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Phil Rhodes

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Hi,

 

When I was at school, which is rapidly becoming a distant memory, we got marks for spelling, punctuation and grammar. I'm not sure if this is something they still do, but the "SPG" mark could easily make the difference between a good B and an A grade result. I'd like to suggest that the same applies in life, particularly in professional circumstances.

 

Or, to put it another way, the next time a native English speaker confuses "loose" with "lose" or puts an E on the end of "lens" on this board, I am going to set fire to them.

 

Okay?

 

Phil

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Hi,

 

When I was at school, which is rapidly becoming a distant memory, we got marks for spelling, punctuation and grammar. I'm not sure if this is something they still do, but the "SPG" mark could easily make the difference between a good B and an A grade result. I'd like to suggest that the same applies in life, particularly in professional circumstances.

 

Or, to put it another way, the next time a native English speaker confuses "loose" with "lose" or puts an E on the end of "lens" on this board, I am going to set fire to them.

 

Okay?

 

Phil

 

Ooooo,

 

I've got one too. You + are = you're.

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I make the occasional typos, so be gentle...

 

A few spelling mistakes, I can live with. Ocassionally using the wrong "your" vs. "you're" or "it's" versus "its", "there" vs. "their"... fine.

 

What drives me nuts is sloppy writing on purpose -- you know, dropping all capital letters, not attempting to break long passages up into paragraphs, strange abbreviations, etc. It seems that if someone wants us to take a moment to compose a reply, they should take a moment to compose a question and make sure it is clearly stated. Half the replies here are attempts to understand what the original poster was asking in the first place, which is inefficient.

 

And if the poor writing is not deliberate, but just an incredibly poor command of English, assuming English is their first language, then the schools have a lot to answer for, not to mention their parents.

 

However, the argument for attempting to be grammatically correct is mainly for the sake of clarity in communicating here on the internet; otherwise, I don't think a major fuss should be made over it. A very casual writing style is completely acceptable in this environment (in fact, it's more appropriate often). Like I said, the standard should be simply whether the person is being confusing or hard to read because their writing is so sloppy.

 

Of course, we often have no idea whether English is the first language of some person posting... hence why some patience is a good idea.

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I make the occasional typos, so be gentle...

 

A few spelling mistakes, I can live with. Ocassionally using the wrong "your" vs. "you're" or "it's" versus "its", "there" vs. "their"... fine.

 

What drives me nuts is sloppy writing on purpose -- you know, dropping all capital letters, not attempting to break long passages up into paragraphs, strange abbreviations, etc. It seems that if someone wants us to take a moment to compose a reply, they should take a moment to compose a question and make sure it is clearly stated. Half the replies here are attempts to understand what the original poster was asking in the first place, which is inefficient.

 

And if the poor writing is not deliberate, but just an incredibly poor command of English, assuming English is their first language, then the schools have a lot to answer for, not to mention their parents.

 

However, the argument for attempting to be grammatically correct is mainly for the sake of clarity in communicating here on the internet; otherwise, I don't think a major fuss should be made over it. A very casual writing style is completely acceptable in this environment (in fact, it's more appropriate often). Like I said, the standard should be simply whether the person is being confusing or hard to read because their writing is so sloppy.

 

Of course, we often have no idea whether English is the first language of some person posting... hence why some patience is a good idea.

 

 

Well put. Also, extra credits for having the energy to write it. It pretty much sums up how I feel about it too. I do however think that Phil's pre-flaming was fun enough to deserve a sympathy-post.

 

Btw, I think several dictionaries have "lense" noted as a variation to "lens".

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Although I try to do the best I can when posting, without a spell checker it is sometimes difficult. I am profoundly dislexic and was educated in england under a Thatcherite government so I have a bit of a wall to knock down on this issue. I do agree with puncuation and heve corrected my own posts for this reason, however I know that I also make numerous mistakes. I think at the end of the day, like most things, it is down to intent. if someone is sloppy because they cant be arsed then that is very different to someone who is sloppy because they are foreign or genuinely mistaken. as far as caps go I find myself dropping them more and more and to be honest this is something that i feel is acceptable in email and other online correspondance. in my opinion it shows a respectable informality that sloppy punctuation doesn't- I often sign in lower case.

 

keith

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The lowercase thing is cool 'cause it's hip and trendy these days. How many companies and whatnot have their name/logo in all lowercase?

 

Anyway, fu** this, all of you. We're going back to straight up Elizabethan English, motherfu**ers.

 

From now 'til hereafter, thou wilt write thy electronic passages in such a manner as this, or thou wilt be brought verily to justice! This goes for thee, as well, sir Landon Parks.

 

Thou wilt also add "ye" and "sai" in thy passages, randomly. Fare thee well.

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Hi,

 

> The lowercase thing is cool 'cause it's hip and trendy these days. How many companies and whatnot have

> their name/logo in all lowercase?

 

Hasn't anyone ever warned you about taking Steve Jobs too seriously?

 

Go too far down that road, and we'll be cultivating our lawns in vibrant shades of chartreuse, malachite and verdigris.

 

Phil

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I JUST WANTNED TO SAY IAGREE WITH PHIL IT IS GOOD ETIQUETTE I DONTTHINK YOUR GOING TO GO TO FAR IF YOU CANT SPELL RIGHT.

 

By the way, if you need to quickly spell check something, do this:

 

1. Copy your entire post (before submitting it, obviously)

2. Create a new message in Outlook Express

3. Paste the text of the post into the message and spell check it

4. After the corrections are made, copy the text again and paste it back into the browser

5. Submit the post

6. Discard the email message you created in Outlook Express

 

I do this all the time. Works great.

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In addition to lowercase everything, we should all start putting some cool trendy letter in front of everything (iPod, iMovie, etc.).

 

From now on, I'm fJosh.

 

I'm an occasional pFilmmaker, and sometimes do some tShooting, and am also a qProduction Assistant. See? Isn't it neato?!

 

P.S. Microsoft Word also has a spellchecker. You just paste your wPost in there, and it should display red lines over misspelled words. Although, homonyms could be a problem (no, know).

 

Anyway, bLater.

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The lowercase thing is cool 'cause it's hip and trendy these days. How many companies and whatnot have their name/logo in all lowercase?

 

And here I thought that the persistent use of lowercase was the exclusive province of 15 year old boys who have just discovered ee cummings.

 

I'm convinced that computer screens make it hard to see errors. This is compounded if one is using, as I frequently am, a handheld device, with a 5.5cm x 4cm screen, to post.

 

Besides, we all have our quirks. One of the contributors to this very thread, who writes as well as anyone on this site, regularly uses "off of", a capital offence in the opinion of some grammarians, even if both Shakespeare and James Joyce did the same thing.

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Oh, you wanna get into THAT stuff now?

 

Ok check dis out: irregardless is actually a real word.

 

I've seen "ironical" in some old-ass book ('50s, or maybe even 19th century). No offense to those of you who don't consider anything from the '50s "old-ass".

 

Is the plural of "fish" fish or fishes?

 

Is the past tense of "light" lighted or lit? One of them is a colloquialism, but I can't remember which.

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So is "antidisestablishentarianism," whatever the spell checker thinks.

 

In order to bring linguistic constructs such as this into an appropriate degree of relief, I have recently been toying with the idea of embarking on the life's work that is learning Japanese. Just to whet your appetite, "vampire" comes out as "sucks, blood, evil spirit", "lawyer" comes out as "sucks, blo..." er, you get the idea.

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How 'bout this nonsense whereby things that were slang to begin with become mutated because of some fad?

 

Like, if I were to say "my movie OWNED Phil Rhodes' (no offense, just an example), that would mean that my movie kicked Phil's' ass. Now, however, because of a misspelling during an online game of Quake, we now have "pwned", instead of "owned". Seriously. It's everywhere.

 

Also, newbie has become n00b. Not just "noob", but n00b, with the two zeros.

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Also, newbie has become n00b. Not just "noob", but n00b, with the two zeros.

 

People who use the word "newbie", which sounds like baby-talk, deserve to be called n00bs, which sounds like a great synonym for loser.

 

Where does "props" come from, as in giving someone props? I first heard this on supplementary material to the Sidewalks of New York DVD, during which Edward Burns uses it repeatedly. Truly aggravating.

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Although I try to do the best I can when posting, without a spell checker it is sometimes difficult. I am profoundly dislexic and was educated in england under a Thatcherite government so I have a bit of a wall to knock down on this issue. I do agree with puncuation and heve corrected my own posts for this reason, however I know that I also make numerous mistakes. I think at the end of the day, like most things, it is down to intent. if someone is sloppy because they cant be arsed then that is very different to someone who is sloppy because they are foreign or genuinely mistaken. as far as caps go I find myself dropping them more and more and to be honest this is something that i feel is acceptable in email and other online correspondance. in my opinion it shows a respectable informality that sloppy punctuation doesn't- I often sign in lower case.

 

keith

 

Keith,

 

Your not alone being Dyslexic. As there are many American posters on this board, I usually spell color wrong for their benefit!

 

Stephen

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Keith,

 

Your not alone being Dyslexic. As there are many American posters on this board, I usually spell color wrong for their benefit!

 

Stephen

Maybe the Forum can license Google's translation demon. I read a post today where a UK filmmaker was talking about tossing bad film in the "bin". After wondering how one would use an Avid editing system to discard garbage film, I realized "Aha! bin (UK) = trash (US)." :)

 

PS: I've been known to spell it "colour" just to be perverse.

 

Edmond, OK, USA

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Maybe the Forum can license Google's translation demon. I read a post today where a UK filmmaker was talking about tossing bad film in the "bin". After wondering how one would use an Avid editing system to discard garbage film, I realized "Aha! bin (UK) = trash (US)." :)

 

PS: I've been known to spell it "colour" just to be perverse.

 

Edmond, OK, USA

 

---I seem to recall there used to be 'trim bins' in American film editing rooms.

It had a rack over a cloth bag. There were wire hooks on the rack, on which lengths of film were hung by those funny little holes running along the edges.

Sometimes the editor would snip off bits of film he didn't want.

He would call those pieces trims and toss them into the cloth bag.

 

Or maybe it was just due to something I ate before going to sleep.

 

---LV

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I know I'm going to sound like an old fart, but in my opinion the internet and mobile phone text messages are responsible for a serious decline in spelling. Personally I always make an effort to spell correctely, even in German where nouns are a hassle, because they start with a capital letter.

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I actually saw WYSIWYG in a magazine lately. I think it was P3, but it was definately an industry magazine. I was surprised to see something that I've only ever seen on the internet before printed in a magazine.

As for SPG on this board.....I'm as sick of it as anyone. Sure, everyone makes mistakes here and there, but there are some that are worse than people that don't speak english. Many of the worst offenders are people who claim to be students, but some also claim to be CEO's and directors. Anyway, you'll never get a writing or directing gig when you write like a 6 year old.

I agree that laziness is probably the biggest reason for the majority of mistakes, but some people are just ignorant.

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I can't believe this discussion. What is the big deal? These comments are usually written off the cuff and in a hurry, WHO CARES IF THERE ARE MISSPELLINGS in the text. We're not copying the BIBLE or writing down the instructions for building a fusion reactor. Is anyone out there feeling so superior that they're actually offened by a few misspelled words? If so, Good God get a life. If the content is interesting or informative, I couldn't care less if it's grammer and spelling is a little off. And just to answer one statement, I can't spell to save my life but have written, directed and produced several things. That's why God and Microsoft invented spellcheck!

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Anyway. . .talking out of my ass here but props = proper respect? Or something?

 

Josh, I was looking to you, as a guy who appears to be pretty savvy about current espression, to enlighten me on this word.

 

The disappointment is devastating.

 

Up here in the Great White North, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has given an hour long nightly news show to a guy whose job is to relate to young people. Some people think that his show is a joke. But others of us have noticed little difference in terms of substantive content between his show and CNN, except that he's rather more hip than Larry King.

 

Anyway, even he has talked about giving someone props, and I I have even seen the word used on this web site.

 

Enlightenment please.

 

Or do we have to bring in someone like William Safire?

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