Speling, Gramer, and juts bad writting: A rant.

Sometimes, for effect, I'll write in lolspeak. Or, I'll use technical jargon or some silliness from an internet meme. The difference is, I know the difference and such use is intentional.

And finally, for anyone who still thinks I'm just being a snotty grammar princess, once again..

coolpox p500
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Jaemie said:
Bitter Jeweler said:
Alex, I have found that non native speakers tend to use the language better than native speakers.
Click to expand...

This is my experience, also.
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+1!

Because I've lived in a few more countries than most people and have had to deal with a bunch of foreign languages, I try to pay attention to the place of origin of the speaker or writer and try to be cool about non-natives' mistakes.

But I totally agree with the above statement and I think the reason is actually quite simple: when it is your native tongue, you'll do as your peers do and if that means speaking or writing in a sloppy way, so be it. But when you are a foreigner and you are trying hard to get accepted, you will try your hardest to speak and write in that new language the best way you can. Not to mention that when you were taught that language as a foreign language instead of learning it at home, you paid a lot more attention to the rules, so that non-natives often do speak way better than the natives.

And I'm seeing quite a bit of it here right now with one of the two companies that I'm setting up. One of them has to do with Africa so that I deal with a whole bunch of africans. Their french is 90% better than the average french native.

I was often told the same about my english when I lived in the US. No, I'm not american by birth and english is a foreign language to me. :)

So, yes, I do judge people by their language skills but I try to pay attention to who they are and why they speak in such a way. For example, the second company I'm working on is doing business in the rural areas of Normandy and you could think those people speak the worst of french. But the reality is that they are not native speakers. Their mother tongue is that of the area, one of the Normandy dialects. French, to them is a foreign language. Even if it is close to their own.

My sister lives in Alsace, an area next to Germany which, a few times during the last few hundred years of its history, was actually part of Germany. And the local language is not french. It's a germanic dialect and a lot of the older folks don't even speak french at all. Employment ads in that area always mention needed skills in german :D

But laziness or carelessness is not and never will be an excuse.
 
I ignore posts with large blocks of text especially when there is no capitalization, no double space between sentences and no delineation of thoughts.

I also keep dictionary.com and merriam-webster.com in my browser's favorite bar for quick reference of questionable spelling on my part.
 
Pretentious writers are just as annoying as incompetent writers in my eyes lol.
 
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