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Sander Rossel wrote: One thing I sometimes struggle with is "it's" instead of "its".
Richard MacCutchan wrote: No, the correct English usage is, "Sander's book"
I think I've proven my point 
Richard MacCutchan wrote: its (belonging to it, as his is belonging to him) usage.
I guess that's where my struggle comes from 
So, Sander's book, Sanders' campaign, its effectiveness and it's hopeless.
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Now you understand everything.
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Yes, the English language has no more secrets for I! 
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Thats sad 
I don't think it's laziness though.
This 'lazy' generation is always busy with looking good on Instagram or Twitch, which is probably a lot more effort than writing an apostrophe
I think it's just that people think other things are more important.
Or maybe it once started as a way to distinguish oneself.
Back in the day, when MSN was still a thing, I also wrote liek dis bcus that was cool
Nowadays it's all gg lol ftw g2g!
All because those precious keystrokes are worth points in online games.
You could even say they optimized language so they have more time to play their games 
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Quote: That's sad
FTFY
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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What can I say! Took humanity a few thousand years to go from hieroglyphs and pictogram to alphabets and written words and now in a few short years we move back to hieroglyphs (called emojis now). How come for hundreds of years people have been able to express their thoughts and sentiments using words and now, all of a sudden we go back to signs scribbled on a cave wall.
Mircea
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Those business emails are a pain. Someone often responses before I do, because I am still trying to correct my mistakes and wording.
For some reason; I find it easier to spot my mistakes after sending the response.
INTP
"Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence." - Edsger Dijkstra
"I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks. " - Daniel Boone
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Sander Rossel wrote: but I'm obliged to say that if I don't want to sound like a douche
That's not how it works. 
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Yes it does.
Check this out.
WITH ALL DUE RESPECT, I think you're an idiot!
Were you offended?
No you were not.
Because excusing yourself up front is like the secret super weapon that makes you get away with everything
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Sander Rossel wrote: Were you offended?
No you were not.
Because excusing yourself up front is like the secret super weapon that makes you get away with everything
No I'm not offended.
Because getting offended by a moron makes one of myself. 
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Oi! You didn't excuse yourself up front and now you've gone and offended me! 
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Well, at least you don't think I'm a moron.
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To be fair, I doubt that any editor would "skip over" an error assuming a later editor would fix it. It's more likely that having skim read the proof and found it to be generally good that they don't bother with a proper proof-read. The other issue is that it's actually really hard to proof-read your own work. Of course you'll find many issues, but when reading it a lot of the time you're really just "re-playing" in your head what you intended to write, rather than reading the characters on the page.
A service I provide is proof reading websites (including checking for consistent terminology, consistent capitalisation etc) and I frequently find errors which the authors are really embarrassed about, having read, re-read and read again looking for - and missing - typos. I'm aware that having set myself up as a "proof reader" I am very much at risk when making changes to my own website!
This is quite a thread now and I'm wondering whether the OP really intended the typo in the subject line... (though I'm fairly sure that's a typing error rather than a language error, if it wasn't deliberate)
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DerekT-P wrote: I doubt that any editor would "skip over" an error assuming a later editor would fix it. It's more likely that having skim read the proof and found it to be generally good that they don't bother with a proper proof-read.
Yeah, they won't ignore an error if they find it, but they won't do as much trouble finding it because someone else will (hopefully) do that already.
DerekT-P wrote: checking for consistent terminology
This is so important and hard to do!
I often find myself starting an article talking about, for examples, "releases", but when I continue the next day, or after lunch or whatever, I continue with "deployments".
You won't even notice it when reading the entire work.
It's also very important to stick to the terminology of the tools you're using.
For example, Azure DevOps has "release pipelines", so call them that and not "deployment pipelines".
Most editors probably wouldn't even notice, but for someone going through your article and looking for "deployment pipelines" it can be really confusing!
Capitalization is also a thing. For example, when I first mention something, I often capitalize it.
Example: "You will find Pipelines in the left-hand menu. This is where you can create and manage pipelines. So go to pipelines and you will see..."
Or: "You will find 'Pipelines' in the left-hand menu. This is where you can create and manage pipelines. So go to 'Pipelines' and you will see..."
Pipelines doesn't have to be capitalized, but when I'm talking about an actual caption on a button, I like to be very specific by using the exact capitalization the button uses, but that looks weird so I quote it too.
"Click the 'Post Message' button at the bottom of the screen, this will post the message in The Lounge."
Consistent writing is probably the hardest part about writing.
One more thing that's really a bitch, British English vs. American English.
The media I get to see, read, play and hear is mostly American, so it's capitalization and not capitalisation.
Google will even mark the S as a typo
As a non-native English speaker I really don't know which is what and I can be found writing the proper capitalization of different colours
DerekT-P wrote: the typo in the subject line
What typo? 
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Quote: so it's capitalization and not capitalisation.
In proper English (or "British English" as the USians say, arrogantly trying to make out that it is merely a dialect of their own butchered version of English) both versions are correct. The "z" version is supposedly older English (that went over on the Mayflower, some say) while the "s" version in "modern" English is influence by those pesky French persons who have for centuries fiddled with perfectly good English to make it more like their weird language! This is apocryphal. Actually older English used "s" everywhere except for loan words from French such as "blazon" or "buzzard" and then the USians started using it everywhere; for example, in "Donutz", which in proper English is spelled "Doughnuts". 
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
modified 22-May-20 10:52am.
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I was wondering when someone would mention that error. You are correct, that was a typing error.
I agree with everything you said about editors; as well proof reading your own work. We often read what we thought we wrote; missing the fact that what we actually wrote was not what we thought.
It reminds me of the stuttering problem I use to have, and occasionally still have. It is like a short circuit; my mouth is trying to speak the first word and my brain is already on the fifth word. When writing, we sometimes, unintentionally, fail to type a word (or letter) because we are already passed the point in our own heads.
INTP
"Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence." - Edsger Dijkstra
"I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks. " - Daniel Boone
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Sander Rossel wrote: What I think is happening here is that everyone thinks the next person is going to fix it, but that person thinks the same.
I used the above concept - and this was decades ago - in order to get the following phrase through and into (comparatively internal) publication:
"This will necessitate the application of judicious empiricism." which was just another way of saying "Take an educated guess".
Another one I did, for publication in refereed literature, was to put in deliberate mistakes like "the the" so that the upper echelons had something to correct and not attempt to put their ill-equipped minds to commenting on the technical content about which they were basically clueless. This gave them an opportunity to "spray their territory". When I got it back, except for fixing deliberate typos, I ignored their nonsense and submitted it intact - let real scientist vet the content.
This was in the middle 80's through early 90's. So not much has really changed in how these things are done.
Sigh.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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John R. Shaw wrote: Have fun taring apart the above, as I had no editor and made now effort to correct mistakes
Nice challenge.
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Professionalism is definitely diminishing. It doesn't seem like proofreading is a thing anymore. Also, things like swearing were not done in articles, but now it is. And some even include memes.
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Jacquers wrote: And some even include memes.
I think that's a good thing.
Swearing can be a good thing, depending on the goal, tone and audience of the article.
Like what if your article was a rant against bugs in Visual Studio?
"Unfortunately, Visual Studio crashed again."
Or: "And then that f***ing piece of crap Visual Studio crashed AGAIN!" [Insert y u do dis meme here]
Which of the two better conveys my utter frustration and anger with Visual Studio?
The second one can also be used to keep the reader's attention, especially if the rest of the article is "decent".
It's more a form of style than anything.
It's pretty modern though.
Old skool readers may stop right there and return to their physical newspaper, but that probably isn't your audience if you write like that.
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Sander Rossel wrote: "Unfortunately, Visual Studio crashed again."
Or: "And then that f***ing piece of crap Visual Studio crashed AGAIN!" [Insert y u do dis meme here]
Which of the two better conveys my utter frustration and anger with Visual Studio?
One reads like the start of a rational discussion I might want to get into. The other is a temper tantrum and I just want to skip over that part to get to the informative bits.
But it all depends on the goal. There's nothing wrong with a good rant every once in a while, and my post history will show I'm as guilty of that as anyone else.
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I agree with you completely. I've been a grammar and spelling nerd since birth pretty much. (My English teacher used to have me stand at front of class and would say "Tell them about apostrophes" or something, and disappear for a fag for 20 minutes).
Partly, yes of course it's technology. TXT speak, predictive text and all the rest encourages laziness and re-inforces incorrect usage. Partly, of course, languages evolve and I have no real problem with the introduction of new words and the partial loss of others. What winds me up, though, is the use of words that are simply wrong and either give an incorrect message or an ambiguous one. I cannot understand how people routinely make statements that make no sense whatsoever - nor can I understand how people manage to correctly interpret it a lot of the time!
One thing I've noticed is that people, now in their 60s, who used to speak correctly are now adopting the ridiculous use of "of" when they mean "have": "I could of broken lockdown". It makes no sense, it doesn't save any time, and I can't see how or why it arose. Maybe people have either damaged their hearing so much, or are just so lazy when listening to others, that they've mis-heard "could've" as "could of" and assumed that "of" has another meaning. When this started, I assumed it was just a pronunciation issue, but of course it rapidly spread into writing as well.
Now we're bombarded online and on TV with ads for "Grammarly" - based on the supposition that grammar and spelling are "hard" and take so much effort that you need software to do it for you. However if people just applied some thought to the language they used, plus maybe learned a few simple rules, it should come pretty naturally.
Misuse of language particularly irks me when used by the media (especially the BBC) - these are professional communicators, and part of their role (in my opinion) is not only to communicate effectively and accurately, but to act as a role model in communication. (I also get annoyed by full-time professional drivers, e.g. cabbies and lorry drivers, who make the most basic and annoying errors - such as middle-lane hogging and failing to indicate).
Perhaps the root cause is the speed with which society moves these days; when replying to a letter, a response wasn't expected for a couple of days (remember when the postman called several times a day?) but with text and WhatsApp there is an expectation of instant reply to everything. We arguably write more than we ever have done, but have less time to do it, hardly ever review what we write before pressing "send" (why don't people do that??) and, perhaps significantly, never criticise each other (in the "critical evaluation" sense) for fear of causing offence. At school, written work is marked less rigorously than it used to be, and often by teachers who sadly don't have the grammar skills anyway.
Then there's the straightforward "elimination" of words from our language. This starts at school, with (for example) the following words removed from the Oxford Junior Dictionary (in 2007, though it took a while for adults to notice):
acorn, adder, ash, beech, bluebell, buttercup, catkin, conker, cowslip, cygnet, dandelion, fern, hazel, heather, heron, ivy, kingfisher, lark, mistletoe, nectar, newt, otter, paster, and willow Now, I can appreciate some words may have fallen into disuse; but from where I'm sitting now, I can see beech, bluebell, buttercup, cowslip, dandelion, fern, heather, ivy. It's likely that on my lockdown walk today I'll see ash, catkin, cygnet, hazel, heron, mistletoe, and willow. If I'm lucky I'll see adder, kingfisher, lark and newt. If I went out later in the year I'd be certain of seeing acorn and conker. So, if I were walking with my granddaughter, and she is supposed not to "need" these words, what do I do? Say "Oh look, there's a flower, a tree, a bird" when she could have a far enriched experience by understanding what flower, or tree, or bird, she's looking at. If "ash" is removed, how can she understand the rhyme "Oak before ash, we'll just get a splash; ash before oak, we're in for a soak" which, in my experience, is a better long-term forecast than anything the Met. Office can produce. "Cauliflower" has also gone, so heaven help her when she needs to order one online. Though, there's always a picture I suppose. (Perhaps this is also part of the problem; display technology and networking speeds have both increased so far that we no longer need a word for things, we can just show a picture. Maybe that's also partly driven by multi-culturalism too).
Anyhow, rest assured John that you're not the only one who despairs at what is happening. We can only hope that "old fogey" has also been deleted from the word-book.
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I don't know a lot of those words, but dandelion, fern and heron should be common enough 
Also, isn't mistletoe a thing during Christmas?
There's this song about it...
Ron Weasley gets his father's car wrecked by a willow (the Weeping Willow) and doesn't the Headless Horseman come from the roots of a willow?
Nectar is only one of the most important things in life!
Without nectar we'd have no bees and other insects and without them we'd have no life on earth!
I think nectar was one of those words that was in my biology book when I was six or seven.
I know ash only as ash from a fire, not a tree, I assume that meaning is still in the dictionary?
I recently delivered some acorns from some nymphs to the leaders of their tribe so she could replant them and set the nymphs free
Outside of that game I've never seen the word though
Buttercup is a Powerpuff Girl and I think also one of the Totally Spies girls.
Cauliflower is just a vegetable that people here eat on regular basis 
It's weird that I can think of plenty of uses for some of these words and I'm not even English, yet the English don't think it's necessary to learn these words?
That said, people in the Netherlands are really bad with sayings, or expressions.
Like, it's raining cats and dogs.
My parents and grandparents know a lot more than me and I know a lot more than a lot of people from my generation.
In fact, just last week I asked a friend who is an English teacher "what's English for [some expression in Dutch]" and she didn't even know the expression
On the other hand, we now have "doekoe" and "patta's", which is street language for "money" and "shoes", borrowed from Turkish or Moroccan or some such
You'll rarely hear anyone older than 25 use those words though and most don't even know them.
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Sander Rossel wrote: wrecked by a willow (the Weeping Willow)
Whomping Willow
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