Paniked's recent post on another thread encouraged me to write this. It seems that periodically this forum gets frequented by posters who do everything possible to make their posts as difficult to read as possible. By refusing to use punctuation, paragraph breaks, conventional spelling etc. their posts become, in Paniked's words, "headache inducing." Despite repeated subtle and not so subtle criticism they keep it up unabated. (Yes, I realize that we could start a whole other thread on "keeping it up unabated".)

I've tried to figure out why people do this and it seems to come down to a belief that they are "just keeping it real, man" or a belief that the poster is the reincarnation of James Joyce. Please people, James Joyce is totally and completely dead and writing like you're the bastard child of a mobile phone and a she wolf just keeps it unreadable, not real.

So, please, just a couple of suggestions:

1. Don't use SMS language. That was designed to send short, quick messages from one phone to another using a device that doesn't have a full keyboard. If your thoughts aren't important enough to take the time to spell them out, then what makes you think that they're important enough for others to take the time to read them?

2. Use punctuation. The purpose of punctuation and other grammar rules is not, despite hundreds of years of British history that points to the contrary, to separate the upper classes from the masses. It makes your stuff much more readable. Leaving out a comma or period can change the meaning of what you've written or turn it into complete nonsense.

3. Don't write like you speak. In my work I'm frequently required to read verbatim transcripts of things I've said. It's amazing how imprecise and confusing it can read. That's because when people are watching and listening to you they are watching your gestures and facial expressions and listening to your tone. In written language, you don't get those cues. For example, this is from a recent post:

and then she looked at me and was like Yes I know what it is
and I was like thinking man I wish I never called her a prostitute

You're sitting at a computer keyboard, you have some time on your hands. Why not make an effort to make your posts as understandable and enjoyable as possible?

I'm sorry to be so strident about this but this mauling of the language drives me nuts.

Hear! hear! .... with one caveat: remember that English is not the first language of many posters here. Let's distinguish those making an effort to communicate from those too lazy to.

B61

Thanks for the correction. I've been trying to learn to speak French for years now. God knows what my French writing looks like. My rant was directed to native English speakers only.

Please remember it isn't always a choice. I passed all my maths exams but was shit at English. I usually use speel check but am never sure about punctuation: or
paragraphs.

chill out man

One of the reasons I like this forum as opposed to the crap that Channels has now become (used to be better) is the adult conversation.

We are not writing essays here so strict adherence to correct grammar is not required.

But use of full caps, minimal punctuation and no use of paragraphs can make the text totally unreadable. Don't even get me started on "txt spk". I feel sorry for such individuals.

Sometimes I will decide not to use any capitalisation at all - I don't think minor errors are a big deal. But writing an entire post without being bothered to use the full stop or the <Enter> key are a joke.

And that is laziness. I can barely speak or write basic Spanish or French but I still know to use full stops or the <Enter> key, there is simply no excuse for lack of this.

Thanks, pussy, for your intelligent explanation of why you write like a rather slow 14 year old.

How would you write it then? Mr Perfect? whats the perfect way of writing it to perfection????

Well...since you asked. If someone were criticizing my writing and I felt that I was correct I would have explained why I write the way I do. "Chill out man" tells me absolutely nothing. And, actually, your last post, while angry, was coherent. The only point I've been trying to make is that if you organize your thoughts into sentences, group your sentences into paragraphs, and spell out your words people will be more likely to read and understand your posts.

abc123, I have searched for the answer to one question without any result. Could you tell me how to make a quotation from some other people's text to look good with that text saying "Quote" and the text being indented?

here ya go. It's called BBCode and here is how you do it:

http://www.phpbb.com/community/faq.php?mode=bbcode#f20

cocksure, thanks for that pointer. I have wondered about that myself.

Back to the subject of this post, I couldn't agree with abc123 more. I happen to think that it is basic courtesy to write clearly, just as it is basic courtesy to speak clearly. For the life of me, I cannot understand how native English speakers could be less than coherent - regardless of their performance in school - in a medium of communication they have used all their lives.

But hey, thats me!

Abc123,

Thanks for bringing this subject up. We agree with you entirely. And we'll even refrain from typing this in all lower case as is our lazy-ass habit.

We'd also like to see people make better use of spell checkers as well. A very nice one comes built into Firefox, and Google has a plug-in available for Internet Explorer which even just told me to separate the word plugin into two words. Bugger.

If one is of the opinion that this forum and it's members (or others like it), isn't worth making the fucking tiny bit of extra effort to improve the readability of your writing, and your reaction is to try to pick a fight about it, then kindly take your leave.

It was pointed out by another member that many of you in the English-as-a-second-language crowd speak and write English far better than many native speakers. True. The evidence of the massive decline of the two major English language civilisations surrounds us.

I guess we will need Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction attire, aiming a big-ass gun at whoever writes a post while shouting "Do you speak English, motherfucker?"

Some people use no ponctuation, no paragraph, I get a headache just reading their trip reports. Here is a perfect example :

http://www.ignatzmice.com/WWWBoard/PHPB ... ght=#64539