The CAAer's Mini Guide to Proper Punctuation and Grammatical Greatness

[Mr. SmartyPants]

If you'll read my post again, you'll see it is painfully obvious that I was joking. Jeez, U.C.'s humor is even drier than mine and you'd know if he was joking. How is there that much difference between me and him?

I noticed the errors on your post... but I didn't want to point them out XD I mean, I was like "What of spoonybard has some grammar-disorder or something O.O?"

[Nia-chan]

No one is better than her is.

Um no

No one is better than she.
No one is better than she is.

[Radical Dreamer]

Um no

No one is better than she.
No one is better than she is.

Just to clarify, he wasn't saying that was the correct usage. He was using that as an example of what not to do. XD;

[Nia-chan]

My bad

That's what I get for not reading

[Kanerou]

I am thankful that someone has addressed this. The lack of proper spelling and grammatical usage truly is hard to deal with. I've even seen mistakes in a comic I've been reading (and this is one that's been running since 1998, so the author is not an amateur). I agree that no one should be hit over the head with it, but he or she do need to learn to recognize and correct such mistakes.

That brings me to another rule: "Their" is not a unisex singular pronoun. It is plural only. "Everyone should bring their own snack" is improper. It should be either "Everyone should bring his or her own snack" or "(insert plural noun) should bring their own snack". It goes back to subject-pronoun agreement. If this is confusing, my apologies. Maybe someone else can clarify it.

[Radical Dreamer]

That brings me to another rule: "Their" is not a unisex singular pronoun. It is plural only. "Everyone should bring their own snack" is improper. It should be either "Everyone should bring his or her own snack" or "(insert plural noun) should bring their own snack". It goes back to subject-pronoun agreement. If this is confusing, my apologies. Maybe someone else can clarify it.

Oh, thanks for addressing that! That always bothers me, too. XD *added*

[Puguni]

*tears at her hair*

If people are going to keep arguing and nitpicking at the tiniest details, then I foresee a great CAA war, where everyone argues the correct usage of 'has' and 'have' or 'lay' and 'lie.'

RD's thread is admirable in itself, but, for crying out loud, you don't have to be a grammar professor to type on the internet.

In other words, don't get carried away, people.

[Azier the Swordsman]

i don understan tihs thread???????

[Mave]

If people are going to keep arguing and nitpicking at the tiniest details, then I foresee a great CAA war, where everyone argues the correct usage of 'has' and 'have' or 'lay' and 'lie.'

RD's thread is admirable in itself, but, for crying out loud, you don't have to be a grammar professor to type on the internet.

In other words, don't get carried away, people.

Yeah, I think this is fine as long as ppl don't develop some superiority complex and begin picking on every little thing. I'm typically only start correcting someone if their message seriously messes up the original intent (e.g. I have sex brothers at home. Whoops, did you mean six, my friend? <-- perhaps it was a typo or Freudian slip but that seriously needs editing eitherways) I definitely draw the line at arguing over 'color' vs 'colour.' XD

Do practice love in this type of correction. English is not the first language for some internationals and it takes time to pick up corrections. And besides, it's not a sin we're dealing with.

I do have to say that some points regarding grammar have been interesting. I never quite realized that I used certain words improperly. I do know that I'm pretty misguided in the usage of commas and semi-colons. Thanks for sharing!

[KhakiBlueSocks]

*tears at her hair*

If people are going to keep arguing and nitpicking at the tiniest details, then I foresee a great CAA war, where everyone argues the correct usage of 'has' and 'have' or 'lay' and 'lie.'

RD's thread is admirable in itself, but, for crying out loud, you don't have to be a grammar professor to type on the internet.

In other words, don't get carried away, people.

Agreed. It's a great idea RD, but come on! This is a forum, not an English class! As long as you can understand what the other person is saying, than who cares if the grammar is perfect?

[Mr. SmartyPants]

Agreed. It's a great idea RD, but come on! This is a forum, not an English class! As long as you can understand what the other person is saying, than who cares if the grammar is perfect?

It's a good rule of thumb to live by. Showing that you can type grammatically correct on the internet shows that you're an intellectual person. Frankly, someone who "types liek dis" doesn't seem too smart, and gives people this mindset that "Oh this person seems kind of stupid. It'll probably be better to avoid what this person is saying." Whether is true or not is irrelevant, as it's more about the first impression.

Here's an example. Compare the two:

"OMG i absoltey LOVED ADVENT CHILDREN! It was so kewl when cloud did his omni-slash and kicked sephioroths butt."

"Oh my gosh, I absolutely loved Advent Children! It was so cool when Could did his Omni-Slash and kicked Sephiroth's butt."

Both examples probably exemplify the same amount of approval of Advent Children. However, the latter example just makes the person seem smarter; thus their opinion is somewhat more valid than the person speaking the former lines.

[ShadowCat]

[Mr. SmartyPants]

Hahaha! That's pretty funny. XD

[Puguni]

Agreed. It's a great idea RD, but come on! This is a forum, not an English class! As long as you can understand what the other person is saying, than who cares if the grammar is perfect?

I think you misunderstood. There's no problem with educating the general public on basic grammar, but people in this thread are starting to nitpick about things the average English speaker wouldn't care about, and I don't want.

[Stephen]

Bad punctuation and grammar support terrorism.



In all seriousness though, some people are getting way to offended by this. Better to have someone poke at you in jest, and learn what you are doing wrong. Because in the real world, people are much less...kind. Write like you used your feet on a job ap and see what happens.

[Radical Dreamer]

Bad punctuation and grammar support terrorism.



In all seriousness though, some people are getting way to offended by this. Better to have someone poke at you in jest, and learn what you are doing wrong. Because in the real world, people are much less...kind. Write like you used your feet on a job ap and see what happens.

Jawas + Bin Laden = HAHAHA

Anyways, I agree. The things mentioned in this thread are important; perhaps not always on the internet, but there's nothing wrong with using proper grammar in a conversation. What surprises me the most is that the people saying things against it so far are the ones who seem to have a good grasp on grammar already. XD I'm not trying to create some "Grammar Defense Force" ready to smack people down for using improper grammar by making this thread. I'm just trying to clear up some commonly misunderstood things and hoping that people will begin to type more coherently on the internet.

[Tenshi no Ai]

I don't get along the best with grammar, though I conciser myself a writer^^ I have bad habits when it comes to editing and on sites that don't show spellcheck, I often spell things backwards, most often "-ign" instead of "-ing" endings on words. I also add tons of bracketing to add my other thoughts, but I consider that more my "style" I guess^^

But seriously, our local Grammar Ranger would probably have a fit if she ever tried to play Warcraft^^ You get your dose of all-mighty know-it-all leets, and you get your dose of noobs who say things like "wut?" "can i byu gold plzplzplz!!" It's... a murder zone there^^ I just have a hard time communicating to people when they talk incorrectly and I'm making perfect sense, yet they have NO idea what I'm talking about and I get "wut?" as a remark. Those know-it-alls can be annoying too, knowing things soooo well and trying to show off their intellect by down playing others with their fine superiority commenting :/ oy...

Actually, you should've seen it on my old Digimon forum. THAT was bad. Everyone was an "intellect" there, and if you asked a common question you would get a ton of snide remarks, up to the point where they start dissing you from one incorrectly spelled word... It's like "you're a stupid noob because you don't contain as much nerdly knowledge like us..." along with "smart talk". Now that's the kind of grammatical abuse I disslike :/

Eh a bit off topic there, but ranting a wee bit^^

[uc pseudonym]

My general feeling is that so long as someone is making an effort to type/speak correctly I don't have a problem with them*. Plenty of intelligent people I know make typos or occasionally use the wrong homonym. And** no, I won't believe you if you say that the best someone can type is "kthnxlol."

There is a big difference, at least to me, between irritating errors and those that aren't that important. For example, ending a sentence with a preposition. If someone says, "Where is the ball at?" that is just irritating. But I don't really have a problem with "What is this thread about?" because it feels rather awkward to say "About what is this thread?"

*Yes, I have a technical error in a grammar thread. "Him or her" is awkward and I don't think there is a good reason why the language shouldn't evolve to include a unisex singular pronoun, except to conform to an arbitrary rule.

**Also intentional. Sometimes a separate sentence just needs to be conjuncted to the previous thought.

[TriezGamer]

I just wanted to add two points that I think was not included (I just skim read, so might have been there). If I am wrong about these points (especially the second one), please correct them, thanks.

[1] When describing something belonging to someone, add an apostrophe followed by an 's', unless the person's name ends with an 's'.

For example, a book belonging to John would be "John's book".

However, a book belonging to Marcus would be "Marcus' book".

[2] When describing the singular of something, the prefix is 'a', unless the sound of the object being described is like that of a vowel (there must be a linguistic term to describe this property).

For example, one speaks of "a building", but add the word "historical" in front of "building", and it becomes "an historical building".

Other examples include "an alien", "an angel", "an era". One would probably think that "an" should also prefix the word "university", but because "university" does not sound like it begins with a vowel, it is actually "a university".

What crazy world do you people live in where 'hist' begins with a vowel sound?

[Mithrandir]

What crazy world do you people live in where 'hist' begins with a vowel sound?

Well, there's this place called England. It's where "English" comes from - though I do not expect people to understand the linguistic inheritance on "teh intarwebz."

"kthnxlol.".

wud?*



* I'm just kidding.

[Mave]

Urgh, I'm starting to realize that my grammar is lower than average in the strictest sense. I tend to use "them" as opposed to 'him or her' and I find "At where is the ball?" quite awkward sounding.

Oh wait, I know what else I have difficulty or confusion with! When does one use hyphens? Does awkward-sounding qualify or not? I can't think of other examples but I always get stuck with certain phrases where I can't decide whether a hyphen is justified or not.

[TriezGamer]

Well, there's this place called England. It's where "English" comes from - though I do not expect people to understand the linguistic inheritance on "teh intarwebz."

Still makes no sense -- "an hist" is something I fail to even pronounce. Or do you mean that the h is simply silent (in which case either every dictionary I've ever looked at is wrong, or the English need to shape up)

[termyt]

The rule is "A" before a word beginning with an consonant, "AN" when before a vowel. However, like most features of the English language, this can not be defined by a simple rule. English has more exceptions to it rules than compliance, it seems.

I would say "a history of the US" and "an historical building" The difference is in the inflection. The emphasis in “historyâ€

[uc pseudonym]

I find "At where is the ball?" quite awkward sounding.

It does sound awkward, partially because the word "at" isn't necessary at all. You can just say, "Where is the ball?" That's why tagging on "at" for no reason is annoying to me.

Does awkward-sounding qualify or not? I can't think of other examples but I always get stuck with certain phrases where I can't decide whether a hyphen is justified or not.

Hyphens are used:
1) For compound words: forty-two, two-thirds, dot-matrix (as in a printer)
2) When one "word" has spaces: X-ray, sister-in-law
3) When two adjectives must be paired for their meaning to be understood

"Awkward-sounding" is correct when used as an adjective. It would only be "awkward sounding" if the phrase was separately "awkward" and also "sounding" (whatever that would mean).

[TriezGamer]

[quote="termyt"]“]
Sounding more vowel-like doesn't change the fact that the sound is a consonant.

[Puguni]

Sounding more vowel-like doesn't change the fact that the sound is a consonant.

Well, you could look at it this way. The Greeks never had a consonant "H," but rather reduced it to some kind of apostrophe-like marking if they ever wanted to use the sound. And since English really is a culmination of a bunch of languages...I suppose you can get away with just calling the "H" a half consonant, or something.

[Mithrandir]

Still makes no sense -- "an hist" is something I fail to even pronounce. Or do you mean that the h is simply silent (in which case either every dictionary I've ever looked at is wrong, or the English need to shape up)

Have you listened closely to British speakers? Many times, you'll hear something that sounds like:

"I went to an 'istoric park; it was an 'appy occasion!"


It's the dropping of the H entirely that makes it proper (in England) to use that. In America - not so much.

[RedMage]

[KeybladeWarrior]

If the punctuation is not that bad, I could live with it. Not really all that concerned with proper grammar. Some people use improper grammar cause they are just lazy or tired of having to write proper all the time, but proper grammar does leave a good first impression. I use more coherent grammar just, because it is second nature.

[Radical Dreamer]

Winner. I'm saving this one for later use. XDD