"ur, u, r" - Say what? Speak English boy!

#21 I believe that the "tracks" you leave in the forums and elsewhere are very important. While the grammar and spelling does not have to be perfect, you cannot totally flout convention. All of your posts, resource recommendations, .plans, and news comments add up to the community's evaluation of your personna. Combine this evaluation with your website, user names, IRC exit message, IRC conduct, code or art contributions, product ideas, etc. and teams can find out if they want to work with you or not.

I don't tolerate the "leet" speak or laziness. Like Mike, I move on as soon as I see it.

Usually, I don't worry too much about spelling or bad grammar because we have many English as second language community members. Also, some of the best programmers I have ever worked with are also come of the poorest spellers I have ever known:) There is no relationship between proper spelling and intelligence. However, there is a direct relationship between laziness and production.

Jeff Tunnell GG

Edit: Duh. Learn to spell:)

#22 http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=grammer
http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=grammar
look at that =)

#23 "... IRC exit message ..."

Are exit messages visible in a +m channel? ;)

Markus

#24 Just in case anyone was slightly amused by my posts, you my find the web site to covnert normal language to those and many more dialects here:
http://www.rinkworks.com/dialect/

#25 IMHO, thesse days one must be a bit of a shape shifter of sorts to deal with people, esspecially online.

Hells, I thought the whole "ebonics" bull in the news so long ago would have impressed that on people in the USA if no where else.

#26 The only time I see it justified is in an IRC channel or over ICQ/other instant messenger aplications, when you are in a discussion with a couple of people, so things are going pretty fast. I'm only talking about the "r" and "ur" sort of things here, "leet speak" is never justified, simply because in stead of speeding up a discussion its slows down everything (unless you're that l33t dude that only types this way).
I never use it in mails, forums (at least I try... but an early in the morning quick reply to someone could contain a couple of these words), also depends a bit on who you are talking to I guess.
What bothers me is when an american doesn't make the difference between "know" and "now"... I'm from Belgium, English is my second language (I also know french and understand German...), and even I can filter out those spelling mistakes.
When talking to someone new, I try to check his background, if he makes such mistakes and is native english speaking, I think it DOES say something about their intelligence level. If I see for example the person is from France, or any other European country and he makes some spelling mistakes... at least they can be seen as mistakes and not plain lazyness.
I had to let go some people in my team by the way, simply becuase communication was impossible. I needed 15 minutes to figure out a 10 line message from them.

#27 Of course you have to also consider "English and American English", there are a lot of differences. ask an english women if she sits on her fanny all day you would probably get a slap in the face, if you ask a women from America the same thing she would say,are you calling me lazy.
no slur inteneded on either

#28 "if he makes such mistakes and is native english speaking, I think it DOES say something about their intelligence level"

Sorry but thats an incredibly ignorant view. A surprising amount of people suffer from undiagnosed mild-dyslexia, something which in no way affects your intellegence, but merely your ability to read and write as naturally as others. I know someone who suffers terribly from dyslexia and dyspraxia (which affects basic coordination skills - not sure of the spelling), who constantly gets labeled as "stupid" and "clumsy", when shes far from stupid.#

I myself am a terrible speller, and find myself constantly checking dictionary.com, because I'm lucky enough to realise theres something wrong about my spelling of the word in question. People with dyslexia aren't so lucky on that front.

Please consider what you're saying more carefully before making such bold and sweeping statements.

#29 When it comes to switching around the supposed order of letters, that is dyslexia. Noone complains about that.
Screwed up grammar, typing in slang without the intention of joking in what is a rather formal discussion otherwise, are signs of someone not taking the language seriously enough. This leads to being labeled. Just like the way someone talks sheds some light into the personality, so do do written comments.

Obviously spelling less diligent than that in written letters is natural on the net due to it's realtime nature. Still there is a difference between the casual typo and plain out carless typing.

In any case, just like in the non realtime media, conclusions based upon the writing style are drawn also in the internet world.

By the way, in this post I am adressing native speakers.


Markus

edit: All of a sudden everyone edits his/her posts to correct spelling or grammar inconsistencies. Amazing, isn't it ;)

#30 Andru i aggree, actualy i dont beleive that intelligence has anything to do with peoples ability to spell, read write or any other formal edudation, or abilty to express oneself in any given language, the fact that (in your case) you have the intelligence to use the dictionary to check this, shows your own intelegance and lack of laziness,
How the hell do you spell intelegance anyway?.
The fact remains that, rightly or wrongly people (online especialy) do judge people ,mostly from what they see, normaly in the form of type.

#31 Taron,

not people's intelligence but their education and desire to present themselves appropriately is what spelling and grammar reveal to a certain degree.
For example, an employer who has to deliver to clients utmost quality and attention to detail, probably will avoid hiring someone who does not pay attention to his or her spelling. Why? It suggests that the respective person does not have particular love for detail.

Markus

#32 Actually Markus, your definition of dyslexia is a most widespread, and hugely inaccurate one. Dyslexia is not just the swapping round of a few letters here and there. That is a well known "symptom" (for want of a better word), but it encompasses far more than that. It often makes people spell phonetically (eg funeticly), and makes correct punctuation incredibly difficult.

I agree using u, r etc in otherwise formal discussions is basically laziness. But please don't confuse the issue with spelling (not at you markus, but at whoever said it reflected on the intellegence of the writer). While less intellegent people (go political correctness!) often spell badly, this doesn't work in reverse, bad spellers aren't automatically unintellegent.

And lol yeh, I noticed there a fair few edited posts here ;)

#33 I am afraid thats a a bit of a sweeping statement Markus, its the sort of statement i would normaly expect from an uninformed "suit", attention to detail you say, okay, a personel friend of mine suffers from dyslexia, he spends, sometimes up too 4 hours working on a part of a drawing (art traditional pencil drawings, and oil), because he likes and follows the PRB style, yet he couldnt spell torque, his attention to detail would astound you, he keeps himself in work through his work not the written word, presentation hmmm, the manager of his department can use a spell checker and does.
i dont aggree spelling has nothing to do with attention to detail or the the amount of effort people will put into a given peice of work. I think if you judge by the written word you get the written word.
Nothing more.

#34
Obviously Markus, your opinion is wrong and you are a culturally insensitive person, judging by the posts above.

These select people, which are a sampling of the total human population that have dyslexia, obviously compeltely cancel out your opinion. Please check with the above posters before posting an opinion again.

Thank you soo much.



P.S. My persona pet peeve is the people that cant tell the difference between then and than. ie "I like this better then that." - Drives me up a wall.

#35 True, dyslexia can be a reason... and its a known fact that most people who suffer from it are of the most intelligent around (Einstein etc had it...), hehe, only saying this becuase I've been diagnosed with it ;)
btw.. the number of people suffering from dyslexia (wether its a mild form or not) is very high. I heard its around 1 out of 12, so its not a small sample of the world population.
But I believe I can make a pretty good distinction between text from people suffering from it, or from lazy people just making mistakes because they refuse to speak normal. Altough leet speak etc can for some people be a coverup not to have to admit they have a spelling problem.

Perhaps the reason I'm not so tolerant when it comes to all of this is becuase I have to make quit an effort myself. I know I write plenty of mistakes.... people who regulary chat with me over ICQ or IRC know by now by messages can be difficult to understand if I don't have much time (words like "teh", "soem","alwyas" etc come to mind). In a forum post I take the time and effort to check the whole thing (altough not always)

#36 Dyslexia is a cruel word to use for someone who has trouble mixing letters. ;) Kind of like asking a person with a lisp to say "lisp".

#37 it is not anyone trying to be "kewl", it is quite simply a time saver.

forums, chats and IM's aren't for publishing, they r for discussion.

#38 I know my 14-year-old brother does it because his friends do. When he sees me talking to Shayne on ICQ, using proper English, he asks me why I'm typing "gay."

I have to say that about 75% of my fellow teenagers nowadays are very shallow people.