Magic player for 24 years, writer for 15 years, and a former English teacher here. Sorry if this rant sounds petty, but it is really difficult to see bad grammar and spelling at the 'Salv. I know I make mistakes (but at least I try to correct them when I see them). My computer has that red squiggly line that lets me know I misspelled a word... why can't others use it?
Does this bother anyone else? I hate to be such a stickler of grammar, but it just irks me to no end that some do not care about their grammar. And yes, I do know that not everyone on this site has English as their first language. I'm not counting those individuals. I'm talking about the guy/gal who gives a sloppy post title or skips the proper placement of an apostrophe, while the rest of their paragraph is pristine. There is such a thing as proof-reading; I doubt we want to come off as Neanderthals.
Anyone else get irked by the apathy in writing? There is no excuse (outside of English is not your mother language) to not care. The written word is a powerful form of communication, and if others reading a sentence need to read said sentence more than once to understand it, a communication break-down has occurred. Now the reader will concentrate more on the mistake than the point being made.
Who agrees and who disagrees?
So, let's here the rebuttals & the devil's advocates. I'm waiting for one or more readers to pull out all of the grammar issues in this OP...
PS - stop with the millennial acronyms for everything. WTH has the same syllables at "what the hell," you're not saving time by shortening a statement into an acronym.
Anyway, I guess I sorta agree with you, but what do you want done about it? It's how people talk online. Nobody is going to, or should, enforce a site grammar or spelling policy.
As for your PS: the whole point of your so-called 'millennial acronyms' is that they save time typing, not speaking. Unless you're reading these posts out loud, syllable count is completely irrelevant here, whereas using the shorter acronym can indeed "save time" for both the author and the reader.
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes... Three generations of imbeciles are enough."
--Buck v Bell, 1927. This case, regarding the compulsory sterilization of inmates at mental institutions, has -- somehow -- never been overturned. Just a wee PSA for ya.
But I worry that duel lands aren't strictly better because they make my plainswalkers vulnerable.
Yes, it bugs me when people have a post loaded with it's but they mean the possessive, and any number of other English mistakes, but I have to accept (not except) that most people don't care enough to try. It's probably just me, but the Magic-specific examples in my first sentence actually bug me more. We're not on a forum about the English language, so I get that not everyone is excited about or even knowledgeable about English. But what's their (not there or they're or theiyr're) excuse when it comes to Magic?
Seriously, if you care enough about Magic to join a forum like this, use the correct terms.
-Dual means two, as in two color/types.
-Duel means a fight - is a duel land something like Arena or Contested Cliffs?
-Strictly better is a term I could write an entire article about. Bottom line - learn to use it correctly or don't use it at all.
-Graceful Antelope is a plainswalker. Elspeth, Knight-Errant is a planeswalker. Notice the differences.
First off, I can't tell whether this is whether this is a troll post, considering the lack of a pristine that should have been provided by the OP.
Second: WTH and WTF are made because otherwise their post would be censored. Surely, being a teacher, well honestly, having a job, has had you run into acronyms you have to use at least on a weekly basis. TPS reports, SOLs, SATs, POS, ES/MS/HS, FBI, CIA,UK, Washington D.C., USB, PC, HTTP, these are all acronyms a forum surfing American English Teacher should know. Even a taser is a T.A.S.E.R. = Thomas Anderson Swift's Electric Rifle (I kid you not forum readers, look it up).
Millennial Acronyms? Go back to the fifties, pops! It is time to educate you. Lets go back to the eighties, when the internet was new and computers weren't in every home (not by a long shot). People started using acronyms and swapping numbers in for letters on message boards to keep outsiders out and to dodge the authorities. These people were hackers/phreaks/ph34k5. As hackers they continued hacking and in the next decade they their ilk played computer games. There the lingo evolved and were stolen from people that wanted to be the hackers and pushed mainstream JUST as instant messenger blew up. Shortly after, texting happened and with it, the DREADED character limit. This was the nineties. THE NINETIES! The MILENNIUM brought the horrors of Twitter which has kept what you hate so much alive for so long (and your American president is not helping[ This is not a political statement, the man loves Twitter and uses it often]).
So why does it matter? How many "archaic" words do you know and use that millennials haven't uttered once? Your elephantine verbosity compared to the seemingly sheer vacuity of their craniums vexes you, I get that. I also understand that language needs to evolve and if it hadn't with the advent of IMs, texts, and *shudder*Twitter, the flow of information and growth would not have been anywhere as miraculous as it was.
I get your plight, believe me, I do. When I want to read an article, I want to READ an article. If I wanted to watch a video, I don't go to CNN.com, I got to YouTube. I don't need the news read out to me, I have television (TV) for that. There is a Netflix account for our abode and I choose to run it through the videogame console connected to our TV rather than just use the computer I am currently using. It isn't always easy to accept change, but at least you, unlike others, seem to understand that it IS happening and it will continuing.
For that, sir, I commend you.
Now to really let loose. "Kill yourself" runs through my head everything people use the wrong "too," "your," or "their". Yes, I feel superior to them. That doesn't mean that I can't understand them. If I didn't stay silent, I wouldn't have my job right now. I've learned to only tear them to shreds when they say something ignorant (regardless of their spelling or grammar). Children get a slight pass, but most of the people on here are high-school/college age. There lies a sad dichotomy where there is so much autocorrect and yet even with all this hand holding they are such utter failures at typing.
I will grant one additional reprieve: typing on a mobile device. Trying to talk about cards like [card]
Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder[/card] on a smart phone or a tablet does indeed use autocorrect against you. Adding card tags becomes a three step process.
That being said, I still expect the rest of the post to be relatively flawless.
Does this bother anyone else? I hate to be such a stickler of grammar, but it just irks me to no end that some do not care about their grammar. And yes, I do know that not everyone on this site has English as their first language. I'm not counting those individuals. I'm talking about the guy/gal who gives a sloppy post title or skips the proper placement of an apostrophe, while the rest of their paragraph is pristine. There is such a thing as proof-reading; I doubt we want to come off as Neanderthals.
Anyone else get irked by the apathy in writing? There is no excuse (outside of English is not your mother language) to not care. The written word is a powerful form of communication, and if others reading a sentence need to read said sentence more than once to understand it, a communication break-down has occurred. Now the reader will concentrate more on the mistake than the point being made.
Who agrees and who disagrees?
So, let's here the rebuttals & the devil's advocates. I'm waiting for one or more readers to pull out all of the grammar issues in this OP...
PS - stop with the millennial acronyms for everything. WTH has the same syllables at "what the hell," you're not saving time by shortening a statement into an acronym.
End rant.
I know it sounds like I'm just trolling but I'm dead serious.
Anyway, I guess I sorta agree with you, but what do you want done about it? It's how people talk online. Nobody is going to, or should, enforce a site grammar or spelling policy.
As for your PS: the whole point of your so-called 'millennial acronyms' is that they save time typing, not speaking. Unless you're reading these posts out loud, syllable count is completely irrelevant here, whereas using the shorter acronym can indeed "save time" for both the author and the reader.
--Buck v Bell, 1927. This case, regarding the compulsory sterilization of inmates at mental institutions, has -- somehow -- never been overturned. Just a wee PSA for ya.
Yes, it bugs me when people have a post loaded with it's but they mean the possessive, and any number of other English mistakes, but I have to accept (not except) that most people don't care enough to try. It's probably just me, but the Magic-specific examples in my first sentence actually bug me more. We're not on a forum about the English language, so I get that not everyone is excited about or even knowledgeable about English. But what's their (not there or they're or theiyr're) excuse when it comes to Magic?
Seriously, if you care enough about Magic to join a forum like this, use the correct terms.
-Dual means two, as in two color/types.
-Duel means a fight - is a duel land something like Arena or Contested Cliffs?
-Strictly better is a term I could write an entire article about. Bottom line - learn to use it correctly or don't use it at all.
-Graceful Antelope is a plainswalker. Elspeth, Knight-Errant is a planeswalker. Notice the differences.
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
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Useful Resources:
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ManabaseCrafter
Second: WTH and WTF are made because otherwise their post would be censored. Surely, being a teacher, well honestly, having a job, has had you run into acronyms you have to use at least on a weekly basis. TPS reports, SOLs, SATs, POS, ES/MS/HS, FBI, CIA,UK, Washington D.C., USB, PC, HTTP, these are all acronyms a forum surfing American English Teacher should know. Even a taser is a T.A.S.E.R. = Thomas Anderson Swift's Electric Rifle (I kid you not forum readers, look it up).
Millennial Acronyms? Go back to the fifties, pops! It is time to educate you. Lets go back to the eighties, when the internet was new and computers weren't in every home (not by a long shot). People started using acronyms and swapping numbers in for letters on message boards to keep outsiders out and to dodge the authorities. These people were hackers/phreaks/ph34k5. As hackers they continued hacking and in the next decade they their ilk played computer games. There the lingo evolved and were stolen from people that wanted to be the hackers and pushed mainstream JUST as instant messenger blew up. Shortly after, texting happened and with it, the DREADED character limit. This was the nineties. THE NINETIES! The MILENNIUM brought the horrors of Twitter which has kept what you hate so much alive for so long (and your American president is not helping[ This is not a political statement, the man loves Twitter and uses it often]).
So why does it matter? How many "archaic" words do you know and use that millennials haven't uttered once? Your elephantine verbosity compared to the seemingly sheer vacuity of their craniums vexes you, I get that. I also understand that language needs to evolve and if it hadn't with the advent of IMs, texts, and *shudder*Twitter, the flow of information and growth would not have been anywhere as miraculous as it was.
I get your plight, believe me, I do. When I want to read an article, I want to READ an article. If I wanted to watch a video, I don't go to CNN.com, I got to YouTube. I don't need the news read out to me, I have television (TV) for that. There is a Netflix account for our abode and I choose to run it through the videogame console connected to our TV rather than just use the computer I am currently using. It isn't always easy to accept change, but at least you, unlike others, seem to understand that it IS happening and it will continuing.
For that, sir, I commend you.
Now to really let loose. "Kill yourself" runs through my head everything people use the wrong "too," "your," or "their". Yes, I feel superior to them. That doesn't mean that I can't understand them. If I didn't stay silent, I wouldn't have my job right now. I've learned to only tear them to shreds when they say something ignorant (regardless of their spelling or grammar). Children get a slight pass, but most of the people on here are high-school/college age. There lies a sad dichotomy where there is so much autocorrect and yet even with all this hand holding they are such utter failures at typing.
I will grant one additional reprieve: typing on a mobile device. Trying to talk about cards like [card]
Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder[/card] on a smart phone or a tablet does indeed use autocorrect against you. Adding card tags becomes a three step process.
That being said, I still expect the rest of the post to be relatively flawless.