Animation Source Forums

After watching several websites, forums, and chat boxes -- especially on Animation Source (AS) -- this has finally vexed me enough to make a small rant about it.

They say that how a person writes (in this case, types) can reflect their intelligence. If that's the case, I fear that many are failing. Schools oh-so lovingly provide spelling and grammar classes for a reason. Now given an err here and there would be no problem -- we are, after all, human. But I'm referring to mistakes that can't be overlooked as a mere mistake. Below, I've collected some examples (none are from AS, to avoid that "taboo").

I have not corrected these posts! I copy-pasted them from another forum directly here.

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"why is it so0o0o hard locat a job talk about it"
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"do u think that girls should change for someone they love? i personally don't think so but i'm doing a survey on what people say. so i would like to know what u have to say."
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"i see alot of MEAN comments to her
i dont know what she did to piss everyone off

so can someone fill me in.... i want to defend her and tell people to stop being mean
but id ont know if she deserves it"
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"wow im not even half as bad as many of the religious people on here i stand up for my beliefs and i speak my opinions and im not afraid to go into a thread and speak my mind even if i know im the only one who is going to take that side of the issue i still stand by my beliefs that to me shows integrity....i have never once waived from my beliefs and yet i am still called a hypocrite im sorry for any feeling i have hurt but i will not apologize for my religion nor my opinions...i love how all of you stand for tolerance and all this and that but yet you want to sit around and hate on me for being a christian and believing in god thats fine do what you want but maybe it is all of you who are the hypocrites"
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"i have spoke my peace and i won't continue with this... read it believe what you want i am who i am take it or leave it my statements are not rude they are not convicting they are how i feel and my opinions that is all and overall i think i have carried myself in a well behaved manner you see me not wanting to continue a fight because i know we will never get anywhere as being a coward were as i believe it to be mature you think i twist things in my favor when you can't twist the bible it says what it says its all up to your personal interpretation and i simply state how i interpret it paired with person experiences if you don't agree then thats fine but im not going to sit on a thread and repeat and repeat myself over and over i will speak my peace and be done with it many of you are out to argue and argue and im not im sorry but no its useless

i don;t care about grammar or punctuation it isn't going to be published and it is a thought... and i won't click reply because this isn't to one person it is to anyone who wants to read it or that has ill feelings against me" (Posted by the same person as the above quote.)

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Now, users, be informed that the forum I took those off of is composed of a majority of adults. People who have been in extensive schooling, even college. The last two quotes were from a fully-grown female. Yes, she was chastised for her mistakes (one user even took the last post and corrected everything within it -- from grammar to spelling and punctuation). As you can imagine, she threw another tantrum of, "I will not waste my time, but here I am arguing an invalid point."

My issue, though I know this will probably not change, is people making posts such as above (larger paragraphs with no punctuation, making it confusing and hard to read) all over the place. This is actually insulting one's intelligence, unfortunately, because they show the lack of effort and caring.

"This is the Internet." That's not a valid excuse, either. One doesn't have to use big, fancy words or 100% "amazing" skills to throw in a period, a few commas, and proper spelling. (They make "spell checkers" for a reason.) It's almost as if the "sound it out" trick taught to children in grade school has been forgotten when it comes to proper spelling.

Another issue is people using "title case" without any sort of cause. People do that, even on AS. Below are a couple of examples that I've composed depicting that situation.

"I Would Not Want To Talk To Someone Who Hurt Me Like That."

"Why is the Start button Down there?"

As you can see, simple errors such as those (and the ones above) cause a reader to tilt their head and wonder. Let alone, some get confused and others -- like myself -- question whether the writer(s) passed grade school. Call me rude, a Grammar Nazi, what you will. It's the truth that the lot of posts as such make one look illiterate.

To give you a proper situation:

A friend of mine, we'll call her "Susie," posted a Blog on her Myspace composed of 598 words (2,590 characters with spaces). One paragraph, 49 lines. Five periods. You can imagine how annoying it was to read. And, as a matter of fact, I gave up the endeavor after about 3 lines because I could barely make heads or tails of her writings due to horrible spelling, SMS, and lack of punctuation. And you know what? She's twenty-three years old, has 3 children, and dropped out of high school. She even dropped out of her GED classes early this year because they were "too hard" and she refuses to return because of a "depression" brought on by the lack of a job.

She is one of those "extreme cases" of people who can't spell. Have I seen worse? Yes, my nineteen-year-old sister uses SMS for almost every single word (I mean every word she can use it, she does). After a certain time period I will correct a user (of course, trying to be polite about it). I'm well aware of the age range of the site (the majority, in the least). No need to be redundant there.

As all of us undergo some sort of spelling class, there's no excuse. Especially for members in high school or higher. Others, such as 9-year-old members, are expected to make mistakes (hey, they're young). But the severity of some of the mistakes are rather insulting to that person, their intelligence, and their maturity.

Recently, a user even began to flame bait another member because s/he pointed out a spelling error. The person took it to the level of personal attacks, and other subjects of "attack" that had nothing to do with the topic. The same has happened to myself: I would politely correct another user, and they would climb upon their high horse to stand on the fence of, "I can do what I want, and I'm smarter than you are anyway." This would provoke a nice eye-roll, at which point I would begin to simply state that it makes them look illiterate (using the word "stupid" commonly so they wouldn't get into a hissy fit about not knowing what the word meant).

And another tip: If someone uses a word you don't know, use a dictionary! The user who's all "boo-hoo poor me!" is on the Internet anyway -- it's not that hard to open up a new tab, type in "Dictionary.com," and search the word. Pfff. Lethargic. :/




NOTICE: Just because I say something makes someone look stupid, doesn't mean I'm saying they are. Should you take offense to anything I said, know it wasn't intended to be so and that's your own discretion to be sensitive.

Bravo Kira!

I back this 100%. I make mistakes, mostly little ones because I type so fast.

Example: "This example make sense." instead of "This example makes sense"

I've seen downright HORRIBLE spelling. Here's an example of what NOT to do. (This is fanmail for my podcast.)

"ok i found u on itunes and ur arguments and everything ish just awesome!!! wat the website that u put ur podcasts on?! i really enjoy them ^^ and u said u have a gaia account i think? um u dont have to tell me tht if u don wanna i mean i no some ppl don like to do dat but mine is ------- well uh yeah so ur just awesome and plz reply?! plz ^^ "

Yeah, I don't reply to people WHO DON'T SPEAK ENGLISH. I mean, I can understand if you're like 9 or something (and in that case you shouldn't be listening to my podcast) but Jeebus, you have to TRY to type that badly.

A lot of it is due to cell phones -- which then, I understand more because a lot of them charge per-character and have a limited character count.

However, the Internet doesn't. Some forums have word counts -- like "none over 5,000 words." The only excuse I've come up with for its being carried over to the internet: People are lazy. I don't think a lot of people realize how easy it is to type out "you" instead of "u." It's like a two-character difference. Less than a second to type it. So "saving time" isn't an excuse that'll work, either. Lol

It just bothers me that people don't care about the little things. My friend, J.P., has even seen stories written with horrible grammar (one, he said, had little to no punctuation). And these users complain because their work isn't popular or well-liked? Let alone, users here have been guilty of attacking someone whenever another user corrects their spelling/grammar out of courtesy. (As I said above; it's happened countless times to me.)

Most of the time it also gets confusing, as was the case with the two long posts that I listed above and in the Myspace blog of "Susie." Also in those stories. I used to use SMS left and right, as well as bad grammar -- but I was 12 when I entered the on-line community and was just following the crowd. As my role playing experience advanced, so did my writing. Now, especially modding for 3 years, I'm a complete grammar and spelling nut.

I agree with you Kirada. (100%)
I hate mistakes, not one where it's one you miss easily, but one where you are too lazy to type out "that" completely. It makes me a bit angry.
One user on here, maybe more than that, make no effort to their spelling. One of them said : " Because it's fun."
I've seen two 17 year olds type like they just learned how to use a key bored. Several users on here who are adults, can't type, or blame it on something else.
I've seen people say it's fine, it's not. It causes confusion, people on here still get confused with correct spelling and typing, pathetic spelling and typing makes it worse.
I use Spell-check to check my spelling if I am not sure on a word. It's not that hard. Just pop up a :

If you have one and use the spell check.

In many cases, you may not even need Word. Many recent browsers, such as Firefox and Safari contain built-in spell check as well. If something is misspelled in a text field (like when posting on a forum), the browser will highlight it with a red line, much like MS Word does. It's right there, so there should be no excuse for ignoring it. Often, you can find the right answer by right clicking (ctrl-click on a Mac) on the misspelled word and selecting the right spelling from the pop-up menu.

I agree with you guys. My Firefox uses a spellchecker... I use it ALL the time. I absolutely HATE text speak.

Also I hate misspellings. A few misspellings in a big post is fine, but if a post has like 20 misspellings, it gets REALLY annoying.

I try my best to spell right. Since I type SO fast, i make the occasional typo.

Also, Text speak is ANNOYING. It's like I have NO IDEA what they are saying! So i prefer regular speak. Yeah of course people are like "No typing like normal takes TOO LONG! and text speak makes it faster" but actually it doesn't.

Text speak makes it unreadable. Also, It is much harder to use Text speak because you need to THINK about how to abbreviate.

So typing normally can be MUCH faster.

Also grammar, I'm not the best at it, but i try my best.

As you notice, this whole post is broken into different paragraph lines breaking all the different sections, making my post WAY easier to read. Also, If a post is like this, most people have a tendency to read it actually than skip through it because it looks so long.

Also, a long time ago, when i asked someone "What are you doing?" I typed it "What r u Doing"? That was a habit then.

I BROKE that habit, and now I always type it like "What are you doing?" Not at ALL harder than using r and u.

Well that is my post.

I support this 100%.

Listen to this text my friend sent my mom, and I made my mom foward it to me.

"I had a feelin i were gonna say that u have to txt me wen ur at VF tomorrow"

I was about to slap her.

Technology created this problem, therefore I am going to say: This is the Internet. This is the technology that started this, it's not going to go away very soon.

Cobaltie is right with that statement. Is technology did it, people using the technology aren't going to fix i anytime soon. Sure they may be annoyed by it, but like, 70% of the time, don't do anything about it. Probably more, I don't know, math isn'y my strngest piont.

But hey, if you are typing fast, and happen to make a few mistakes, that's fine. But you can double-check it. It's not that hard. Scan through your post for any problems, or look up as you are typing, so you refrain from spelling to horribly. I'm guessing there aren't alot of preschoolers out here on AS, but I'm starting to get some doubts on that, all based on people's spelling and grammar.

There is a preview button for a reason! Use it! I use it million's of times, to make sure things turn out or look right, to see if the text color worked, etc. Not that hard.

Typo's happen occasionaly (I had to fix this sentence some, used a ; instead of a ') but there is a backspace button for a reason. Fix it, like, click on the spot you messed up, and press on button, possibly a few times. Oh my gosh, so hard. People are so lethargic these days.

Australians also are meant to spell "program" as "programme" or something. I think everyone sticks to American context on language tho

Didn't read the quotes, did you? Simple differences such as what you mentioned are not the point of the above rant.

Like what everybody else said i agree.

Americans are getting LAZY.

Half the people don't care how they spell or how to properly place nouns, verbs, ect.

But people who get annoyed from small mastakes as mentioned above is just plain ridiculous in my opinion. Nobody is perfect, we are far from that. Even english teachers who have majors make mistakes in there writing. So i have no clue why people on here are like word cops.

"Oh NO, we got our selves a non capitalizer!"

Little mistakes like that are from people who are typing to fast. Besides you all do the exact same thing.