Genealogy Chat

You're wrong Bernard. The pteradactyls were so big everyone ran for cover. Clive

Amanda Even in my day, expression was considered cautiously important, but it firmly knew its place - in a once-weekly exercise called 'Composition' where a child was allowed to fantasise beyond the need for communication. All other work was ruthlessly corrected for spelling, layout and grammar. No worries about cramping a child's style, the reason for teaching 'English' was to instil various (important) rules, to enable the child to communicate, and understand, the written word, to other people, who had learned the same rules, and would interpret what was written according to those rules. Text speak is fine on a phone, as is the disjointed way we communicate face to face, often using less than perfect English, which would not make sense were it written down - we rely on body language to make sense of what we say. This is impossible in a written medium like this board. We need to communicate in a formal way on here, so that we can understand each other, because we do not have the other props available in less formal settings. This is not about being pedantic - it is about understanding what has been written. OC

OC This is so true. It's so easy for people both to give and take offence at comments placed on boards such as this due to the absence of those non verbal devices, such facial expression, which we use in face to face communication. Because we don't know each others' personalities (until we've been posting for a while and get used to other regulars) we can't always pick up on sarcasm and light-heartedness, hence the use for abbreviations such as 'LOL' and exaggerated punctuation. I think these sort of abbreviations and graphical devices do have a place, if only to make clear the poster's attitude and help avoid unpleasantness. As others have said, I would never use them in any other context, including text messages (as I only text people I know, there's no need). I think this is quite a different point to that of people using all upper or all lower case letters. That does irritate me if it's the result of laziness. As you rightly say, we all use the same code to interpret what we read, and punctuation is the key. Having said that, I know that many people, who are unsure of the conventions of the written language, hide behind this style as it covers any possible errors which might otherwise be obvious. It makes it much harder to read (I dislike all capitals, especially) but I would rather people type any way they can rather than feel they can't take part and post messages along with everyone else. For some people who have poor Literacy skills, it will have taken a lot of bravery for them to take that step.

Amanda I hope this thread will not put off anyone wanting help, who has poor literacy skills, that is not the intention of my criticism. Layout is probably the most important aid to understanding, on these boards. I give up completely when I see continuous lines of text with no punctuation or layout and I am sure many other people do too. For those who are anxious about their literacy skills - space your message out, which will make it much more understandable.You cannot do this in a header post, so put the main body of your message in a reply to your own thread heading. Spelling mistakes don't matter much on here as it is easy to see what the poster meant. (Surnames excepted! Make sure you spell your ancestors names correctly, if you want help looking them up). And Dyslexics needn't worry either - I never have any problem understanding them and I don't think anyone else does either. It is about UNDERSTANDING you - not about awarding marks out of 100 for literacy skills. OC

OC I know you didn't mean that. That's not what I was getting at. This is a perfect example of how it can be difficult to understand when we have only the words to rely on. My point was that yes, it can very annoying when people CHOOSE to compose their messages poorly, using no punctuation whatsoever and writing a long message in one block, rather than using paragraphs: if it's just through laziness or out of some misguided notion that it's 'stylish and modern' to do so, that is. Like you, I often give up reading that sort of message after the first 'sentence' (or what would be, if a full stop had been put in). It's just too much like hard work. I was simply trying to remind people that not everyone does this through choice. Sadly, some people don't know any better.

In the late 1980's I was working for 'The Service for Visually Impaired' I supported children in a main stream school. The new trend there was 'emergent writing' This at times was impossible to read and was deemed very discouraging to indicate anything was other than correct to the child. The child had to rely on memory to know what they had written! I was once asked if a girl's name was correctly spelt, I said 'nearly' and told her how it should be spelt. I got into trouble by the teacher for doing so! That has changed now and phonetics are no longer outlawed. Our Braille users did not come under the regime of that teacher, thank goodness. I am glad someone has said that dyslexic people need not worry about getting spelling wrong on here because I am dyslexic and have difficulty even looking up words in the dictionary.

Gillian You may be dyslexic - but your message was perfectly composed and I cannot see any spelling mistakes! You have proved my point. OC

MGH S Well spotted! You'll probably find errors like that in many of my postings as my typing is rubbish. I do check it through, of course, but the human brain is very good at suggesting that what we expect to be there is there. Looks like I'll have to be more careful from now on! LOL OC, I completely agree that spelling errors are not really that important as long as the meaning is clear. Regards Amanda

Huh - I got If your writing was legible I might be able to check your spelling and grammar. Detention on Wednesday for writing practise. Clive