be examined and fixed. I mean , even though as a person I can't stand TRUMP , I don't spell his name Tramp or Twrump " I mean c'mon now !    Tanker - Builder

Then Common Core, which was adopted in 2010, gets the blame.

College educated people! Lazy students!

I really can't say anything about how people spell or construct sentences on here. I myself am at the least in the Tilley hundhaus for inappropriate use of the apostrophe.

But more importantly, so many people here have various disabilities, learning differences and language challenges that it has to me become part of the mosaic.

GMorrison

But more importantly, so many people here have various disabilities, learning differences and language challenges that it has to me become part of the mosaic.

Well said GM. 

206, I wasn't going to add anything until I read your reply. I truly hope you do not take this thread personally, as I read through it I found no finger pointing nor intentional " calling out " of any particular forum member. Thank you for sharing with us the very private details of your condition, I hope that others feel the same when I say if you post here to be a active and helpful member then some grammatical errors and spelling issues can be overlooked. Happy modelling and thanks for making this forum what it is, a great place to chat and share information.

Patrick206, your comments are on target. I wouldn't be a part of any forum that rejected posts because of grammatical or mechanical errors.

I feel obliged to note, though, that you've shot yourself in the foot. This certified Olde Phogey read your post pretty carefully and couldn't find a single mistake in it. I'd go so far as to call it the best-written post in this thread so far (certainly better than mine).

I hope most of us can agree with Don Stauffer: well-written posts are easier to read, and proofreading is a courtesy to the reader. But I'm sure Don will agree that grammar isn't the most important thing in a Forum post.

armornut

Thanks, Armornut- No, I didn't feel singled out, but I do often think if not posting carefully, I might be prone to getting way off course. Once in a while my Wife will point out something confusing or hard to understand in a note I left for her, I don't want to waste anyones time here by posting something in error.

I do sense that some others may prefer brevity in communications, I'll bear that in mind for the future. Again, no offense intended, I try my best and hope I may have contributed at least a little something on the forums.

For myself, I don't care much about punctuation, spelling or grammar in posts from others. I enjoy all of the posts and have learned a great deal about the hobby here, my limited skills have been quite improved since joining FSM.

Thanks again.

Patrick

206, I wasn't going to add anything until I read your reply. I truly hope you do not take this thread personally, as I read through it I found no finger pointing nor intentional " calling out " of any particular forum member. Thank you for sharing with us the very private details of your condition, I hope that others feel the same when I say if you post here to be a active and helpful member then some grammatical errors and spelling issues can be overlooked. Happy modelling and thanks for making this forum what it is, a great place to chat and share information.

 

Well honestly, I have to agree w/ Steve.  To me it’s not Armageddon if people don’t use proper English or punctuation.  You should see my friends and our messages when playing online.  "k thx man,  G8 racin' w/ u!  C U L8tr."  Maybe not quite that bad!  I don’t do that with anything else though.  

I went to a school that was extremely geared toward academics.  I tend to write formal looking emails and know cursive (which was taught when I was in grade school).  Schools now days do not even teach cursive!  I find that to be pathetic.  They drilled all sorts of knowledge in our heads.  Most I never thought I'd use, yet I do all the time.  Creepy part is… I still remember every State's Capitol City.  

Then I went through college which just turned me into an OCD organizer.  Mostly it was technical math and engineering.  Calculus was a nightmare.  However, during drafting classes you were forced to write in all CAPS for the drawings/plans.  It’s considered the standard.  I also took a few years of German.  In German you capitalize all nouns in sentences,  not just proper nouns like English.  That’s why you may see me tend to capitalize here and there.  

The one thing I see often and will annoy me a bit, is neglecting to capitalize the first letter in a sentence.

 seriously i hate seeing those type of sentences where the everything is lower case. it just grinds me gears

C U L8TR, 

Cody J

Well I hope that you guys can forgive my errors. I struggle big time. I am pretty dyslexic. I reverse letters and concepts all the time. What I think does not always translate to what I write. I have to fight it constantly. It just seems that no matter how often that I check for errors, I always miss something. It drives me nuts. I struggle with grammar as well, but probably for different reasons. Both of my parents immigrated from Poland after WW2. Neither of them finished schooling because the both of them were taken away to Nazi work camps. As a result of their academic disability, we didn't have much in the way of academic support. It was pretty much zero. An then, in my honest opinion, the school system that I went through was an absolute joke. It was overcrowded and the teachers were indifferent. Some were even abusive. Anyway...I try, but it is not easy for me. In fact, I find that writing is one of the hardest things for me to do. So I hope that you can look the other way when I make stupid errors.

I agree with JT about Patrick. I wish I could write as well as Patrick does. I always marvel at how clear and concise Patrick's posts are.

Bakster, you have no reason whatever to apologize for your writing. Until I read your last post I had no idea that you suffered from that infernal affliction. Your posts always come through courteously, precisely, and clearly.

The university where I work (and for which I will cease to work five weeks from now) has an office called "Disability Support Services." Over the years I've had several dozen students with learning disabilities. (I have one with dyslexia right now.) DSS requires verification by a doctor; when the verification comes, i'm instructed to make "accommodations" for the student in question. That usually means giving the student extra time to work on exams, and letting him/her take them in a "distraction-free environment." In most cases (not quite all) those students do at least average-quality work under those circumstances. I admire those who live with such problems, and I'm always more than glad to follow DSS's recommendations.

I've never met a good writer who thought writing was easy.

Bakster

Well I hope that you guys can forgive my errors. I struggle big time. I am pretty dyslexic. I reverse letters and concepts all the time.

Dyslexia is (personal note it's me, my wife or my kid, no more information offered) an inability to visually memorize or learn a sound by looking at a letter combination, but be forced to phonetically sound it out. Classic example- those of us not dyslexic sound out in our heads the sound of the letter combination "th" differently when in the word "the" as opposed to when in the word "three". A dyslexic cannot.

The members of this forum are IMO a pretty visual lot, but not entirely. A super abundant amount say "look at this, I built this to look like that".

Many might say "I built this to look like that, because I took care to get the details (content) right".

Then some say "I never built anything, but what you built looks like that".

And a few say "What you built doesn't look like that".

Dyslexia does away with most of any ability to make visual distinctions between objects in code, like writing. But like most LD's it comes along with a suite of other super abilities, and disabilities. Chief among the abilities are intelligence (read Einstein) musical talent (Mozart) and other singular talents. Disabilities include the problem with visual recognition. Such things as both eyes being able to track something across the midline. There's a gift behind that. Get tested, hang in there, have faith.

I was such a poor musician, as in hopelessly incompetent, that in grade school I had double art class just to keep me out of the music room. Licensed Architect, who'dathunk.

So I have a love if you will, or a joy to read from people here, however imperfect they may be in expression in print, to be able to just type away and not worry about the grammar.

I may have missed the origin of the discussion, which has been a good one, where TB said "I read the thread".

I still wonder what is was that keyed this, but TB when you were steering the TEXACO whatever up the Carquinez Strait on a rising tide towards Port Costa, that 1st Mate on the bridge no doubt called a "short sounding" a "shoit sounda".

There's a whole set of good literature based on how we really sound. Read Matthiessens "Far Tortuga".

The actual Lydia E. Wilson which becomes the fictional Lillias Eden.

(Calling all schooner fans!)

Captain Avers:

"Dass it. All kinds of birds and rats and wildcats, jaguars, y'know, and dogs, and what dey calls ringtails--all dem vermin comes out de swamps and jungles dat lays just behind dat beach, and wild hogs, too, dey say--all of dat is swarmin de beaches, and de few dat slips past de vermin got to scromble through dat big surf dere, which is one of de worst in all de world, and dem dat gets past de breakers, dey got to deal with all de sharks and fish in de deep water, and de mon- o'-war birds pickin at'm from de top when dey surfaces to get dere breath. In de monin' time when dose young ones dat come out from de night is restin in de water, dat mornin de sky is littered with birds. Mon-o'-war birds. De boobies don't grob dem so much, but de mon-o'-war do. Dey millions of birds dere. Dat mornin de sea is covered with baby turtle and de sky is black with birds, just black with mon-o'-war birds, swoopin down. Dey is very few dat gets away. Oh, very few!"

modelcrazy

There is more in my life to worry about than someone’s posted errors or typos. I know what they mean and overlook them.

 

Ah, but there is the rub.  Many times I do not know for sure what the poster means.  Incorrectly organized compound sentences often reverse the meaning, run on sentences and lack of punctuation make it hard to find the meaning. If it is something like an obvious typo, fine.  But often it is just a continuous stream of words that is hard to parse.

Thanks for that GM. I hoped to use the term dyslexia loosely since that I have not been officially diagnosed with whatever. It sounds like that you and your family suffer from it and that you are officially diagnosed as such. I will look into this more. Thanks for sharing all that!

Thank you JT. I try hard to communicate my thoughts as best as I can. It's a process that I do not relish. Maybe with more practice it can get easier. BTW... I see at least one typo in my last post. That happened even after I had looked it over at least 4 times prior to posting. Sigh. It befuddles me. Ah well. 

My apologies to the OP if I have helped take this thread away from its original intent. Not sure that it has, but if so.

Also--I want to be clear that my comments about Patrick are meant as a compliment to him in overcoming. I hope they are not read as that I am minimizing his condition.

I have a question. Do you guys think that there would be any interest by forum members to hear about some of my Dads WW2 experiences? I am not sure that this forum is the proper venue and if that there is an interest. There seems to be a strong interest here in all things military. Still, I am not sure though. If yes, maybe I could post some stories in the FSM Ready Room.

Well it's a thing. Thanks and it does have certain, well, quirky side effects.

AFA your dads experiences, I'd be interested. Esp. any photos.

I had a similar question, and a bad experience. I was very interested in my father-in-laws war experiences and he told me quite a bit about his four years overseas. With my wife's knowledge, I freely repeated quite a few of them here. Where I really really blew it was not taking her brother's feelings into account. So I stopped doing so, by his request. Just be sure it's ok with the rest of the family.