Primary, I've been learning UK English and as far as I know there is a different pronunciation for "can't" in US/UK English - unless my teacher is dumb. So I'm always getting blamed from my teacher because of mixing this. Quite easy to mix words from US/UK and other stuff. You just keep seeing that and you don't know if it's truth or not. And I'm sure this post is full of mistakes, still failing a lot.

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

I'd argue that internet handles fall outside the realm of any existing grammar rules, but "camel case" has quite a few variants that are all considered acceptable. Most have the first letter of all elements capitalized.

c.f., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CamelCase

Neh, it was us coders who dragged camel casing out of the dark ages and in coding it's always lowercase first letter unless addressing a class (indeed, the disparity is intentional).

Throw me a bone here, I *had* to find something wrong with your post and that's all I've got!

Quote from Becky Rose :

Throw me a bone here, I *had* to find something wrong with your post and that's all I've got!

You mean, throw you a wolfs bone, and a dead one at that.

Quote from Dajmin :

Were = used to be
Where = a location

You forgot:
We're = we are
Wear = as in wearing clothing, or as in wear down something.

Being a communicator by profession, I do tend to be quite anal about language, especially when I read other professionally written texts. I also think it's rude for a person not to use proper grammar, punctuation and/or spelling just because he or she "can't be arsed" to do so even though that person would know how to. In my eyes such a person instantly becomes a lazy prick, even if that might not be true in real life. It's just the impression that person leaves on me. Of course, occasional spelling mistakes are an exception. I rather talk about people constantly "ritin like dis 2 u" or simply refusing to use their shift, fullstop and comma keys.

On a funny sidenote, I am actually a tad dyslexic concerning spelling, especially in German, but only when I write or read my own texts. Strangely enough I can spot every mistake in works of others.
Funnily it's not as bad in English.

And lastly: language is a very organic, always evolving thing, and it's only two centuries since we tried to capture it in rigid rulesystems. Still, a change of language can't be stopped, so it's better to not bother if words and spellings from other languages, be they relative to yours or not, get assimilated into your own.
Unless you're french, then you'll translate everything. Like the Sony trademark "Walkman" becoming a "balladeur"... Or mixing up internationally accepted abbreviations just for the kicks, like ONU instead of UNO, UE insted of EU or, my favourite SIDA for AIDS.
If we germans did that, they would be OdVN (UNO), EU (well, not much of a problem there) and EISS (AIDS)...

You guys know what my typing is among the most shitty here i think.

No actualy I think when i can be bothered to type well my english is quite good for a foreighner.
Not among the best that's for sure bot not bad either i se alot of people from America or Britain for god sake who type like shit.

Batteryy... it's "which", Not "Witch". Totally different meaning, witch means this ugly old woman wizard.

CamelCasing can start with a capital letter. Camels have heads. The term CamelCasing refers to the hump (sometimes several) in the middle of the word. Its usage is many and varied, but is typically used to add descriptive meaning to VariableNames and FunctionCalls(), frequently involving a strSplitInfinitive.

I don't much care that people can't spell. That's part of the ability thing. I just get irritated by people who can't be bothered to spell. Install a damn dictionary on your browser and put your back into it. If you want to be listened to and heard, fix your megaphone.

Quote from Tomba(FIN) :

Batteryy... it's "which", Not "Witch". Totally different meaning, witch means this ugly old woman wizard.

yes i know, typed it wrong because i wrote in a hurry

Quote from batteryy :

witch one is the right one? i use them both, since i dont know witch one is the right

"Tire" is when you are starting to tire of shitty threads like this.
"Tyre" is an item you slap under your car.

Language is ever evolving. There are no rules though I do my best to make sure I say 'would have' and not 'would of'

90% of the most poorly put together pieces of text on this forum are posted by people who have English as a first language, but you'd expect it to be that way because generally the English speaking illiterates still somehow have the capacity, and false-confidence, required to lead them to posting drivel on a public forum. They think because it's their first language they can, almost by default, use it.

People who have English as their second language actively learn it, so naturally the posts we see are for the most part written with some care, and usually the only give-aways are things like the oddly common misuse of "loose" instead of "lose"

Quote from Intrepid :

Language is ever evolving. There are no rules though I do my best to make sure I say 'would have' and not 'would of'

Yeah, American words are taking over, which is really, really sad :thumbsdow

Quote from Intrepid :

Language is ever evolving but there are plenty of rules at any given moment. In time those rules are revised, but it's quite a slow process

Fixed.

Quote from petercollins :

Yeah, American words are taking over, which is really, really sad :thumbsdow

yeah, i think finland should rule the world

There are more important things to worry about.

Hrm. English isn't really the most anal language in the world. I'll compare it with Finnish, not to make a point of any kind but to distribute the irrelevant information I have in my head.

To me all the words are way too short, and if there happens to be a longer one it is spelled as many words (for example 'oliorelaatiotietokantahallintajärjestelmä = object relation based database control system').

You do not have much inflection, only a few verbs conjugate. Here you conjugate words to express grammatical tense, grammatical mood or the relation of words (which in English happens with prepositions). For example, one verb in Finnish conjugates in 4 tenses, and 6 moods (well, nearly. All tenses don't conjugate in all 6 moods and only 4 moods are used by normal people.) All verbs conjugate in 7 person forms (compare with German, Ich bin, du bist, er/es/sie ist...). SO verbs conjugate in 6*4*7 different forms. As an example: 'Kävellä' = to walk. 'Kävelen' = I walk... 'ette lienisi kävelleet' = You would not have possibly walked.

Obviously nouns conjugate too. There are 17 different grammatical cases (of which 14 or 15 are used depending of wheather the accusative form is counted as a case or an adverbial conductor.) So taking into account that words have a singular and plural form, that's 34 different cases. For example: 'kulma' = a corner. 'kulman' = corner's, ... 'kulmitse' = by/past (a/the) corner.

Then English has got all sorts of weird spelling things. Like it is too ****ing difficult to write 'I am', instead you have to spell 'I'm'. You also use too much capital letters (for example 'englannin kieli' = 'English language' 'toinen maailmansota' = 'World War II'). Though it's not as bad as German.

Speaking of German, it might also be a candidate for the most anal language award. Why, why on earth does it have to be so anally precise? For example 'Ich gebe der Mutter die Blume' = I give a flower to (the) mother. Make a slight mistake in word order and 'Ich gebe die Blume der Mutter' = 'I give mother's flower'.

Quote from Dajmin :

Yes, one can tire when one has no energy, one puts a tyre on a wheel

I don't mind regional spellings, the US removal of u's and use of z's instead of s'. Sometimes it makes sense. I don't even mind missing punctuation. It's bad grammar I have a problem with.

Their = belongs to them
There = not here
They're = they are

Were = used to be
Where = a location

Two = more than one, less than three
Too = as well as
To = not from

And don't even get me started on "should of" and "would of". F*cking motherf*ckers. HAVE, bitches. It's HAVE! The folly of abbreviations, makes language lazy. Our long lost ancestors spent lifetimes creating the spoken and written word, this generation comes along and bastardises the whole thing.

Hey! Somebody just stole my soapbox...

Don't forget "We're" = We are <adjective>.

Quote from Bob Smith :

Well in fairness we'd get told our spelling was wrong in school if we used US English.

Same here, although because I'm Canadian, we often got leeway from various teachers if we used American spelling vs Canadian/British spelling. I'd imagine this will change once (if ) I reach higher education.

Quote from SamH :

Apostrophe misuse annoys me an awful lot.. most especially when it falls out of Brit/Yank/Aussie fingers. But at least there's an attempt, which is better than no attempt at all. like when people don't capitalise sentences or when i see blatant laziness in text. That annoys me.

The irony of it... :P

Oh do pay attention, Dustin! I gave examples for CamelCasing, for failure to capitalise the first letter of a sentence AND ALSO for the lazy "i". Ya missed that last one, though, dincha numbnutz?

[edit] Today's entry was brought to you by the letters A-Z and the word "sardonic"

Quote from SamH :

Oh do pay attention, Dustin! I gave examples for CamelCasing, for failure to capitalise the first letter of a sentence AND ALSO for the lazy "i". Ya missed that last one, though, dincha numbnutz?

[edit] Today's entry was brought to you by the letters A-Z and the word "sardonic"

Sorry that I'm not terribly anal, I just found it ironic that in a paragraph about not capitalizing the start of a sentence, that you failed to do so (although I had this gut feeling that it might have been intentional).

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

Sorry that I'm not terribly anal

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

(although I had this gut feeling that it might have been intentional).

Aye, it was on this occasion. I've been playing those typing tests on Facebook and I've found myself concentrating far more on accuracy than speed. I guess I am kinda anal about that stuff. I'm just glad nobody here types like my niece does on Facebook. All things considered, the LFS forum ain't so bad!

Quote from petercollins :

Yeah, American words are taking over, which is really, really sad :thumbsdow

This seems like a really arbitrary thing to harp on.

I was always taught in school that you can't start a sentence with "but" too, I'm not sure how correct that is but it does make sense not to start a sentence with a connective.

The "But" or "Because" rule is there at school because of the way kids write. It's not a hard and fast rule. Because, as you grow older your language skills develop, and so do your sentence structures, the "Because" rule relaxes accordingly. But for a few exceptions, though, the "But" clause mostly stands.

Quote from SamH :

The "But" or "Because" rule is there at school because of the way kids write. It's not a hard and fast rule. Because, as you grow older your language skills develop, so do your sentence structures and the "Because" rule relaxes accordingly. But for a few exceptions, though, the "But" clause mostly stands.

Well, they always teach you to answer the question, with the question included, which I never really thought was necessary. If someone says "Why can't you pass me the TV controller?" and you reply "I cannot pass you the TV controller because I'm busy." You'd just say, "because I'm busy" or not even that, you'd just say "I'm busy." You wouldn't get away with that in an exam, oooo no but if these exams are supposed to be the end result of all your knowledge from school then it's stupid because it seems you ultimately learn more after school and at home (depending on your actual home status though)!

Agreed Blueflame/Sam

Okay, Question

I was taught never to start a sentence with And.

And is it still valid? :P

I'm thinking it's like the 'but' clause you mentioned though, it relaxes as writing skills increase