Do spelling and grammar mistakes annoy you?
I bet most of us here would answer yes. And so OKCupid’s analysis wouldn’t surprise us:
If your date answers ‘no’—i.e. is okay with bad grammar and spelling—the odds of him or her being at least moderately religious is slightly better than 2:1.
As someone who is not himself a believer, I found it rather heartening that tolerance, even on something trivial like this, correlated with belief in God, although I should’ve figured out that religious people are okay with small mistakes. Next to intelligent design, what’s a couple typos?
It’s also nice when two completely independent datasets corroborate each other. Last summer, we analyzed the profile text of half a million user profiles, comparing religion and writing-level. For every one of the faith-based belief systems listed, the people who were the least serious wrote at the highest level.
Teach teh controversy!
DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND THAT GOD GAVE ME CAPS LOCK TO MAKE YOU ALL PAY ATTENTION TO MY NEVER ENDING WALL OF TEXT AND THAT THE DEVIL INVENTED PUNCTUATION BECAUSE GOD WANTS YOU TO TAKE A REALLY DEEP BREATH AND TRY TO READ EVERYTHING I WRITE OUT LOUD IN ONE CONTINUOUS SENTENCE WITHOUT PAUSING AS A TEST OF YOUR FAITH BECAUSE IF YOU BELIEVE IN GOD REALLY REALLY HARD HE’LL GIVE YOU MASSIVE LUNGS SO THAT YOU WON’T NEED TO BREATH IN BEFORE YOU GET TO THE END AND IF YOU TURN BLUE AND PASS OUT THEN THAT MEANS YOU’RE GOING TO GO TO HELL WHEN YOU DIE ALTHOUGH OBVIOUSLY I’M NOT AS FUNDAMENTALIST AS SOME PEOPLE BECAUSE THERE AREN’T AS MANY TYPOGRAPHICAL AND SPELLING ERRORS AS THERE WOULD BE IF I WAS A PROPER FUNDAGELICAL BUT THAT’S OKAY THINK OF ME AS A PENTECOSTAL INTERNET SHOUTER BY THE WAY IF ANYBODY HASN’T GOT THIS FAR THEN YOU MUST BE THE DEVIL BECAUSE MY PASTOR TOLD ME THAT’S WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS OH AND I COULD POINT YOU TOWARDS LOADS AND LOADS OF PROOF FOR GOD AND CREATIONISM EXCEPT THAT I WON’T EVEN IF YOU ASK AND ASK AND ASK BECAUSE I’LL JUST IGNORE YOU AND PRETEND I HAVEN’T NOTICED YOUR QUESTIONS AND DEFLECT THE CONVERSATION ONTO UTTERLY IRRELEVANT TOPICS UNTIL YOU PROVE THAT I’M WRONG ABOUT THOSE TOO AND THEN I’LL REVISIT OLDER TOPICS THAT YOU’VE ALREADY PROVEN ME WRONG ABOUT AS IF IT’S AN ENTIRELY NEW SUBJECT THAT YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY PATIENTLY EXPLAINED AND THEN WHEN YOU GET FRUSTRATED AND START INSULTING ME I’LL CALL YOU ALL RUDE AND FLOUNCE OUT CLAIMING VICTORY AND I’LL BOAST ABOUT IT TO ALL OF MY THEIST FRIENDS AND GET FUNDIE KUDOS BECAUSE HAHAHAHAHA I WIN AND YOU FAIL.
I only found one actual typo (ignoring the lack of punctuation).
There was some…questionable grammar as well.
Well you try to write a sentence that long with no punctuation and get the grammar to work out!
Three words: VIRTUAL ECHO CHAMBER, DUDE!
(lol!)
I posted it on the forum a while ago
oops that was meant for Francesco. I’m not very good at this “reply” thing. I wonder if that correlates to anything significant?
wasn’t that posted a while ago?
A few typos and grammatical errors don’t really bother me, and if you have a split infinitive I don’t really care, but when it is clear that absolutely no effort has been made to communicate effectively then I will just switch off to someone’s posts. I understand some people have literacy issues or might be trying to write in a language not native to them, but 2 tlk lik dis just seems obnoxious. I do not understand how people can be stupid enough to write an essay in txt spk, which apparently is an increasing problem. Why would someone capable of reading the topic of the essay think that is ok? It utterly baffles me.
It’s just another facet of ignorance when you think about it. After all, atheists generally find believers to be ignorant to at least some degree, and the same holds true for people who can’t speak, write or spell correctly.
I read this post and then a few minutes later just happened to find this one:
http://www.cjr.org/page_views/babel.php
Pretty interesting, and the comments (minus my own) are interesting, too.
I used to be a grammar nazi before taking linguistics classes.
While use of Standard English is the most prestigious, there is no such thing as “correct” or “proper” English (or any other language), and variation is important and valuable, too.
Thus, while I’m a pretty strong atheist, I’m also not that irritated by misspellings or different syntax usages. I find them fascinating, in fact (but that’s just because sociolinguistics is my favorite field). All that said, I’m certain that there are likely to be dialectal similarities in the American Christian community that are definitely worth exploring.
I think you’re right, but, to summarize my comment at the above link I just posted, we often think of being a grammar stickler in a pretty narrow way. I love sociolinguistics, too, but you can be a grammar stickler for reasons other than looking down at people for being wrong—in fact, if that’s the reason than there’s a little bit of an ego issue involved.
Sticklerism can be much more nuanced, based on an appreciation for what knowledge of a language and its rules can do for us in other aspects of our lives, and I think sometimes being a stickler is just a manifestation of being frustrated when other people don’t appreciate language the way we do. Which in itself is something that maybe we need to work on, but not the same as looking down on “improper” grammar per se.
Plus, whether we like it or not, command of a (native) language IS indicative of education (education—NOT intelligence), and I think that’s why the grammar sticklers come out of the woodwork when politicians and other public figures make egregious grammatical errors: it calls into question whether they’re actually qualified for what they’re doing.
Definitely, dialect is a reflection of education, however, where I disagree with the article you posted is that Standard English is somehow more “understandable” than the other dialects. This is just a matter of what you’re raised knowing and perpetuates the idea that one dialect is somehow more logical than another which is bogus. Every dialect has its own rules and is equally as understandable as another.
I think that people who speak other dialects can have just as strong an appreciation for language as those of us whose preference is Standard English. They can still love the way words roll off their tongues, the way sentences come together. They just have a different set of syntactical rules than SE. And that’s not so horrible.
A lot of my thoughts and feelings on non-standard dialects comes from my pursuit of learning another language, and being fully aware that what I’m being taught is the literary dialect, not what people actually speak. This is frustrating and when you begin to understand what dialects really mean — that they’re proof of your validity in a speech community — you begin to appreciate them more, and you begin to understand more and more that the grammar of these separate dialects is just as valid as the standard, but just for different reasons.
I agree with you; I was posting the link more because the discussion related to this one. And that’s a very excellent point about proof of validity in a speech community.
Why is it that, according to what is said above anyway, “the people who were the least serious (about religion) wrote at the highest level”?
Well, according to most serious polls and studies, level of education is inversely proportionate to level of religiosity. Thus the more educated you are, the less likely you are religious. That could start to explain why religious folks tend to make more spelling and grammar mistakes and be more tolerant of them.
No?
Using myself as an example I am tolerant of spelling and grammar becasue (this is an example) it is not so much bad spelling as bad keyboard. I do much better on my larger desk top keyboard then my laptop, ‘teh becasue’ do not happen very often while it is common on the laptop as well as the spacekeyisintermittent. Admittedly rereading cures a lot of the problems but when in a rush, it can get past you every now and then.
Also I do not twitter and anyone that does should not complain about spelling when they do unreadable text a lot.
Also I DO NOT UNDERSTAND the caps lock thing. My eyes do not bleed and my ears do not ring from caps lock use. Mostly I find CAPS LOCK boring to look at which makes it harder to read so I just pass over any heavy use of it.
I’ve long thought that it is a combination of several character traits. People not valuing competence and excusing their own incompetence. Well, of course they can’t value competence; that would cause too much cognitive dissonance. So you get people saying, “I don’t think spelling and grammar matters much. As long as you’re communicating.” (Which they are not, as often as they think they are.) People getting lower in quality – seriously, my friend who was a teen in the 1950s told me he thought even then: “Americans are fucking themselves into a nation of idiots.”
Christianity appealing to the less intelligent and the less literate. Christianity not valuing or reinforcing competence and critical thinking. Whoa, that might cause its members to leave the fold!
I hadn’t thought of the forgiving aspect, bet then, with the hate of some of the christians posting on here, and even worse are the ones in public office, I guess I don’t think of them as forgiving. They’re pretty draconian.
And then, the pieces of work that post on here have hardened my belief in their incompetence.
I knew my description of my retired Air Force tech sergeant’s language would run me through the editing trials.
*my retired Air Force tech sergeant friend’s language. Seein’ as how this ain’t church, it’s still worth posting.
I agree with Ben. And as for posting, I try to re-read my missive at least once or twice before sending – after all, it’s the only identity I have in the e-world.
I also find it somewhat amusing and ironic that one of the main reasons I am a stickler for grammar and punctuation is the stern education I received from the good holy nuns in elementary school. I’m sure they wouldn’t approve of my non-theistic tendencies in later life (I give partial credit to the Jesuits for that), but their strict adherence to the rules of grammar have stood me in good stead for decades, and for that, I thank them.
I’ll admit to a much worse but related habit, one for which I have had books (and worse) thrown at me (usually by a significant other):
I’m a pronunciation nazi.
It’s a terrible but nearly impossible-to-control compulsion. It makes my brain grind to a halt and lose whatever point is being made aloud, because I’m fixated on the word that was pronounced incorrectly, to the point sometimes where I’ll just blurt it out so I can get it out of my head.
You misspelled “the”.
No, you did. “teh” is the correct way to spell it in irony.
Also acceptable are 7eh, 73h, t3h, 73|-|, and in rare instances, tha or thuh.
However, I don’t think you used enough exclamation points in your final sentence. Standard usage dictates at least three be used after an ironic misspeeling!!!
Seems that the level of belief in the religious nonsense decreases with an education. Believers, by their admitted belief, are by definition a bit silly, a bit slower than normal and with that comes less grammar and spelling skills. Education short circuits religious nonsense and spelling errors.
So, we skeptic/ agnostic/ atheist types have only a 9th grade writing proficiency…. and yet we are Nazi grammar freaks….
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…………………………
Spelling and grammar mistakes are annoying ONLY when they prevent effective communication.
What many people fail to realize, especially the elitist atheist community, is that message boards, chats, and texting are not english writing. True, the language we use is english, but we are not writing papers for english class. Written language is not writing. We are essentially speaking with text and when we speak to each other, we do not use proper grammar. Effective communication is the only thing that is necessary. If a “lol wut?” is an effective way to answer a question, there is nothing wrong with it.
You have a point, but you’re making an optimistic assumption: that people—particularly young people, increasingly—KNOW the difference between written language and Internet dialects and English writing. A lot of them don’t, and that’s not just me being a presumptuous curmudgeon. I have nieces and nephews and have spent time tutoring middle school and high school students and have seen it with my own eyes.
Wait so those of us who are ESL or even ETL and are not blessed (hmm maybe we are blessed) to be born in a country where English is the main language are assumed to be religious? O.o
This is some “ism” I don’t have a word for yet. Languageism?
No, don’t worry. Sticklerism is reserved for people using their native language. In fact, the people who get annoyed about ESL or LEP speakers, with respect to political and potentially religious views, are probably the opposite of grammar sticklers. Whole other category.
I just found a great example of why sticklerism is sometimes justified. Sometimes, it actually does interfere with communication, and makes you look really dumb and humiliates you.
This will be a strike against my anonymity here a little, but I am a grad student at Bowling Green State University. The school is primarily a four-year university, with very good programs in education and education administration. As it doesn’t have very many Ph.D.-granting programs, and doesn’t have a medical school or a major MBA program, it’s not a prestigious school. Luckily my graduate department is a little gem with a very good reputation nested within a less prestigious school, otherwise I’d be way more embarrassed by this. On second thought, maybe it makes me more embarrassed, since despite our good reputation in quality, we struggle for the prestige of other programs.
Anyway, this is what greeted me on the front page, in GIANT letters, of the school’s newspaper this morning. The egregious error was literally the first thing I saw when I looked at it.
http://bgnews.com/campus/it-wont-phase-me/
At the homepage of the paper you can also see an image of what the front page today actually looked like.
You might think, Well, that’s a newspaper, those are different standards. That’s true, but (a) it means that sticklerism is HIGHLY appropriate here, and (b) one of my primary concerns—other than wondering how not a single editor noticed this—is that most students at the university won’t even know it’s an error.
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