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Hackers, Spelling, and Grammar?
Strom Carlson asks: "Over the last few years, I've noticed that a surprisingly large number of native English speakers, who are otherwise very technically competent, seem to lack strong English skills. Mostly, this seems to manifest itself as varying degrees of poor spelling and grammar: 'definately' instead of 'definitely'; 'should of' instead of 'should have'; and I even see the names of products and companies misspelled from time to time. It baffles me that a culture so obsessed with technical knowledge and accuracy can demonstrate such little attention to detail when it comes to communicating that knowledge with others, and it baffles me even more that many people become enraged when you attempt to help them correct and learn from their mistakes. Do hackers and geeks just not care about communicating effectively? Do they not realize that a mediocre command of written English makes them appear less intelligent? Am I missing something here?"
Am I missing something here?
You are missing the bigger picture in life. And that is that spelling and grammer only matter up to high school unless you are an English major or a Tech writer. Otherwise you get credit for best effort as long as it makes sense.
So grow up, no more gold stars or smily faces for aceing the spelling test buddy.
I try my best to write and speak proper English. It is a pretty frustrating language, as it seams every single rule has a corner case where it's broken.
Seems, not seams. You need to try a bit harder.
Surur
Information is the location of things. Computation is moving things around.
Hmmmm... Let me tell you my experience with this.. I'm one of these "Hackers" not sure exactly what you mean by the term, but for this note I will define it:
"A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular. The term is often misused in a pejorative context, where cracker would be the correct term."
I dropped out of H.S at the age of 16 years old.. it was boring, I certainly hated English and history but was taking advanced Calculus and advanced chemistry by the age of 15..
Got a score on my ACTs of 35 while high on you know what..
I could memorize the spelling of just about any word for spelling tests and then would forget them about 10 minutes after the test was over..
After leaving H.S I was a "flunky" for a while then got into the computer field and was making over 80K year by the age of 22.. with NO degree (certified by M.S, RH, Cisco, Sun) and barley a G.E.D..
I have always been plagued by that person who corrects my spelling all the time, but looking back, this person was always some ugly nerd girl who no one liked but had to correct my spelling all the time, guess it made her feel better to correct me (because yes I was kool.. what ever that is..), then when I got into corp America there was always this person who made far less then me in some project management job who corrected my spelling.. their expertise or skills didn't compare to mine except for their knowledge of M.S project.. and I'm sure they didn't like it when I told them that they didn't manage the direction of the project I did as the system architect.. these people always seem to be about 40 years old.. and hated the fact that I made double their salary at 22..
Am I a cocky little s*i*, yes.. so please if you feel the need to correct my spelling to make your self feel better go right ahead!! My suggestion to the "spelling police" would be to spend your time doing something more productive then worrying about how people spell... No one cares but you, and no one ever will...
-=Linsys=-
http://www.intrusionsec.com
The main flaw in your argument is that math is constant, while language evolves. This is completely natural and more importantly, desirous. Rigid adherence to outdated grammatical constructs can only hinder communication. A perfect example would be the adoption of "google" as a verb; would you prefer to say "navigate to google's site and use it to search for widgets" or "google widgets"
Well, maybe some time in the future "should of" will be correct, but right now it's incorrect-ness (heh) is a constant.
You're white right? it seems that you don't know about white privilege. here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_privilege_(soci ology)
see the thing about it is that white people deny that they are treated any differently because they don't notice it. why would they? they are white. I'm not exactly sure i understand your objection. You know that people of different income levels get better / worse education right? Poor people get a worse education that rich people. Or do you deny that? if you did well that's fine, but you'd be wrong. Why? because rich people can spend the money required to get their offspring a 'better' education. And most of the poor people in this country happen to be guess what! NOT WHITE.
Coincedence that the "Proper" way to speak is the "white" way? I think not. That's why the question of racism was brought up.
And no i am not a troll, thank you.
when there is such important news on the Slashdot frontpage
You failed to capitalize English, therefore your post is invalid. Unless you meant that you read someone's poor pool playing skills. I'm starting to dwell how stupid you are, as the topic is about grammar not playing pool.
We had a little revolution to get rid of the monarchy, so excuse us if we don't speak the "Queen's" English.
Sorry... Just had to remind you who you were talking to.