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jstan
climber
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Aug 21, 2008 - 12:00pm PT
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The fun in writing is increased, I think, by one's inability actually to master it. As you surely see, I get more enjoyment than most. Strunk's "Elements of Style" was a major shock when I first encountered it.
So much time had been wasted.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Aug 21, 2008 - 12:12pm PT
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Yes, lose/loose is irritating. As is the apparent loss of understanding of the use of the apostrophe. But [put on editorial hat] speaking as an editor, I would far rather read and work with someone whose writing has heart, than someone who has mastered grammar and little else.[/take off editorial hat]
txt rules. u wrinklies just w8. b4 long u wnt undrstnd 1 word kidz rite.
txt u l8r
Edit: Needless (I hope)to say, my real preference is for work with both heart and an understanding of language.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Aug 21, 2008 - 12:29pm PT
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commas are an underused punctuation mark as well, although sometimes I find myself overusing them, I think.
They really allow you perceive the way a writer is expressing himself. They add more feel.
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Karla
climber
Colorado
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Aug 21, 2008 - 12:43pm PT
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Hey Brian, of course there are exceptions to every rule and you hit a little nerve. My 13 year old son is somewhat sloppy in the way he writes and frequently mispells words that I had hoped he had learned by now. Unfortunately, he suffers from not being able to recognize patterns. Not only spelling, but math suffers as well and it's been a real struggle for him. As a mom, you're heart breaks to see him get so frustrated, but I'm in awe of his compensatory skills.
His vocabulary is off the charts, he expresses himself clearly and his stories have engaging content. Everyone has their strengths/weaknesses, and sometimes they are more pronouced due to a learning problem. For my son, spell check will be a wonderful tool. Although, I doubt if it will help him decide when to use: there, their, or they're. How ironic that we just had that discussion last night.
It's also taught me to not be so critical when I catch spelling errors of others. :)
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Raydog
Trad climber
Boulder Colorado
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Aug 21, 2008 - 12:58pm PT
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RE:
"Edit: That is cool Raydog, I am interested in doing something like that myself. I really enjoy the challenges of grammar now that I am older regardless of what I wrote above. "
I had the same experience in school as you, Riley -
same observations.
Perfect writing happens, of course.
But let us not forget, Nabokov took
something like 5 years to conceive
write and edit Lolita, a somewhat short novel.
No wonder the frickin' thing was/is an incredible
accomplishment.
Reading Nabokov is like taking acid.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Aug 21, 2008 - 01:18pm PT
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Thanks, Skip - I knew that the piece that Patrick provided had been around for a while, but didn't know Twain had started it.
Colonel Robert McCormick of the Chicago Tribune also had some odd ideas about spelling - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_R._McCormick
He and others did ensure that U.S. spellings of many words are different from those used in English and most of its dialects.
I wonder what the Pedants’ Agains’t Apos’trophe, Adjective and Alliteration Abus’e and As’s’orted Grammatical Atros’ities’ will have to say about all this?
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Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
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Aug 21, 2008 - 01:28pm PT
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Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is that the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the human mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
Pterty amzanig, huh?
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Aug 21, 2008 - 01:31pm PT
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Pterty amzanig, huh?
Another interesting game is to cover the bottom half of the letters in a line. Usually no problem to read it. Then try covering the top half of the letters in a different line. Usually unreadable.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Aug 21, 2008 - 01:42pm PT
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Perhaps someone with Twain's liberal views of language and spelling should be on the jury of one of those modern spellling bees.
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scuffy b
climber
Elmertown
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Aug 21, 2008 - 01:48pm PT
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I agree, spelling Kow with a large K is better than spelling it with a small k.
Try it yourself: kow. Kow. kow. Kow.
See what I mean?
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Raydog
Trad climber
Boulder Colorado
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Aug 21, 2008 - 01:58pm PT
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RE:
"Pterty amzanig, huh?"
so true - this interesting thing may be one reason
the text written by masters like Celine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis-Ferdinand_C%C3%A9line
seems to "jump" off the page; drag your eye accross a
line and presto! the text enters your brain,
super easy to read.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Aug 21, 2008 - 02:44pm PT
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from Twain;
"We might as well make all clothes alike and cook all dishes alike. Sameness is tiresome; variety is pleasing. "
This is utter bullsh#t. A language and therefore it's spelling is a glue that allows us to commicate effectively and coherently. Let's all spell different? Variety is grand?
Not in terms of language or spelling. I suppose we should all speak different languages and try to function as a society.
Bah!
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Aug 21, 2008 - 02:59pm PT
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Skip, that makes a lot more sense. For a second there I lost some respect for the man. I didn't catch his sarcasm.
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Raydog
Trad climber
Boulder Colorado
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Aug 21, 2008 - 03:06pm PT
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In China, where text messaging w/ cell phones
is huge and has been for some time,
they have popular PC keyboards that are
multi-letter, like the keyboards on cell phones.
Meaning perhaps that in some ways language
may be moving more towards universal use of
well known acronyms?
Isn't is fascinating how language changes?
My feeling being that as our lives become
busier, language/communication - including
advertising and marketing will and indeed must
become more succinct.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Aug 21, 2008 - 03:20pm PT
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Skipt: "Throughout his life, Twain was an advocate of the proper use of language.
His is given credit for expanding the English language to the point where we point to him as where 'American English' breaks away from traditional 'British English.'
He did this not by making a hodgepodge of the language but rather by making it his own."
Sort of, except that Twain radically reowrked what could count as "proper" English. Twain took "improper" English-- especially as spoken by poor, rural ad minority speakers--and built it into something that more "proper' rich waspy types could imagine as literature. But that didn't happen in his lifetime.
Twain's books didn't become part of the canon until the middle of the 20th century. Well into the the 1930s and '40s, he was widely regarded as a 2nd or 3rd tier writer who worked mostly in a sub-literary genre ("humor"), and his books were neither taught nor praised in leading Departments of English, let alone American public schools. (Prior to WW2 the only places that even taught "American Literature" were Women's Colleges and regional schools.)
The Twain most of us know, a major literary figure, is really a product of the 1950s, a period in which linguists also turned away from the idea that there is a single "prescriptive" model of English (or any language) that can define propriety, and towards a recognition of "proper" language as the changing conventions of particular groups of speakers.
STers may tear their hair out, but "bling," "playaz," and "h3llizl0ngr4u," are just waiting for the Mark Twain of our age.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Aug 21, 2008 - 03:22pm PT
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Actually, Dingus, any person using reason and logic would interpret the excerpt that Skip posted the same way. How are you supposed to know it was a sarcastic statement without listening to him or reading it in it's full context?
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Anastasia
climber
Not there
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Aug 21, 2008 - 03:24pm PT
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i'm cool cuz i'm creative with my wordz.
i'm messing with my spelling so whitie can't read whaz in between the lines. he only get to sniff the lines I sellin never seeing, never believing that behind this smilen face iz anothar one rebelling... So while whitie iz too buzy feelin the ghetto high, thinking we 're brothers telling this nigga to holla...
i go to his room and take his bitch and his gold
i go thru the back door
on her knees
you can hear me
you can hear her holla!
now c#m all ya bitchez and holla!
for all you homies taking whitie's bitchez now holla!
Say wha!
haiy, hoe, haiy, hoe!
hey whitie,
here I go and holla!
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Hardman Knott
Gym climber
Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Ca
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 21, 2008 - 03:30pm PT
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Here's a post I made on MacRumors knott long ago - it sums things up nicely:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=5994947#post5994947
Edit: For context, someone called him on using "should of" instead of "should have".
Also, I was also responding to the tone and writing in his posts on the previous 2 pages:
Example 1:
Brad, maybe u cant read. But i did say that when 2.1 comes out, ill wait to see how it
goes BEFORE downloading it. Please read the posts before u throw in your worthless
2cents.Thank you come again
Example 2:
Here u go brad just incase ur too lazy to read posts. Thanks.
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Doug Buchanan
Mountain climber
Fairbanks Alaska
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Aug 21, 2008 - 04:08pm PT
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Fun and useful knowledge on this enjoyable "thread". Among the best I have seen.
In the future, when the humans belatedly settle on a single language and metric, human knowledge will therefore be efficiently shared, and advance so fast that the game may end at that time.
Of course wars and National Park climbing regulations will then be examples of our current intellectual dark ages.
Or so I might imagine.
DougBuchanan.com
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KuntryKlimber
Mountain climber
Rock Hill, SC
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Aug 21, 2008 - 04:09pm PT
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Some of us thrive off of the poor grammar and catachresis (yea) of our peers. How else are we ever gonna get published, dood?
Grammar elitists!
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