Hello slashdot creatures, It was brought to my attention that my name has come up in recent slashdot posts. It's true, I've been away for a LONG time. I am a VERY busy person, enjoying every single minute of my completely unique and never-to-be-repeated-for-all-eternity life. I have little time to waste with you idiotic freaks. Nevertheless, I am taking this opportunity to GRACE you with the knowledge that I will once again TRY to take a few minutes out of my beautifully constructed life, to post here with my profound grammatical insights.
You might be saying, "Teh Grammar Patroll, how are we to gain the benefit of your wisdom, if we don't know when or where you will post?" You might also wonder to yourself, "Teh Grammar Patroll, how can you help us with our written communication skills, now that slashdot is limiting people to two logged-in posts per day?"
Those are good questions. Unfortunately for you, I cannot give you advance knowledge of my posts. I'm not superstitious by nature, but I guess in this case a certain amount of "luck" will take you a long way.
As for the second question, again, you will just have to get along with whatever I can give you. It's not my fault slashdot "editors" are so short sighted.
Which brings me to another point. Why do I post here? Again, good question. 99.9% of you contemptible creatures do not even deserve to receive the benefit of my knowledge. If I met you on the street, I would not bother to give you the time of day. I can't say with 100% certainty why I post here - I suppose even a misanthropic technical writer can have a soft spot for his fellow humans, even if he does find them utterly repulsive. I do admit that part of why I post here is to at least try to do my bit to reverse the complete lack of competence among todays "writers" and self-proclaimed editors. You might joke about me and my posts but I'm telling you, you will get NOWHERE in this world if people don't listen to you, and nobody is going to listen to you if you cannot communicate without sounding like an uneducated embicile.
Another, slightly more lighthearted reason why I post here is to demonstrate - as if we needed any more demonstration of this - that slashdot's comment moderation system is ill-conceived, broken, and ultimately worthless. Are my posts off topic? You bet they are, punk. My posts are also the most thoughtful, informative posts you will find on this website, bar none. My posts DEFY moderation. I labor on, in the hopes that the owners of this site will see the folly of their ways, and at least try to listen to what their readership is telling them instead of going off on their Jerry-Springer "whatever, dude" power trips (that means you, Taco). This is probably a complicated exercise in futility on my part, but hey, I have to try.
So take heart you hateful, worthless, witless little drones, and look for more of my posts in the near future.
Take care, Teh Grammar Patroll
PS I'm sorry to tell you that I have NO time to read and respond to your replies to my posts. In the vast majority of cases, your messages are UNWORTHY of a response from me. In any case, slashdot is going to limit me to two posts per day, and why would I waste them on you?
Some of my fans may be wondering why I specifically choose to critique some articles, and not others.
Well, it's quite simple. I am a very busy person, and frankly I have neither the time, nor the inclination, to impart my profound grammar-related insights on every single article and post on Slashdot. You creatures don't even deserve half of the knowledge I do choose to give you, but I digress.
With this story in particular, all I can say is, "where is the challenge?" The original poster, "hezron", can't even manage the proper use of the words then and than. Even when you mentally make the correction for him, the sentence in question staunchly refuses to make sense. Then you have the self-proclaimed "editor" Hemos, who (apparently) cannot be bothered to do his job.
To top it all off, even Howard Jacobson, who authored the email mentioned in this story, is obviously incompetent when it comes to expressing himself via written communication. His entire message is nothing but a series of bullet points.
So, if the original author (VP of a major corporation) is incapable of expressing his thoughts by constructing simple, coherent sentences and paragraphs, and the story poster can't remember a third grade grammar rule, and the editor can't edit his way out of a paper bag... Well folks, why should I bother?
Generally speaking, one of the major problems I encounter is the use of "passive voice". Look carefully at the second sentence of this story:
"The problem is caused by XP's speech recognition system, which is turned on by default by some manufacturers."
Any editor worth his salt would wrap this sentence in a brown paper bag and Fed-X it back to the author for revision. It is much clearer, and more precise to use the active voice, to wit:
"XP's speech recognition system causes the problem, because most manufacturers turn it on by default."
The sentence following this one begins with a pronoun, "It's". Remarkably, the author did manage to use the apostrophe correctly. However, his thought would be more precisely stated by avoiding the use of a pronoun. For example:
"The speech recognition system listens to random noise, even when the mic is turned off."
Again, note the switch to active voice, and the now clearly stated subject of the sentence, which is "The speech recognition system."
The final sentence adopts a kind of weird conversational tone, which is totally inappropriate. The sentence itself is incomplete, as it lacks both a subject and a verb.
It is simply incredible that this post would pass first muster, but then I guess my standards are a little higher than Slashdot's.
Well, I suppose it was inevitable that Katz and I would eventually go toe-to-toe.
First of all, Jon, you need to learn how to use commas properly. Reading this essay was like trying to drive behind a garbage truck. Perhaps you should paste a warning in your title: "Caution, this essay makes frequent stops."
By way of example, please have a look at the sentence, "We are still, at heart, a fix-it country, given the chance, something much of the tech world seems to have forgotten." I simply can't believe that anyone passing himself off as a writer would construct such a monstrosity. Even a grade-schooler could do a better job. This is merely one example of your comma-related problems, Jon. There are far too many similar examples; to call out each one in detail would take ages.
Apparently you also have severe problems understanding how to use punctuation within a parenthetical comment. I am referring to the sentence that begins "(And no wonder. Tech support is synonymous with anxiety and indifference)." Here you have not one, but two complete sentences, inexplicably wrapped in parentheses. I have no idea what your motivation was. In any case, when you have a complete sentence in parentheses, the punctuation goes inside the final paren.
Jon, I hate to break the news to you, but stopped reading after encountering this error. I simply can't abide a poseur such as yourself, who can't even avoid simple grammatical errors. If you want people to take your writing endeavors seriously, I heartily recommend that you take a course in remedial grammar, before posting another story to Slashdot.
Well, I thought maybe I could take the day off, but this post makes it clear that it is downright dangerous for me to leave you creatures alone for even short lengths of time.
Like so many posts here on Slashdot, this one falls off the cliff with its very first step out the door. To add insult to injury, after leading me on a wild goose chase with that first sentence, the author then leaves me stranded out in the forest by ending his run-on sentence with the word "etc." Maybe the St. Bernard will come and rescue me.
I must also remind the author that standard English requires a verb form to be in agreement with the subject of the sentence. In general, agreement depends on three factors: person, number, and tense.
The author has violated this rule in the sentence beginning with "The purpose of such..."
The subject of this sentence is not "companies", rather, it is "purpose". Therefore, it is correct to say "The purpose... is." It is not correct to say "The purpose... are."
Frankly, I stopped reading immediately upon discovery of this blatant error. Clearly both the author and his "editor", Michael, are incapable of meaningful written communication.
My oh my, the troubles with this review begin with the very first sentence. "Gevmage writes with the review below of the new..."
How does one write with a review below?
The reviewer goes on to warn that he will reveal plot details "in the third of the film."
I give up! Two paragraphs in (counting the introduction), and I cannot make heads or tails of this review. Thanks for making my job easier.
If I've said it once I've said it a thousand times: Proper grammar, spelling, punctuation, and attention to detail are essential, if you want people to take you seriously. This review is merely another case in point. I didn't even bother to finish reading it, because it was crystal clear that the writer is incapable of effective written communication.
The fact that you can embed a link to the article within your own text, does not absolve you from using correct grammar.
Instead of saying "The New York Times has this article...", you should say "The New York Times has an article..." You can still embed your link in the phrase "an article." Your way of stating it makes you sound like a 5 year old child who has just learned to form complete sentences, but who just hasn't quite got the hang of it yet.
In addition, you shouldn't say "...that he'd hired" (which is really saying, "...that he had hired"). Instead you should say "...that he hired..."
Finally, the sentence beginning with "Leaving aside..." is a run on sentence. It is very difficult to understand, due both to its run-on nature, and excessive use of parentheses.
You should always try to avoid using terms like "prolly", when expressing yourself in writing. Not only is this "word" imprecise, a foreign speaker, unfamiliar with English, will be unable to discern your meaning.
You also misspelled the word "sense", as in, "in the online sense." How you made it this far, not knowing how to properly spell the word "sense", is quite beyond my capacity to comprehend.
Your post, however interesting and insightful, is very difficult to read due to the lack of paragraphs.
Proper usage of paragraphs is tricky. It can be difficult to know exactly when is the right time to begin a new thought. It is also quite difficult to transition smoothly from one paragraph to the next, thus giving your work a thread of continuity.
However, with practice, I'm sure you can get it right; you already show great promise in expressing your thoughts in written form.
Your statement *seems* intriguing, however, because it contains so many grammatical, puncutation, and capitalization errors, I can't understand what you are saying.
If you want people to take you seriously, listen to you, and understand what you are saying, then you need to say it clearly, and with proper attention to spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
You also misspelled the word "linear", in your subject line.
You have not only constructed a poorly worded sentence, but you have misspelled the one key word that MIGHT have given it a shot at actually making sense. You should have used the word "there", instead of "their". Additionally, if you wanted to make a contraction of the word "there", with the verb "is", then you would say "there's".
In any case, "there is" or "there's" is not correct, since you are referring to more than one porn site. The proper way to state your thought is:
"I guess this means there are two porn sites for every person on the internet."
Your comment regarding apostrophes and their proper use is appreciated.
Apostrophes are used to indicate "possessive" nouns, as in "the Earth's population." (By the way please note capitalization of the proper noun "Earth".)
The rules regarding apostrophes are simple. When the noun does not end with the letter "s", you place the apostrophe before the "s", e.g. "Earth's."
When the noun does end with the letter "s", you place the apostrophe after the "s" and do not add another "s". Usually this occurs when the noun is plural, though this is not always the case. An example is in order:
"The cat's pajamas." --> Refers to the pajamas of ONE cat. "The cats' pajamas." --> Refers to the pajamas of many cats.
While I did find your post quite humorous, I couldn't help noticing that you misspelled the word "course".
Such an obvious, simple mistake can easily be avoided by using an automated spell checker, or by simply reading your post back to yourself a couple of times to make sure you did not make any errors.
Of course, even an automated spell checker wont catch errors such as the one made by timothy yesterday, where he used the word "peaked" instead of "piqued".
There are many punctuation and spelling problems with this article. Far too many to call out in detail. Perhaps my favorite error however, is the author's use of the word "peaked" instead of "piqued". You should say, "...your curiosity is piqued," not "...your curiosity is peaked." Of course, an automated spell checker would never catch this error; one would have to actually know the difference to begin with.
Your statement, "You losers who play MTG and other card-based games are losers" offers redundant information and generally makes no sense. This makes you look like an ignoramous. May I please suggest a revision: "You people who play MTG and other card-based games are losers." Or, "In my opinion, people who play MTG and other card-based games are losers."
Also, the word "forever" is one word, not two, as you have it in your post.
What is it with you people today? There are an awful lot of posts in which the writer failed to properly capitalize the proper noun, "I".
Additionally, this particular poster seems to have a more general problem capitalizing the words at the beginning of his/her sentences. A reminder: The proper noun "I" should always be capitalized, as should the first word in a sentence.
Slashdot Mirror
Hello slashdot creatures,
It was brought to my attention that my name has come up in recent slashdot posts. It's true, I've been away for a LONG time. I am a VERY busy person, enjoying every single minute of my completely unique and never-to-be-repeated-for-all-eternity life. I have little time to waste with you idiotic freaks. Nevertheless, I am taking this opportunity to GRACE you with the knowledge that I will once again TRY to take a few minutes out of my beautifully constructed life, to post here with my profound grammatical insights.
You might be saying, "Teh Grammar Patroll, how are we to gain the benefit of your wisdom, if we don't know when or where you will post?" You might also wonder to yourself, "Teh Grammar Patroll, how can you help us with our written communication skills, now that slashdot is limiting people to two logged-in posts per day?"
Those are good questions. Unfortunately for you, I cannot give you advance knowledge of my posts. I'm not superstitious by nature, but I guess in this case a certain amount of "luck" will take you a long way.
As for the second question, again, you will just have to get along with whatever I can give you. It's not my fault slashdot "editors" are so short sighted.
Which brings me to another point. Why do I post here? Again, good question. 99.9% of you contemptible creatures do not even deserve to receive the benefit of my knowledge. If I met you on the street, I would not bother to give you the time of day. I can't say with 100% certainty why I post here - I suppose even a misanthropic technical writer can have a soft spot for his fellow humans, even if he does find them utterly repulsive. I do admit that part of why I post here is to at least try to do my bit to reverse the complete lack of competence among todays "writers" and self-proclaimed editors. You might joke about me and my posts but I'm telling you, you will get NOWHERE in this world if people don't listen to you, and nobody is going to listen to you if you cannot communicate without sounding like an uneducated embicile.
Another, slightly more lighthearted reason why I post here is to demonstrate - as if we needed any more demonstration of this - that slashdot's comment moderation system is ill-conceived, broken, and ultimately worthless. Are my posts off topic? You bet they are, punk. My posts are also the most thoughtful, informative posts you will find on this website, bar none. My posts DEFY moderation. I labor on, in the hopes that the owners of this site will see the folly of their ways, and at least try to listen to what their readership is telling them instead of going off on their Jerry-Springer "whatever, dude" power trips (that means you, Taco). This is probably a complicated exercise in futility on my part, but hey, I have to try.
So take heart you hateful, worthless, witless little drones, and look for more of my posts in the near future.
Take care,
Teh Grammar Patroll
PS I'm sorry to tell you that I have NO time to read and respond to your replies to my posts. In the vast majority of cases, your messages are UNWORTHY of a response from me. In any case, slashdot is going to limit me to two posts per day, and why would I waste them on you?
Some of my fans may be wondering why I specifically choose to critique some articles, and not others.
Well, it's quite simple. I am a very busy person, and frankly I have neither the time, nor the inclination, to impart my profound grammar-related insights on every single article and post on Slashdot. You creatures don't even deserve half of the knowledge I do choose to give you, but I digress.
With this story in particular, all I can say is, "where is the challenge?" The original poster, "hezron", can't even manage the proper use of the words then and than. Even when you mentally make the correction for him, the sentence in question staunchly refuses to make sense. Then you have the self-proclaimed "editor" Hemos, who (apparently) cannot be bothered to do his job.
To top it all off, even Howard Jacobson, who authored the email mentioned in this story, is obviously incompetent when it comes to expressing himself via written communication. His entire message is nothing but a series of bullet points.
So, if the original author (VP of a major corporation) is incapable of expressing his thoughts by constructing simple, coherent sentences and paragraphs, and the story poster can't remember a third grade grammar rule, and the editor can't edit his way out of a paper bag... Well folks, why should I bother?
Generally speaking, one of the major problems I encounter is the use of "passive voice". Look carefully at the second sentence of this story:
"The problem is caused by XP's speech recognition system, which is turned on by default by some manufacturers."
Any editor worth his salt would wrap this sentence in a brown paper bag and Fed-X it back to the author for revision. It is much clearer, and more precise to use the active voice, to wit:
"XP's speech recognition system causes the problem, because most manufacturers turn it on by default."
The sentence following this one begins with a pronoun, "It's". Remarkably, the author did manage to use the apostrophe correctly. However, his thought would be more precisely stated by avoiding the use of a pronoun. For example:
"The speech recognition system listens to random noise, even when the mic is turned off."
Again, note the switch to active voice, and the now clearly stated subject of the sentence, which is "The speech recognition system."
The final sentence adopts a kind of weird conversational tone, which is totally inappropriate. The sentence itself is incomplete, as it lacks both a subject and a verb.
It is simply incredible that this post would pass first muster, but then I guess my standards are a little higher than Slashdot's.
Well, I suppose it was inevitable that Katz and I would eventually go toe-to-toe.
First of all, Jon, you need to learn how to use commas properly. Reading this essay was like trying to drive behind a garbage truck. Perhaps you should paste a warning in your title: "Caution, this essay makes frequent stops."
By way of example, please have a look at the sentence, "We are still, at heart, a fix-it country, given the chance, something much of the tech world seems to have forgotten." I simply can't believe that anyone passing himself off as a writer would construct such a monstrosity. Even a grade-schooler could do a better job. This is merely one example of your comma-related problems, Jon. There are far too many similar examples; to call out each one in detail would take ages.
Apparently you also have severe problems understanding how to use punctuation within a parenthetical comment. I am referring to the sentence that begins "(And no wonder. Tech support is synonymous with anxiety and indifference)." Here you have not one, but two complete sentences, inexplicably wrapped in parentheses. I have no idea what your motivation was. In any case, when you have a complete sentence in parentheses, the punctuation goes inside the final paren.
Jon, I hate to break the news to you, but stopped reading after encountering this error. I simply can't abide a poseur such as yourself, who can't even avoid simple grammatical errors. If you want people to take your writing endeavors seriously, I heartily recommend that you take a course in remedial grammar, before posting another story to Slashdot.
Well, I thought maybe I could take the day off, but this post makes it clear that it is downright dangerous for me to leave you creatures alone for even short lengths of time.
... is." It is not correct to say "The purpose ... are."
Like so many posts here on Slashdot, this one falls off the cliff with its very first step out the door. To add insult to injury, after leading me on a wild goose chase with that first sentence, the author then leaves me stranded out in the forest by ending his run-on sentence with the word "etc." Maybe the St. Bernard will come and rescue me.
I must also remind the author that standard English requires a verb form to be in agreement with the subject of the sentence. In general, agreement depends on three factors: person, number, and tense.
The author has violated this rule in the sentence beginning with "The purpose of such..."
The subject of this sentence is not "companies", rather, it is "purpose". Therefore, it is correct to say "The purpose
Frankly, I stopped reading immediately upon discovery of this blatant error. Clearly both the author and his "editor", Michael, are incapable of meaningful written communication.
My oh my, the troubles with this review begin with the very first sentence. "Gevmage writes with the review below of the new..."
How does one write with a review below?
The reviewer goes on to warn that he will reveal plot details "in the third of the film."
I give up! Two paragraphs in (counting the introduction), and I cannot make heads or tails of this review. Thanks for making my job easier.
If I've said it once I've said it a thousand times: Proper grammar, spelling, punctuation, and attention to detail are essential, if you want people to take you seriously. This review is merely another case in point. I didn't even bother to finish reading it, because it was crystal clear that the writer is incapable of effective written communication.
The fact that you can embed a link to the article within your own text, does not absolve you from using correct grammar.
Instead of saying "The New York Times has this article...", you should say "The New York Times has an article..." You can still embed your link in the phrase "an article." Your way of stating it makes you sound like a 5 year old child who has just learned to form complete sentences, but who just hasn't quite got the hang of it yet.
In addition, you shouldn't say "...that he'd hired" (which is really saying, "...that he had hired"). Instead you should say "...that he hired..."
Finally, the sentence beginning with "Leaving aside..." is a run on sentence. It is very difficult to understand, due both to its run-on nature, and excessive use of parentheses.
A better way to state this might be:
"The article also points out, this kind of filtering can provide more useful content, as compared to today's text-based filtering."
You should always try to avoid using terms like "prolly", when expressing yourself in writing. Not only is this "word" imprecise, a foreign speaker, unfamiliar with English, will be unable to discern your meaning.
You also misspelled the word "sense", as in, "in the online sense." How you made it this far, not knowing how to properly spell the word "sense", is quite beyond my capacity to comprehend.
Your post, however interesting and insightful, is very difficult to read due to the lack of paragraphs.
Proper usage of paragraphs is tricky. It can be difficult to know exactly when is the right time to begin a new thought. It is also quite difficult to transition smoothly from one paragraph to the next, thus giving your work a thread of continuity.
However, with practice, I'm sure you can get it right; you already show great promise in expressing your thoughts in written form.
Your statement *seems* intriguing, however, because it contains so many grammatical, puncutation, and capitalization errors, I can't understand what you are saying.
If you want people to take you seriously, listen to you, and understand what you are saying, then you need to say it clearly, and with proper attention to spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
You also misspelled the word "linear", in your subject line.
You have not only constructed a poorly worded sentence, but you have misspelled the one key word that MIGHT have given it a shot at actually making sense. You should have used the word "there", instead of "their". Additionally, if you wanted to make a contraction of the word "there", with the verb "is", then you would say "there's".
In any case, "there is" or "there's" is not correct, since you are referring to more than one porn site. The proper way to state your thought is:
"I guess this means there are two porn sites for every person on the internet."
Your comment regarding apostrophes and their proper use is appreciated.
Apostrophes are used to indicate "possessive" nouns, as in "the Earth's population." (By the way please note capitalization of the proper noun "Earth".)
The rules regarding apostrophes are simple. When the noun does not end with the letter "s", you place the apostrophe before the "s", e.g. "Earth's."
When the noun does end with the letter "s", you place the apostrophe after the "s" and do not add another "s". Usually this occurs when the noun is plural, though this is not always the case. An example is in order:
"The cat's pajamas." --> Refers to the pajamas of ONE cat.
"The cats' pajamas." --> Refers to the pajamas of many cats.
While I did find your post quite humorous, I couldn't help noticing that you misspelled the word "course".
Such an obvious, simple mistake can easily be avoided by using an automated spell checker, or by simply reading your post back to yourself a couple of times to make sure you did not make any errors.
Of course, even an automated spell checker wont catch errors such as the one made by timothy yesterday, where he used the word "peaked" instead of "piqued".
The words "Japanese," "Indians," and "Africans" are all proper nouns and must be capitalized.
I'm not sure why you were able to capitalize "Chinese", but you were unable to do so for the rest of these proper nouns.
Good grammar, spelling (including capitalization of proper nouns), and punctuation are essential if you want people to take you seriously in life.
There are many punctuation and spelling problems with this article. Far too many to call out in detail. Perhaps my favorite error however, is the author's use of the word "peaked" instead of "piqued". You should say, "...your curiosity is piqued," not "...your curiosity is peaked." Of course, an automated spell checker would never catch this error; one would have to actually know the difference to begin with.
Your statement, "You losers who play MTG and other card-based games are losers" offers redundant information and generally makes no sense. This makes you look like an ignoramous. May I please suggest a revision: "You people who play MTG and other card-based games are losers." Or, "In my opinion, people who play MTG and other card-based games are losers."
Also, the word "forever" is one word, not two, as you have it in your post.
In the future, please refrain from the use of profanity in your posts.
A word of advice: Gratuitous profanity only gives your audience a reason to immediately ignore every subsequent word that you speak or type.
Please refrain from using profanity in your posts. It is impolite and reflects poorly on your grammatical and communication skills.
What is it with you people today? There are an awful lot of posts in which the writer failed to properly capitalize the proper noun, "I".
Additionally, this particular poster seems to have a more general problem capitalizing the words at the beginning of his/her sentences. A reminder: The proper noun "I" should always be capitalized, as should the first word in a sentence.
You have misspelled the word "purchase" in your post. Please pay more attention next time.