What would such a group do? I hope not editing posts for grammar problems; that's (when unsolicited) rude.

I'm not in the habit of editing other people's postings (even if I could, I wouldn't; my method would be to /msg them), nor do I tend to make (frequent) snarky comments about somebody's grammar, spelling, or punctuation.

emc

At that time [1909] the chief engineer was almost always the chief test pilot as well. That had the fortunate result of eliminating poor engineering early in aviation.

—Igor Sikorsky, reported in AOPA Pilot magazine February 2003.

So you think we should create a team of people who send /msgs whenever they see a grammar mistake? Sounds like a fantastic way to drive away visitors. It might even work for me. Was that your intent? ;)

- tye        

It might be helpful for non-native speakers to improve their grasp of the language, I don't think this is the forum for such things. This is PerlMonks after all, not LanguageMonks :-)

Just my 2 quid and remember, English is one of the only languages where you can go phishing for ghoti with a fishing pole :-)

update: fixed spelling error s/grammer/grammar/. Thanks for pointing this out Fletch

update 2: even native speakers have problems with the "rules". How many grammatical mistakes can be found in this post (sentence splice has already been found - thanks theguvnor).

The doesn't even get into slang and other such constructs.

While we're at it... Can the determinate article "the" act as a subject, as in the sentence above? Shouldn't this rather be a demonstrative pronoun like "that" or "this"? :)

(I'm not a native speaker of English, but this seems wrong grammatically...)

Anyway, as these example nitpickings show, I don't think this proposal is a good idea... (or should it be "I do think this proposal is not a good idea"...? ;)

(Almut goes back to her cave...)

(I'm not a native speaker of English, but this seems wrong grammatically...)

It's certainly wrong ... but whether it was a grammatical error or a typographical error could well be a moot point :-)

I don't think this proposal is a good idea... (or should it be "I do think this proposal is not a good idea"...? ;)

Heh ... nice point. In terms of "usage" there's no (or little) difference. But in terms of "logic" your question confuses the crap out of me.

Cheers,
Rob

Actually there's "grammer", which is a misspelling, and "grammar", which is the correct word. :)

(And no, I'm not volunteering. Again, low hanging fruit. Fish, barrel, gun. :)

Never said I could spell :-) get too soft using spellcheck and auto-correct features.

Physician, heal thyself: there's a sentence splice in your second paragraph. ;-)

[Jon]

'Correcting' language problems has a number of problems:

• The person may be using jargon that we are unfamiliar with, and we incorrectly assume that it's just a typo or other mistake.
• The person may be using jargon which gives clues as to his/her background, which can give clues in how to best help them.
• The person may be using a polysemous word (multiple similar meanings), for which they are using a meaning of the word that the editor is not familiar with.
• How do we decide which is the 'correct' dialect of English to standardize on? This could fragment the community if people are forced to post in compartmentalized sections.
• What looks to be an error in grammar may actually be an error in understanding, which is necessary to solve the person's problem.
• ... etc.

... some monks can be offended by poor spelling and grammar ...

I'm not a fan of poor spelling. I actively loathe people who believe that 'ur' is an acceptable replacement for 'your' -- but not because they've made a mistake, because they're just lazy in typing an extra 2 characters.

If someone posts a completely horrendous message, there are plenty of polite ways to respond, such as 'I tried reading your message, but I have no idea what they're trying to say', or 'What did you mean by (x)?'. Or, just ignore it, and move on -- you're not obligated to read anything.

And to those who actually get 'offended' by poor grammar and spelling -- get a life! There are so many more important things to worry about.

Instead of a --, I'll just reply, 'No'. ;) Well, OK, I'm verbose ..

We already have a mechanism for correcting bad titles and incorrect formatting .. I don't think we don't need to also veer into correcting bad grammar and spelling mistakes. As long as the meaning is more or less clear, no problem.

"I don't think we don't need to also veer into correcting bad grammar and spelling mistakes."

Do you realize that this sentence most likely does not convey your intended meaning?

This is the main problem I have with bad spelling and grammar. When reading anything on the internet, I am forced to waste a lot of attention on sorting out all the mistakes in order to get at the most likely intended meaning. As others have said, errors in english are almost as grave as errors in Perl. Programming is also a linguistic venture, and we all should strive to be as precise in our expression of thoughts as possible.

If we allow users of higher standing to correct a newbie's ramblings, there will be less questions and posts ignored due to the pain of reading them.

Edit: I would like to also point out that the question-and-answer site Stackoverflow.com allows and encourages the improvement of content. Even though it attracts the usual numbers of rather clueless people, who seem to have only passing acquaintance with both the english language and the subject they are asking about, all lasting contributions uphold at least an acceptable standard. The average standard is finally what the whole site, not just the individual poster, is judged for by the casual reader.

> As others have said, errors in english are almost as grave as errors in Perl.

Perl is definitely much easier to parse than English. Compared to most languages I know English is by orthography, phonology and vocabulary a mess.

> When reading anything on the internet, I am forced to waste a lot of attention on sorting out all the mistakes in order to get at the most likely intended meaning.

I have much more problems to understand native English speakers than "foreigners".

Non-natives use a limited set of patterns and vocabulary, you can figure out what they meant.

But natives often either start to use their local slang or try their (local) style of "sophisticated" speech.

<update>(to continue this perl analogy, native speakers know the language good enough to use magic, to golf and to obfuscate, while the code of non-natives will mostly look like BASIC! ;-)</update>

Anyway, IMHO people writing non-comprehensible stuff should be politely asked what they meant or should be ignored, but not corrected...

(So if you don't know what I mean, ignore me ;-)

Cheers Rolf

Interesting comment. I liken the debate that happens around a question that's been raised (perhaps poorly, by a newbie) to be similar to the Socratic method -- questions are answered by more questions in order to distill the matter at hand.

And if substantive questions are preceded by the meta-question "What do you mean?", that's OK -- I'd rather see how the discussion evolved (and what interesting side-arguments popped up) rather than have the heavily edited, almost unrecognizable question as the top post, because then then it suggests we have to go back and edit all of the replies as well.

And that's why it's my firmly held belief that when someone asks a question, they *shouldn't* be able to go back and edit their original question, because then the replies don't make any sense. It's important to leave history the way it was -- that way you can see what the question really was about. The asker has learned how to propose a question to the community (a meta-answer), and also something about Perl (an answer, or more likely, several answers, since TIMTOWTDI).

Regarding StackOverflow's ability to go back and edit stuff -- I guess that's a slightly different model, where it's a Q&A site that's also a wiki. Frankly, I like the way Perlmonks works the way it is.

Alex / talexb / Toronto

Team website: Forex Chart Monkey, Forex Technical Analysis and Pickpocket Prevention

"Groklaw is the open-source mentality applied to legal research" ~ Linus Torvalds

... more like "pedants". ;-)


Christopher E. Stith

Your own home node contains a sentence with no verb in it.

We don't alter content to fix spelling and grammar. That's pretty clear in site documentation. Have you read How do I use the power of consideration responsibly?? We don't take it upon ourselves to change a node's grammar and punctuation.

Hmm. How about refusing posts from people who not only ignore the conventions for the capitilisation of proper nouns, but those that insist that everyone else do the same?

After that, we should restrict posting to those who have web cams so that we can verify that they are wearing ties, and not wearing trainers.

Or would that be are not wearing ties and are wearing trainers? After all, Perl is OSS and alternative, and for hackers. And hackers are cool dudes that have beards and long hair and tee shirts (or should that be t-shirts?) don't they?

I know the meek are meant to inherit the earth, but they darn well better hurry up because the anal retentive are beating them to the punch open-handed slap.

You've opened a proverbial can of worms now!
Gavin

We don't need a special group for this; every monk of level Friar and above is already empowered to do this.

:-)

If you mean the power of considering nodes, then no. I don't feel that grammar should be corrected by janitors and nodes considered for grammar changes should be unconsidered immediately. If you really feel offended by grammar, consider /msging the author of the node.

Let's not make Consideration more abused than it is already.

It may be that I misunderstood your node and you meant it as a joke, in the same sense that I understand the root node as a request in jest, if so, then I admit that the joke went far over my head ;)