Why Long Mike is a Pain in the Butt About Grammar

[Long Mike]

OK folks, those of you who know me also know that I can't stand it when I see our younger members butchering the English language by taking shortcuts with spelling and totally omitting any semblance of punctuation.  Here's why.

I am a war baby.  My Dad was a Marine who fought in the Pacific Theater.  After the war was over he returned and promptly married my Mom.  My parents had little formal education.  Dad was orphaned at a very young age and never completed the forth grade.  My mother dropped out of school when she was also very young.

To the great good fortune of my two younger brothers and I, our parents were almost obsessive about we boys getting a good education.

In addition, my Dad was obsessive about using proper English.  When we came home from school we would teach him.  He said, time and time again, "If you can't speak good and write good, you can't do good."

Long story short, we three boys made it, and none of us ever forgot what Dad said about "speaking good and writing good."

Now you know where I've been coming from.

[Sam]

Long Mike,

Not only is it difficult to read and understand the posts when they are not gramatically correct, it is very difficult to comprehend very long paragraphs.

The more "white space" in a post means it is easier to read and understand.

What kills me is when the college and pro football and basketball players are interviewed on TV. Their grammer is atrocious. I wonder how strong are their writing skills?

And some of the members want to be pro bass fishermen and unless they have good articulation and writing skills they will never make it in pro bass fishing.

If you want to be successful in life one needs good grammer and writing skills. So you are dead-on when you advise the members to use correct English and spelling when posting.

Joe McKnight, the hot shot running back from John Curtis in Louisiana two years ago selected Southern Cal over LSU stating that he wanted to be a sports announcer when he grows up.

LSU's School of Mass Communications is one of the top ten public university communications programs so you know that was  a lot of baloney.  

But have you ever heard McKnight speak? Just ax him a question.

I hope he has a good NFL career.

Keep it up.

[dave]

Mike,

You know from the past that I am in your corner.  What is more painful than the butchery,  is the defense of said butchery.  It is always promising though when a young person is aware and makes every effort to be as correct as possible.  If I may use an example,  hookemdown is a good role model for his peers.

[SPEEDBEAD.]

Mike,

You know from the past that I am in your corner. What is more painful than the butchery, is the defense of said butchery. It is always promising though when a young person is aware and makes every effort to be as correct as possible. If I may use an example, hookemdown is a good role model for his peers.

Agreed. He definitely seems like a kid on the right track.

I like the fact that Mike is a staunch supporter of properly using the English language. I can also appreciate why your father was the same way.

If I had fought in a war that determined the spoken language of generations to come, I would be quite adamant that it was done correctly.

Wayne

[Siebert Outdoors]

Well Mike, just to let you know and anyone else who cares.  When I run across one of the hard to read posts I just skip it.  I figure if I have to try and read it they must not want my help or input.  

[Popeye]

Long Mike:  I TOTALLY AGREE. Like your Dad, my wife and I were adamant about all four of our children getting the best education they could and they did just that. Reading, writing, and speaking skills are an absolute necessity for any type of success in today's world.

[senile1]

Long Mike, I agree with you up to a point.  Some posts do butcher the language.  However, we have to realize that sometimes people type these things in a hurry and they don't check their grammar and spelling.  I can ignore a few errors.  

A good example is your post.  It is very readable but it contains errors.  Your spelling of fourth grade is incorrect.  You used the word, forth, as in "Go forth."  One of your sentences states  "To the great good fortune of my two brothers and I, our parents were almost obsessive about we boys getting a good education."  You have three errors in that sentence.  The words, great and good, are adjectives.  When using two adjectives in succession, they should be separated with a comma.  The phrase, "my two brothers and I," should be "my two brothers and me" since this phrase is the object of the preposition, of, and it should be in the objective case.  "We boys" is the object of the preposition, about, and should be "us boys."  

Like you, my parents weren't highly educated and they were adamant about the importance of a good education.  No matter how educated we are, we all make mistakes in grammar at times.  There may be errors in my post as well.  It's a matter of not paying attention to what we are typing.  

[Guest muddy]

When I type and I am upset or rushed my posts look worse tha the kids. I have a form of dyslexia and sometimes I pay too much attention to not reversing the letters that my psots come out unitelligable, plus my spelling is horrible. Thats why the edit option is there and I use it more than I like to admit.

My goal now is to make sure I cpitalize my I's

[senile1]

Muddy, I have to edit myself a great deal, also.  In fact, after I made the post above I had to make three edits.  Perfection does not exist in this world.  

Long Mike, I apologize if the post above was offensive.  I can see that it could be.  I make errors too.  I just wanted to make the point that we can carry the grammar and spelling thing a little too far.

[Catt]

I type everything in Micro Soft Word first then copy & paste my reply; because MSW will check spelling & grammar.  

[dave]

Very few short of writers and teachers can master all the nuances of the English language.  I think what really gets to people is the text talk.  The more you don't try to write and speak properly,  the less and less you will be able to as you get older.  How may people when they were in school thought,  algebra,  when am I ever going to use algebra?  And for the most part,  they were right.  So,  we tend to forget how to do algebra. (until our kids get to algebra and we have to remember fast)  But,  language,  spelling and writing skills,  we use them forever.  Let's always practice doing them right from an early age

[senile1]

Catt, Microsoft's spelling and grammar check program makes errors too, but at least you know your posts are readable after you use it.  

[dave]

If I write a one sentence post,  I preview it and correct errors.

[Catt]

After you use Micro Soft Word and you still have errors it's usually operator errors  

[senile1]

;D  Hey Catt, I was wondering how Microsoft Word handles the phrase, "How y"all are?"

[SPEEDBEAD.]

;D Hey Catt, I was wondering how Microsoft Word handles the phrase, "How y"all are?"

Haha, I always wondered what was up with that  LOL   ;D

[CJ]

Should it be up to the rest of the world to make sure they don't do anything to upset us?

[llPa1nll]

OK folks, those of you who know me also know that I can't stand it when I see our younger members butchering the English language by taking shortcuts with spelling and totally omitting any semblance of punctuation.  Here's why.

I am a war baby.  My Dad was a Marine who fought in the Pacific Theater.  After the war was over he returned and promptly married my Mom.  My parents had little formal education.  Dad was orphaned at a very young age and never completed the forth grade.  My mother dropped out of school when she was also very young.

To the great good fortune of my two younger brothers and I, our parents were almost obsessive about we boys getting a good education.

In addition, my Dad was obsessive about using proper English.  When we came home from school we would teach him.  He said, time and time again, "If you can't speak good and write good, you can't do good."

Long story short, we three boys made it, and none of us ever forgot what Dad said about "speaking good and writing good."

Now you know where I've been coming from.

Apparently you must have been absent when they went over how to spell "fourth" properly. Everybody makes mistakes. I wouldn't call forum posts the end all be all of proper grammar and spelling. Now if they "our younger members" were sending in college entrance essays like that I would be disappointed.

[Catt]

Not a problem since it's grammatically correct, plus Word knows Cajuns have a perfect grasp of the English language  

[Tokyo Tony]

Good post senile 1.

I think all the shortcut talk originated with AIM and text messaging as a way to communicate more quickly with friends/family.  The problem arises when kids start depending on that type of communication and bringing it over into other areas such as this forum, or even worse, schoolwork, without being aware that they are butchering the language.  There's no problem with communicating in the "shorthand" way, to put it nicely, as long as you're aware of the fact that you're not speaking correctly, and as long as you do know how to communicate correctly.

On this forum, opinions vary as to whether the "shorthand" lingo/grammar, or lack of grammar, should be acceptable.  I personally don't care too much about the grammar/spelling of others, but I would also be embarrassed to post if I didn't know basic spelling and grammar.  

That said, it should not be acceptable to point out the fact that someone doesn't know how to spell or use correct grammar.  This is a bass fishing forum where people come to learn about bass fishing and interact with other people who also enjoy bass fishing, without worrying about whether someone is sneering at them for not typing correctly.  It's not anyone's job here to correct grammar or spelling, IMO (is that abbreviation acceptable?  : )

[KYbass1276]

: :

Good thing you didn't enter the medical field then.    If I was writeing a paper for a university then maybe I would be concearned but I'm writeing on a fishing forum.  I'm not real worried what a bunch of bass fisherman think of my spelling and grammer.  I misspell words on here big deal :

[Guest avid]

Long Mike,

Very moving story.

Your parents have that "true grit" that made America the greatest country in the history of the world.

As far as you being grouchy about grammer, I always thought it was because when you sat down at your computer it irritated the warts on your asss.

who knew?  

[Tin]

Apparently you must have been absent when they went over how to spell "fourth" properly. Everybody makes mistakes. I wouldn't call forum posts the end all be all of proper grammar and spelling. Now if they "our younger members" were sending in college entrance essays like that I would be disappointed.

   In my college writing course the average grade is a 68. There are no quiz's or tests, just all essays. My teacher rants constantly about how very few people in the class have any idea on how to write. There are essays handed in like posts on this forum. ALL SHORTHANDED! Some even have no punctuation what so ever, no periods to end sentences, no use of comma's, no indentations for the start of a new paragraph, or even capital letters. So now in my class, instead of learning how to write "effectively", we just go over basic grammar and spelling. >

    A few months ago Long Mike posted a rant about grammar and I didn't completely understand, but now I do. All of this Instant Messaging and texting "lingo" is being carried over into regular writing. It is quite disturbing.  

I should also add that I'm in an ADVANCED writing course.

[Tin]

I left out one other little fact. The girl who has the highest grade (92), is a Russian immigrant and English is considered her second language. :

[SPEEDBEAD.]

I left out one other little fact. The girl who has the highest grade (92), is a Russian immigrant and English is considered her second language. :

That's a fun little tidbit of information right there.