Poll: Spelling or grammar?

[MiskWisk]

So, while at college, we got onto a part of the course I'm on to check the grammar and spelling of a letter. Fairly basic and not too problematic for me. However, while doing the letter we found a sixth mistake (there are only meant to be five) which resulted in an argument over whether we should include the poor grammar mistake (which was a lack of a comma before the word which) or spelling colour without the "u" (note, it was the comma as the mistake but as I live in the UK, colour is like this instead of color) and this got me thinking. On every forum or comment section, there has always been at least one case of a grammar nazi and I just thought, what is it that annoys people, spelling or grammar?

So, I came onto the internet and made a poll. For me it is probably spelling.

 

[Aris Khandr]

It depends on the situation. Certain misspelled words really get to me. "Wallah" is one of them. The word is voila, you're not even close to right. Certain misused homophones also really bother me. The most egregious, however, is text speak. I am firmly of the opinion that anyone who uses text speak unironically should be legally required to give everyone exposed to their lexical diarrhea the opportunity to abuse their bollocks with a cricket bat.

 

[SomeLameStuff]

Both annoy me equally. Bad grammar plagues my daily life, while bad spelling plagues my online life. The use of short forms also gets on my nerves.

also =/= oso
and =/= n
you =/= u
phones =/= fones
don't =/= don
what =/= wat

IS IT SO DAMN HARD TO REACH OVER AND PRESS A FEW EXTRA KEYS?!?!

 

[DasDestroyer]

Bad grammar, because typos happen to the best of us. Sure I make grammatical errors every now and then, especially when rewriting posts, but that's a lot less common. Although there are a few words that, when misspelled, piss me off to no end, such as definitely and the usual there/their/they're and you're/your, which I often jokingly correct with yore.
Although I used to correct people a lot more than I do now. Now I usually do it to troll my friends, or if I intentionally want to piss someone off.

 

[Rawne1980]

Neither of them bother me except in cases of "text talk" which, for some reason, irritates me to no end and when someone is trying to come across as intellectual yet can't spell for shit.

If spelling mistakes and grammar bothered me i'd never be able to read one of Vaults threads.

Plus I left school 17 years ago and have never done a job since that required top notch English so anything I was taught has since been forgotten.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Bad grammar, because typos happen to the best of us.

Yep, yep, yep. I'll edit a post just to correct a single solitary typo, too.

 

[Loonyyy]

Neither. So long as I can understand someone, and they've put effort into their communication, I couldn't give a fuck. And you shouldn't either. (See, using an And to start a sentence is generally considered poor grammar. But you can tell what I mean, and it gives the emphasis I want).

Grammar Nazis are sad, pathetic fellows. They're bullying people with a dictionary on the internet. They're not just a pathetic human, as a bully, but also the saddest depiction of nerd imaginable. Hopefully, they grow out of it. Making a joke is one thing, making it a habit is another.

Typos and errors happen. When people are lazy, they can't be bothered using capitals, or punctuation, or making their word choices clear, or use Text Speak or 1337 Speak, I get lazy with them. Why should I read your post if you don't respect me, or your own view, enough to make it legible? Why should I value your effort, if you don't value my time?

 

[DasDestroyer]

Bad grammar, because typos happen to the best of us.

Yep, yep, yep. I'll edit a post just to correct a single solitary typo, too.

Speaking of which I just changed "joking" to "jokingly" in my previous post. I really can't stand forums where you can't edit your posts because my typos end up being immortalized.

 

[Albino Boo]

It depends on the situation. Certain misspelled words really get to me. "Wallah" is one of them. The word is voila, you're not even close to right. Certain misused homophones also really bother me. The most egregious, however, is text speak. I am firmly of the opinion that anyone who uses text speak unironically should be legally required to give everyone exposed to their lexical diarrhea the opportunity to abuse their bollocks with a cricket bat.

Err, could you help out with some context here because Wallah is a perfectly legitimate word. It has entered into British English from Hindi/Urdu meaning someone who is involved with a task i.e Char-Wallah is someone who makes the Tea or a cake-Wallah is someone in charge of the cakes. Its not that common these days but was in common usage 20 years ago.

 

[adamsaccount]

It depends on the situation. Certain misspelled words really get to me. "Wallah" is one of them. The word is voila, you're not even close to right. Certain misused homophones also really bother me. The most egregious, however, is text speak. I am firmly of the opinion that anyone who uses text speak unironically should be legally required to give everyone exposed to their lexical diarrhea the opportunity to abuse their bollocks with a cricket bat.

Err, could you help out with some context here because Wallah is a perfectly legitimate word. It has entered into British English from Hindi/Urdu meaning someone who is involved with a task i.e Char-Wallah is someone who makes the Tea or a cake-Wallah is someone in charge of the cakes. Its not that common these days but was in common usage 20 years ago.

Isnt that what the priests from age of empires kept saying?

 

[Aris Khandr]

It depends on the situation. Certain misspelled words really get to me. "Wallah" is one of them. The word is voila, you're not even close to right. Certain misused homophones also really bother me. The most egregious, however, is text speak. I am firmly of the opinion that anyone who uses text speak unironically should be legally required to give everyone exposed to their lexical diarrhea the opportunity to abuse their bollocks with a cricket bat.

Err, could you help out with some context here because Wallah is a perfectly legitimate word. It has entered into British English from Hindi/Urdu meaning someone who is involved with a task i.e Char-Wallah is someone who makes the Tea or a cake-Wallah is someone in charge of the cakes. Its not that common these days but was in common usage 20 years ago.

I'm pretty sure I gave the context. You're familiar with the word "voila", yes? Word of French origin, basically meaning "look at that" or "there you have it".

 

[Queen Michael]

Grammar, because you practice it both when you speak and when you write, so you have less of an excuse for getting it wrong.

 

[thesilentman]

RESIDENT LINGUIST NEEDS TO CHIME IN!

Grammar Nazis are just bullies who belittle people in order to feel better about themselves. I used to be one.

These days if someone is being particularly obnoxious to me I might point out a grammar mistake in passing, but as long as the message was comprehended, grammar is irrelevant. At least the prescriptive grammar native speakers learn in schools is irrelevant. Real grammar that linguists study is much more broad- basically if people say it naturally, it's part of the grammar. "ain't", double negatives, ending sentences with prepositions, "who" instead of "whom"... all of these are perfectly valid grammatically. Because native speakers produce these constructions and are understood when they do so.

Spelling is equally unimportant as long as the word is understood without effort. At least until you belittle someone's intelligence.

Now these things are different from register- there are certain times based on the formality of what's being written that the rules of grammar are tightened or loosened. If you're writing a resume to apply for a copy-editing position, you need good spelling and grammar. On a video game message board- not so much.

Uh... Yeah. Basically what Katatori-Kun said. Ninja'd hard, I was.

I personally have a slant towards grammar, as sentence construction is so very important, something the US education system doesn't seem to understand...

 

[Esotera]

I suppose I care about grammar more - it has to be easy to understand and near standard english if it's in print. Spelling I really don't care about as that fad has only been around for a couple of hundred years, and is becoming less important due to the rise of electronics.

 

[Eddie the head]

Grammar, having bad grammar you can easily misinterpret or not convey a point well. Bad communication never leads to anything good.

 

[DoPo]

Out of the two, I care about spelling more. That doesn't mean much, though. I don't much care about grammar as not everybody is a native speaker, we all, however have access to spell checkers. I don't even care that much about spelling, though - I enjoy Vault101's writing, for example - it has a certain charm to it. However, if one tries to sound way too competent and starts throwing big words and weight in with expertise in a poorly written post, I'm more likely to think them a moron or even call them out.

I believe misspelling isn't as bad as shortening words in a forum post - using "u" instead of "you" and the like throughout a post - shaving off...what? 3 seconds? Yeah, shaving 3 seconds off that post cannot help you in any way to conserve time. Or to use the immortal words of John Cheese

Also, keep texting shortcuts confined to your cell phone. Everybody understands when you use "2" instead of "too" because you were typing with your thumbs on a number pad. But you cannot let that habit sneak into your work or school emails or even message boards. And there's no reason for it, you have all the time in the world to construct and proofread your message. If you are so pressed for time that you can't spend the extra quarter of a second to type out the full word, you need to get up right away and finish your responsibilities. Don't even worry about closing the window - that would take almost a full second.

 

[Ljs1121]

I'd say bad grammar.

If someone spells a word or two wrong, I can mentally correct it pretty easily. But if they use bad grammar, it can make the entire sentence appear to mean something grossly different than it should.

 

[JasonKaotic]

I spows sumwon torkng liyk tihs,
0r lYk d15

would annoy me lot's more than some one talking as this

So yeah, spelling for me. At least you can read horrible grammar, most of the time you need a freakin' translator when the bad spellers write anything.
And some of my friends use horrific grammar on the internet so I 'spose I've had to build up a resistance to it.

 

[ohnoitsabear]

Out of the two, I care about spelling more. That doesn't mean much, though. I don't much care about grammar as not everybody is a native speaker, we all, however have access to spell checkers.

This is basically my view of it. There really isn't much of an excuse to have bad spelling, especially on the internet. Of course, it really doesn't bother me unless it's really, really bad.

I do have to agree with the text speak thing, though. All it does is make it harder to understand, and it's clearly intentional, unlike normal bad spelling. Hell, I don't even use text speak when I'm texting unless I start pushing the character limit, because it pisses me off that much.

 

[Fijiman]

There needs to be a both option.

Both grammar and spelling annoy me when reading what others have written. Although, when it comes to what I've written, it's spelling that gets me the most because I can't spell worth a damn sometimes.