About Spelling And Grammer

[robert_dl]

AND (I know shutup already), I'd like to add, I am a member of numerous other non-diaper related forums, and the prevelance of grammar nazis on other boards is ridiculously high (and extremely frustrating)

Especially in programming / computer science help forums - the amount of 'newbies' who post ONCE and ONCE only is an all to common fact.

[Leilin]

I'm a grammar fascist, but, as I said earlier, I am a professional. I am paid to edit. Thus, I don't really care to do so on forums.

[sarah_ab]

And trolls. People who do it on purpose deserve to be berated.

not sure if you are aware... but i am what is known as a pretty important troll around here.... Yep thats right... i know its a shock.. but there it is.. I am a troll!

but for hte record i shower daily.. sometimes more than once a day!

[Andy]

.......

If your writing is grossly substandard, almost unintelligible and you cannot even spell 'diaper' correctly in a diaper forum, then expect to be ignored or mocked. We deserve better than that.

It is a nappy .... n-a-p-p-y tsk tsk

Seriously though, English is not my first language. I learnt bits in school, forgot the most of it in about 8 years after I left school and then started to learn it again on my own. I am still learning, in fact, I doubt I can say that I will have finished learning one day in the future just because it is all too different.

I have talked to US Americans, English people and Aussies and although all speak the same language all three are pretty much different in parts. Also I enjoy to listen to Radio Ulster and Radio Scotland because both carry a different charme in language compared to the main (clean English) BBC program from England.

Another difference can be seen in books of different times. At the moment I am reading "Lady Chatterley`s Lover" by D.H. Lawrence, for example, and it is entirely different to what I can read in more recent book releases. The next book on my list will be "Flatlands" by Edgar Abott and as it was written in the late 1800s, I am already excited about what I will be in for.

By the way, I do not use spellcheckers. This doesn`t mean that I do not spellcheck though. If I find an obvious mistake after I posted a post I`ll edit the post instantly. If I do not see a mistake but there is one, it makes it more human. I handle translation machines like babelfish or google translation similar too. They are good if I miss a word but for a whole text I prefer translating myself, if I have to translate at all.

I hope above makes sense and doesn`t carry too many mistakes, both grammar and spell.

[Little BabyDoll Christine]

Try a board search for 'grammar' & you will see quite a few posts ruined by the 'grammar nazis' !

I find it extremely annoying when somebody posts something that's not grammatically correct, and instead of sensible replies there are posts correcting the grammar! Why do so many posts have to be hijacked (and ruined) by those who lack the intellect to decipher / interpret what is being said?

I think the following illustrates the fact we ALL have the ability to decipher seemingly illegible texts. Which reinforces my opinion that 'grammar nazis' only point out mistakes to either; (a.) make themselves feel / appear more intelligent, (b.) try to force others to conform to their ideals, or (c.) because they're assholes :

7H15 M3554G3

53RV35 7O PR0V3

H0W 0UR M1ND5 C4N

D0 4M4Z1NG 7H1NG5!

1MPR3551V3 7H1NG5!

1N 7H3 B3G1NN1NG

17 WA5 H4RD BU7

N0W, 0N 7H15 LIN3

Y0UR M1ND 1S

R34D1NG 17

4U70M471C4LLY

W17H 0U7 3V3N

7H1NK1NG 4B0U7 17,

B3 PROUD! 0NLY

C3R741N P30PL3 C4N

R3AD 7H15.

PL3453 F0RW4RD 1F

U C4N R34D 7H15.

It is not my job to search anything to prove your point. Itr is your job, since it is YOUR point to bring it to me. The saying goes "put up or shut up" and it is a major principle of logic. Also it is not what I can read if I squig my brain around like some kind of snake but I should not have to know the Da Vinci Code to understand some self-absorbed internet ghetto-bunny

[Andy]

A crossword withouth words crossing

3=e ; 4=a ; 1=i ; 7=t ; 5=s

[rosalie.bent]

If you find something too hard to read, then why would you read it and complain? Why not just disregard it and move on?

I don't think anyone intentionally makes their posts hard to read. Perhaps they are so excited to share a new idea or feeling, their minds simply work faster than their fingers can.

My above post is simply to point out the fact that your mind should fill in the blanks and make illegible texts readable.

All I'm trying to say is this - if you don't like / can't understand someones grammar, then that's YOUR problem. You don't need to make the poster feel bad, or ruin a thread correcting them.

It's NOT 'their' grammar! That's the point! Grammar is a shared standard. Language is all about communication based on the same protocols and rules. That means we are OBLIGATED to follow good grammar and spelling if we wish to be heard and understood. One of the biggest disasters in education was the 'spelin & grammer dont matter none' phase. A whole generation grew up with very poor written communication skills. Why should we accept or praise it? It was a disaster and the internet just allowed for the proliferation of mindless drones speaking mindless drivel using letters loosely arranged into words, but certainly not sentences. And paragraphs??? What are they. If this makes me a grammar nazi then so be it.

How about we start by setting the bar of our writing one notch higher - ALL OF US. For some of us though it will mean discovering commas and capital letters.

It would be a start...

[anned]

I have trouble with punctuation because even with my 22 inch screen a can not see those tiny little dots on my screen. I just hit the key and hope its there.

I am still waiting for the VA to send me for a new set of glasses.

Old age can be a pain.

[wetman]

I have trouble with punctuation because even with my 22 inch screen a can not see those tiny little dots on my screen. I just hit the key and hope its there.

I am still waiting for the VA to send me for a new set of glasses.

Old age can be a pain.

<CTRL> + mouse wheel can help you tremendously. If you use a Linux with Compiz, you can also configure a very useful, application independent screen magnifier.

[Andy]

It's NOT 'their' grammar! That's the point! Grammar is a shared standard. Language is all about communication based on the same protocols and rules. That means we are OBLIGATED to follow good grammar and spelling if we wish to be heard and understood. One of the biggest disasters in education was the 'spelin & grammer dont matter none' phase. A whole generation grew up with very poor written communication skills. Why should we accept or praise it? It was a disaster and the internet just allowed for the proliferation of mindless drones speaking mindless drivel using letters loosely arranged into words, but certainly not sentences. And paragraphs??? What are they. If this makes me a grammar nazi then so be it.

How about we start by setting the bar of our writing one notch higher - ALL OF US. For some of us though it will mean discovering commas and capital letters.

It would be a start...

Funny that you mention this. When I returned to school (technician college) I learnt that a lot of the grammar and spelling rules in my native language have been given up because pupils failed the PISA test twice in the language. So clever politicians decided to give up on these rules because pupils failed to learn them. I felt, and still feel, that the true problem was adressed the wrong way in order to make the statistic way nicer. It almost feels like a miracle now, how I was able to learn my native language without all these simplifications.

For what it is worth, I still use the grammar and spelling rules I used to learn as a school boy. This most often earns respect but in one or two occasions made me not getting a job because the decider on the other side of the desk was already committing to the "new" grammar and spelling.

[wetman]

Hi Andy,

I take it then that your 'delfin' still has a 'ph' and 'du' or 'sie', when addressing people, is capitalised. I, too, liked it that way.

[robert_dl]

It's NOT 'their' grammar! That's the point! Grammar is a shared standard. Language is all about communication based on the same protocols and rules. That means we are OBLIGATED to follow good grammar and spelling if we wish to be heard and understood.

What grammar & spelling would you suggest the GLOBAL community (that is the internet) adopt? Shall I start spelling 'color' as 'colour' so you can understand me? Should I disregard my education & national dialect so you can understand a different variation of English?

One of the biggest disasters in education was the 'spelin & grammer dont matter none' phase. A whole generation grew up with very poor written communication skills. Why should we accept or praise it? It was a disaster and the internet just allowed for the proliferation of mindless drones speaking mindless drivel using letters loosely arranged into words, but certainly not sentences. And paragraphs??? What are they.

'They' unfortunate as they may be, are a problem of your particular region. The issues you speak of, either only exist in your region, or simply don't affect my perception & understanding of the current written word.

It seems the problem may be yours . . .

If this makes me a grammar nazi then so be it.

This does not make you a grammar nazi, the following definition sums up a grammar nazi in my mind :

"A captious individual who cannot resist the urge to correct a spelling and/or grammar mistake even in informal settings. After pointing out the linguistic shortcomings in others, a Grammar Nazi feels a strange sense of twisted and unconstructive intelligentsia delight.

In reality, they are making someone else feel bad for no reason and unintentionally implying that their "superior" grammar skills are all they have to show for a wasted liberal arts education.

While proper grammar usage is all well and good, a Grammar Nazi cavils even insignificant errors in English to somehow win an argument. Of course, rather than being genuinely persuasive in an argument, pointing out English errors is a weak attack only on the typist's credibility and never has any bearing on the underlying premises and assertions therein. "

How about we start by setting the bar of our writing one notch higher - ALL OF US. For some of us though it will mean discovering commas and capital letters.

It would be a start...

Yes it would be nice if the entire internet was conformed to our regional english expectations, but we have to remember that the internet is GLOBAL, and hence we must EXPECT some differences. Again I would like to point out that some users who post in english, may not even be english speakers!

I myself post in the ABKingdom forums - and I don't speak French (fluently), yet I have never had any slandering for my misuse of the language, even though Google Translation tools aren't that good.

[Andy]

Hi Andy,

I take it then that your 'delfin' still has a 'ph' and 'du' or 'sie', when addressing people, is capitalised. I, too, liked it that way.

Yes, I do.

[Angela Bauer]

This whole debate about spelling, grammar and typos has been raging since the Internet was 300 baud and only available to universities, governments and large corporations. It became a bigger issue when modems raced at 28K and the www reached millions of people, now billions of folks.

Before any of us get all high and mighty about the posts of anyone else, I suggest we stop and take several deep breaths.

Remember, in nearly every culture it is consider very rude to comment or criticise the use of language by anyone else. Sure, there are a few exceptions: parents should discreetly help their children, when young, to use pronunciation common in their community; school teachers need to be sensitive when suggesting different pronunciations of children from another region; when teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) it is appropriate to advocate pronunciation popular in that community when doing business.

How would you react if a stranger, or even your boss, were to dare correct your pronunciation?

The fact is in such formal and regulated professions as law and medicine, in English many terms can be pronounced two or three ways. My step son and his wife are professors of surgery on the East Coast. They say they can make a good guess where another physician grew up and trained based on pronunciation of a few key medical terms. My law firm has large offices in several states and key foreign cities. I grew up in Southern California, spent a year in middle school in Iowa, then studied pre-law in New York State and went to law school near Boston. After that I was a research law clerk for a Federal Court of Appeals in Atlanta. Trust me, experienced and talented attorneys from all those places do not pronounce every term the same way. Remember the shock in "My Cousin Vinny"? Joe Pessi used a thick Brooklyn accent and the courtroom was in Alabama. Neither Pessi or the Judge pronounced terms carelessly, yet they did so differently. At least when preparing legal paperwork and written motions most licensed attorneys spell the terms in a uniform way.

Before any of us decide someone else is not spelling a word correctly, or is not using a word or punctuation correctly, stop and consider the reason you happen to think only one way is "correct"? Are you making your opinion based of what you remember some grade school teacher years ago? Are you basing your opinion on a respected professor of English during grad school at a top university?

Like it or not, there are many forms of English. The form you use depends on the situation. Well do I remember a couple of years back in an especially silly and up-tight diaper web group when a few barely educated members presumed to insist the only "correct" usage of English was that mentioned In one well-known style book "The Elements of Style" probably because that was the only English language style book they had read. Where those self-professed "experts" revealed their lack of experience and education was that they did not know all the hundreds of other style books.

My own guess is that "The Elements of Style" became so popular after E.B. White was hired to do an extensive revision and re-edit circa 1940, when his wife was the primary copy editor of The New Yorker which back then was the pretentious literary magazine of choice. E.B. White was one of their most popular writers. So The New Yorker promoted "The Elements of Style" which was published by the same company. Free copies were given to thousands of school libraries. Apparently "The Chicago Times Style Book" and "The New York Times Style Book" did not pass out free copies.

There is nothing wrong with following "The Elements of Style" so long as you are communicating with people stuck in a 1940s New York City state of mind, and yet were never exposed to other styles.

Most of the material I must read as an attorney, hundreds and even thousands of pages daily, is prepared by other attorneys and professionally proof-read and edited. I also must read notes and reports prepared by who knows using all sorts of styles and spellings. All I can do is use my best training and experience to dig out the meaning of all those words.

What ties my nappies in a knot is when someone decides to appear educated by using a pretentious word and getting it wrong. Yes, there are uses which are always wrong. For example, the words "discreet" and "discrete" entered the English language separately circa 1600. They had then and still have entirely different meanings, yet are normally pronounced the same way. Technically "discreet" means keeping secrets confidential; "discrete" is another way of saying "separate" and is popular in technical writing for the electronics industry to mean "individual components". Therefore I assume the minds at MicroSoft only understood "discrete" and programmed their spell-checker to prefer that spelling to the far more commonly used "discreet".

Do I think less of a poster here confusing those words? It depends; if the poster claims to be educated, then the confusion causes me to be suspicious.

When a poster confuses "there" with "their" or "they're" my first assumption is that the typing was careless and the poster did not care to do any proof-reading. Or, because no red lines appeared under the word they assumed it was correct. The spell-checker does not know if the cord is correct in a given usage; It only knows it found that word in its own data base.

This is the major problem with spell-checkers: Often they are suggesting a foolish choice of spelling in a given useage. For this reason it is best to read a lot of published material and receive an education, so spell-checker is your aide and not your crutch.

Much of the time those green and blue lines under words and groups of words offer suggestions less correct or appropriate than the original. Be cautious following those suggestions.

Personally I am far more open to reading posts with some unconventional spelling and usage than I will accept in a story.

At the same time I receive some private messages about my own stories complaining I over edit and use unfamiliar words. My explanation is simple. I prefer to write in a style I enjoy, which is based on my years of experience as a writer and editor, as well as a whole lot of classes. Yes, I know how to write in ways more accessible to more readers. My problem is I dislike writing in such a way. Of course I can write at any language level, when being well paid. When writing for free, I do what I can to be accepted by readers and those who do not care for my writing are welcome to read something else.

Sometimes authors of diaper-related stories ask for my help as their editor. Hardly ever do I have enough spare time. I do what I can to be encouraging and that is all I can do.

[Diapered Jason]

At the same time I receive some private messages about my own stories complaining I over edit and use unfamiliar words.

That is funny, lol. I am guessing they were turned off by the unfamiliar words like asinine, inerudite, and tactless.

[LilFozzyJ5]

seriously, for a forum where the main theme is to sit in a diaper and maybe soak it or mess it and act childish... dont you think both sides of the grammar fence are taking this way to seriously and way to far. it should get to a point where people are slinging insults at each other.

some folks are good at it, or can be arsed, and some dont/cant...get over it and move on. You can only lead a horse to water.

[ruuuuuuuuu1]

somepeoplecantreadthiswhenotherstypelikethisotherscantellwhatstyped.

hides from the grammar nazi,

[missyD]

As my illustrious colleague the bear notes, we do seem to be making a bit of a mountain out of a wee mole hill. In spite of lots of higher education, including a Bachelor of Education, my grammar and spelling are seldom perfect. Also, when I am communicating in writing on the internet, I do tend to be a bit more relaxed about the rules. I believe it is common to expect less than perfect grammar and spelling online. Having said that, we do have the wonderful modern luxury of spell check, so poor spelling should be less of a problem. But, and I think this is a BIG BUT ( not a big butt, which is something else), not everyone here has the benefit of a long successful education, so why can't we be a bit tolerant? And, we are not writing university essays subject to the rules of style! Furthermore, this is a recreational forum ( isn't it?) and couldn't, shouldn't we be more relaxed? Oh, and one more thing, if I happen to correct your spelling or grammar, please don't think of me as a Nazi, which is a horrible term to use in this context anyway, but rather as a helpful old lady who used to be a teacher. Please don't scream at me for correcting you, but either ignore me, or maybe even say thank you. Thank you

btw, if you try, i am sure you can find numerous offences in my little paragraph..........

ps, if you type "color" and I suggest you mean "colour" my tongue just might perhaps be lodged firmly with my cheek

[ruuuuuuuuu1]

As my illustrious colleague the bear notes, we do seem to be making a bit of a mountain out of a wee mole hill. In spite of lots of higher education, including a Bachelor of Education, my grammar and spelling are seldom perfect. Also, when I am communicating in writing on the internet, I do tend to be a bit more relaxed about the rules. I believe it is common to expect less than perfect grammar and spelling online. Having said that, we do have the wonderful modern luxury of spell check, so poor spelling should be less of a problem. But, and I think this is a BIG BUT ( not a big butt, which is something else), not everyone here has the benefit of a long successful education, so why can't we be a bit tolerant? And, we are not writing university essays subject to the rules of style! Furthermore, this is a recreational forum ( isn't it?) and couldn't, shouldn't we be more relaxed? Oh, and one more thing, if I happen to correct your spelling or grammar, please don't think of me as a Nazi, which is a horrible term to use in this context anyway, but rather as a helpful old lady who used to be a teacher. Please don't scream at me for correcting you, but either ignore me, or maybe even say thank you. Thank you

btw, if you try, i am sure you can find numerous offences in my little paragraph..........

ps, if you type "color" and I suggest you mean "colour" my tongue just might perhaps be lodged firmly with my cheek

Because weeee are babys here well most are giggles

[sarah_ab]

hahaha i had a binder for school a few years ago with a picture of a horse and chuck norris ... it said "chuck norris can lead a horse to water AND make it drink"

[rosalie.bent]

<<It's NOT 'their' grammar! That's the point! Grammar is a shared standard. Language is all about communication based on the same protocols and rules. That means we are OBLIGATED to follow good grammar and spelling if we wish to be heard and understood.

What grammar & spelling would you suggest the GLOBAL community (that is the internet) adopt? Shall I start spelling 'color' as 'colour' so you can understand me? Should I disregard my education & national dialect so you can understand a different variation of English?

One of the biggest disasters in education was the 'spelin & grammer dont matter none' phase. A whole generation grew up with very poor written communication skills. Why should we accept or praise it? It was a disaster and the internet just allowed for the proliferation of mindless drones speaking mindless drivel using letters loosely arranged into words, but certainly not sentences. And paragraphs??? What are they.

'They' unfortunate as they may be, are a problem of your particular region. The issues you speak of, either only exist in your region, or simply don't affect my perception & understanding of the current written word.

It seems the problem may be yours . . .

If this makes me a grammar nazi then so be it.

This does not make you a grammar nazi, the following definition sums up a grammar nazi in my mind :

"A captious individual who cannot resist the urge to correct a spelling and/or grammar mistake even in informal settings. After pointing out the linguistic shortcomings in others, a Grammar Nazi feels a strange sense of twisted and unconstructive intelligentsia delight.

In reality, they are making someone else feel bad for no reason and unintentionally implying that their "superior" grammar skills are all they have to show for a wasted liberal arts education.

While proper grammar usage is all well and good, a Grammar Nazi cavils even insignificant errors in English to somehow win an argument. Of course, rather than being genuinely persuasive in an argument, pointing out English errors is a weak attack only on the typist's credibility and never has any bearing on the underlying premises and assertions therein. "

How about we start by setting the bar of our writing one notch higher - ALL OF US. For some of us though it will mean discovering commas and capital letters.

It would be a start...

Yes it would be nice if the entire internet was conformed to our regional english expectations, but we have to remember that the internet is GLOBAL, and hence we must EXPECT some differences. Again I would like to point out that some users who post in english, may not even be english speakers!

I myself post in the ABKingdom forums - and I don't speak French (fluently), yet I have never had any slandering for my misuse of the language, even though Google Translation tools aren't that good.>>

You seem to be deliberately missing the point. Regional differences are simple issues to resolve. If that were my problem I ould complain about using 'diaper' instead of 'nappy'. The problem is and remains that some people so torture written communication that they are ignored or mocked. Some have a written level that would embaarras a 10 year old. Language tends to be regional and it evolves over the years. But at all times, the common rules are obvious (and expected). And if you think the dumbing down of grammar is not an american problem or a new zealand problem then you are misinformed. It was a global trend that was a disaster.

Expecting people to write so that they can be EASILY understood is a basic expectation. That means reasonable spelling and grammar. It is NOT an unreasonable expectation.

[spark]

somepeoplecantreadthiswhenotherstypelikethisotherscantellwhatstyped.

It's not that some people can tell what's typed, it is "Why should I have to work that hard because somebody doesn't care enough to use a space bar." I'm not going to put much stock in what you have to say, and probably ignore you.

I post frequently on two different sites. This one and a sports site (The 506 forum). Unfortunately of the two, this one has by far the worse grammar and spelling. On the sports forum, poor spelling and grammar would receive a very firm response that such writing is unacceptable, and there is a high degree of expectation in the posts. I venture to say that the sports post has a greater number of non-native born speakers than this forum, but the quality is better than here.

In other words, if your post looks like it was written by an 8 year-old, but you don't intend it to be, you should spend a little time reading what you write.

[Leilin]

I'll say this, in moderation.

If you think spelling and grammar is bad here, go spend 5 minutes in the hellhole that is Diaperspace. As a community, their tolerance for awful grammar is almost as grandiose as their tolerance for HNGs, trolls, and pictures of naked poopy crotch.

[rosalie.bent]

This whole debate about spelling, grammar and typos has been raging since the Internet was 300 baud and only available to universities, governments and large corporations. It became a bigger issue when modems raced at 28K and the www reached millions of people, now billions of folks.

Before any of us get all high and mighty about the posts of anyone else, I suggest we stop and take several deep breaths.

Remember, in nearly every culture it is consider very rude to comment or criticise the use of language by anyone else. Sure, there are a few exceptions: parents should discreetly help their children, when young, to use pronunciation common in their community; school teachers need to be sensitive when suggesting different pronunciations of children from another region; when teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) it is appropriate to advocate pronunciation popular in that community when doing business.

How would you react if a stranger, or even your boss, were to dare correct your pronunciation?

The fact is in such formal and regulated professions as law and medicine, in English many terms can be pronounced two or three ways. My step son and his wife are professors of surgery on the East Coast. They say they can make a good guess where another physician grew up and trained based on pronunciation of a few key medical terms. My law firm has large offices in several states and key foreign cities. I grew up in Southern California, spent a year in middle school in Iowa, then studied pre-law in New York State and went to law school near Boston. After that I was a research law clerk for a Federal Court of Appeals in Atlanta. Trust me, experienced and talented attorneys from all those places do not pronounce every term the same way. Remember the shock in "My Cousin Vinny"? Joe Pessi used a thick Brooklyn accent and the courtroom was in Alabama. Neither Pessi or the Judge pronounced terms carelessly, yet they did so differently. At least when preparing legal paperwork and written motions most licensed attorneys spell the terms in a uniform way.

Before any of us decide someone else is not spelling a word correctly, or is not using a word or punctuation correctly, stop and consider the reason you happen to think only one way is "correct"? Are you making your opinion based of what you remember some grade school teacher years ago? Are you basing your opinion on a respected professor of English during grad school at a top university?

Like it or not, there are many forms of English. The form you use depends on the situation. Well do I remember a couple of years back in an especially silly and up-tight diaper web group when a few barely educated members presumed to insist the only "correct" usage of English was that mentioned In one well-known style book "The Elements of Style" probably because that was the only English language style book they had read. Where those self-professed "experts" revealed their lack of experience and education was that they did not know all the hundreds of other style books.

My own guess is that "The Elements of Style" became so popular after E.B. White was hired to do an extensive revision and re-edit circa 1940, when his wife was the primary copy editor of The New Yorker which back then was the pretentious literary magazine of choice. E.B. White was one of their most popular writers. So The New Yorker promoted "The Elements of Style" which was published by the same company. Free copies were given to thousands of school libraries. Apparently "The Chicago Times Style Book" and "The New York Times Style Book" did not pass out free copies.

There is nothing wrong with following "The Elements of Style" so long as you are communicating with people stuck in a 1940s New York City state of mind, and yet were never exposed to other styles.

Most of the material I must read as an attorney, hundreds and even thousands of pages daily, is prepared by other attorneys and professionally proof-read and edited. I also must read notes and reports prepared by who knows using all sorts of styles and spellings. All I can do is use my best training and experience to dig out the meaning of all those words.

What ties my nappies in a knot is when someone decides to appear educated by using a pretentious word and getting it wrong. Yes, there are uses which are always wrong. For example, the words "discreet" and "discrete" entered the English language separately circa 1600. They had then and still have entirely different meanings, yet are normally pronounced the same way. Technically "discreet" means keeping secrets confidential; "discrete" is another way of saying "separate" and is popular in technical writing for the electronics industry to mean "individual components". Therefore I assume the minds at MicroSoft only understood "discrete" and programmed their spell-checker to prefer that spelling to the far more commonly used "discreet".

Do I think less of a poster here confusing those words? It depends; if the poster claims to be educated, then the confusion causes me to be suspicious.

When a poster confuses "there" with "their" or "they're" my first assumption is that the typing was careless and the poster did not care to do any proof-reading. Or, because no red lines appeared under the word they assumed it was correct. The spell-checker does not know if the cord is correct in a given usage; It only knows it found that word in its own data base.

This is the major problem with spell-checkers: Often they are suggesting a foolish choice of spelling in a given useage. For this reason it is best to read a lot of published material and receive an education, so spell-checker is your aide and not your crutch.

Much of the time those green and blue lines under words and groups of words offer suggestions less correct or appropriate than the original. Be cautious following those suggestions.

Personally I am far more open to reading posts with some unconventional spelling and usage than I will accept in a story.

At the same time I receive some private messages about my own stories complaining I over edit and use unfamiliar words. My explanation is simple. I prefer to write in a style I enjoy, which is based on my years of experience as a writer and editor, as well as a whole lot of classes. Yes, I know how to write in ways more accessible to more readers. My problem is I dislike writing in such a way. Of course I can write at any language level, when being well paid. When writing for free, I do what I can to be accepted by readers and those who do not care for my writing are welcome to read something else.

Sometimes authors of diaper-related stories ask for my help as their editor. Hardly ever do I have enough spare time. I do what I can to be encouraging and that is all I can do.

Your comments are very interesting and generally very accurate. However, I'd pick you up on your inference that spelling is somehow a personal choice, which it clearly is not. Most of this thread is not aimed at this level. it is clearly aimed at those whose posts border on (are reach) unintelligible or only understandable after internal translation.

[Crinklebritches]

AB's don't know how to spell or proper grammer.. LOL..