h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I don't know about the rest of the world, but in the UK, english grammar is simply not taught. Several language teachers I know have complained that they have to teach english grammar before they can teach the foreign grammar that is their raison d'etre.

As for using lower case, it is a deplorable practise (or possibly practice) and I plead guilty. It's a consequence of using chat fora where speed is more important than accuracy. Thank God for editors.

Oh and I blame Micros**t too, hence the Ode to a Spell Checker -
http://www.h2g2.com/forumframe.cgi?thread=11675&forum=7786#p36891

Researcher 96378

We have a large yard brush and we know where you live. Be afraid....Be very afraid!

actually, i've been on my own since the age of, oh, 12 or so. i'm a rather neat person, but i'm also hurried. the
reason that i hold very little to the current rules of english grammar is that i don't speak that way among friends.
i don't, for example, say,"Hello Mr. Johnson." when speaking to a friend in person. i would generally call him
either "johnson" or "paul". i think the lack of capitalization on the net is a way of being more intimate with
those to whom you are speaking. just a thought.

Maybe typing and English grammer should be compulsory, must pass, subjects in school.

These two skills combine to help make people want to read your Internet postings.

Make your contributions hard to read and people will ignore them.

i'm really not going to get into this with anyone. i find it silly. if you feel you must remain stiff and proper at
all times no matter what, that is your choice. languages change with the times, this is just one more
manifestation of that.
good day

Let's see;

I am currently in Uni, where my professor contends (being a liguistic specialist) that the written language is merely a representation of what our language sounds like, so although prescriptive types have dictated rules to the language, they are in fact, only rough approximations which change with time.

Point in fact, the current MLA Handbook (often used as the basis for university papers) has recently come out with the "rules" that forego the 'period space space' and the comma before the 'and' in a list. This is due to common usage. When the populace changes, the language changes, the rules must, therefore, also change.

I personally dislike change...it took long enough to learn it the first time. However, if you take out the extra spacing, I feel that the capitilization rules become ever more important for clarification and ease of reading.

I also agree that Mirco#@*$ sucks and that the US fails to teach grammar in any significant way.

And I am one of the hated spelling complainers (being extreamly bad at it myself, I have NO room to speak, but hey, it's a lifestyle thing).

My name is, PLEASE, in all lowercase, because otherwise I look like a radio station (I am not).

wsfn

As people's typing skills improve, their Internet postings will become more readable. Eventually badly typed, poorly presented Web pages, submissions, will be ignored.

The default typeface used by h2g2 should be changed from Ariel to Helvetica.

This would aid readability. Helvetica, being a slightly thicker font, wouldn't break up as much as Ariel

On the subject of bad handwriting... my typical writing is an unpleasant scrawl, however it's a very *quick* unpleasant scrawl...

I am of the opinion that handwriting lessons should concentrate on improve the pupils' writing speed... because it gives massive advantages when it comes to normal lessons. You're not constantly struggling when taking down notes, you have time to read and absorb what you've written... it's so much easier.

When it comes down to it... as long as it's decipherable, it's neat enough.

Hey, that's an interesting idea... does anyone want to try and get h2g2 a plug in Feedback? That'd be neat...

My typing suffers at high-speed too, but I mollify myself with, because of my desire for clarity, the decision to go back and proof what I've written. That takes care of the typos, dangling words and inappropriate spacing. I can only do that now that I've got a computer; in the days when I was learning keyboards, the world featured tripewriters (because all I produced was tripe) which either had keys or a rotating ball.
That ball was a blessing, as I'd usually get key-jams on the older typewriters and the ball would never stick (the most it would do if I stuck two keys together is refuse to move), although I wouldn't allow for the speed of the machine and start typing too soon after a carriage-return and lose a word while the ball moved to the next line. Correcting typos and wordos was a nightmare, however, so I'm very glad of my computer....although my typing has gone from slow to dead slow. (As if that's a distinction....)

While I'm right handed, I've had to endure the annoyance of being expected to conform to other irrational ideas, so I can sympathise....and agree with you. The situation may have been resolved by now, although probably not in the manner you suggest. Funnily enough, clear handwriting implies clear communication (to me, anyway) and since many people have trouble thinking cleraly at the best of times, there may be a link between shoddy thinking and writing legibility. Then again, it could be a symptom of the general sloppiness that's taking over society.


The W3C is the World Wide Web Consortium. This is a regulatory body that was created a few years ago to instill some order into the chaos of conflicting standards, platforms and plug-ins that were/are currently required for Internet users. Mostly, the directives are aimed at software like Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, JavaScript (and all the variations of that) which currently compete for the customer's use, money, and patience.
I know very little about it as I've not put much energy into finding out. However, there are some staggeringly technical details available on the W£C site that are almost guaranteed to put you off forever (unless you happen to LIKE technical stuff....), although they do tell the tale.
Given the way the Net is evolving, and the desire to keep it free of regulation (in content, at least), there is some question about how effective the the W3C is going to be. I liken it to the United Nations, which works well in theory and rather poorly in practice.
The power over personal communications was my little joke about the scope and influence they're liable (or not) to have, which demonstrates a personal irk over people that don't police themselves in their typing/spelling/punctuation. (This applies to me as well, BTW. I've found some old posts of mine that contain the wrong letter or a poor spacing that I missed originally and I'm embarrased because they're visible in a public forum.) The W3C won't have any influence (I don't think, anyway) over any of this stuff.

Fruitbat

What's a Plug In Feedback? This hasn't turned into a fetish site has it?