what happened to your writing?

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i have been pondering this since tracer pointed out to me that my frequent use of etc etc 'drives him crazy'.
that didnt bother me but it did get me thinking about how much i have changed since typing a lot on keyboards.
i used to be Ms Pedantic as far as grammar, punctuation and spelling go, and i would get really annoyed at people who didnt care about such things.
since i got a computer at home and my contact with friends has become via email my whole attitude has shifted. it is much quicker to just TYPE without bothering to use capitals or punctuation ( except full-stops and commas ), and i am usually in a hurry to get out what i want to say so anything that speeds up the process is good.
i use dots ............ and etc etc when i am feeling too lazy to write words.
shocking stuff, honestly if you knew me prior to this you would be horrified or perhaps amused at the change.
i think this has even changed my way of thinking, in that i care a bit less about perfect writing and focus on the content much more.
this could be a good thing in some ways, but is it a sign (like the texting method of skipping consonants ) that the niceties of writing are one day going to vanish?

― donna (donna), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 18:36 (twenty-three years ago)

will we one day give up completely on punctuation and 'correctness' in favour of pace and ease?
will consonants disappear?

― donna (donna), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 18:37 (twenty-three years ago)

god im out of it i mean VOWELS

― donna (donna), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 18:37 (twenty-three years ago)

sod capital letters altogether i say, at least when typing...i use lots of hyphens and dots and i'm not ashamed......i dont get why people get so upset about grammar and punctuation - poor spelling is my only bugbear when it comes to writing in general - and i got an a in gcse english, woo

― blueski, Wednesday, 23 October 2002 18:38 (twenty-three years ago)

Gd, mgn f vryn wrt lk Prml Scrm...

FCKSCKS. Tht's hrd t rd!

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 18:40 (twenty-three years ago)

Just write in all vowels, Dan.

I always aim towards getting it right, grammar/punctuation wise, even when dashing off something quickly in a chat or the like. I think it's just the typing training kicking in.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 18:41 (twenty-three years ago)

a ee oe!

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 18:43 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm both a language geek and an excellent typist. I'm very nitpicky about punctuation and grammar, and I seldom abbreviate things -- if I can type at 70 words per minute, why should I bother abbreviating? I don't really understand why so many people have problems hitting their Caps Lock key; considering how keyboard-based people's lives have become, you'd think they'd be better acquainted with it.

That said, when I use AIM, I usually type in lowercase. Why? I dunno. But I can quit any time I want.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 18:50 (twenty-three years ago)

(DAMN YOU NED FOR TRICKING ME INTO TALKING LIKE A TELETUBBY.)

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 18:52 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm still rather a stickler for conventional writing rules, even when using txt messaging. The only time this slips is in chat programmes. I'm no grammarian, but I suppose I fear that areas of expression may eventually be lost if we become too lazy, although I appreciate that written communication is evolving. i do find lowercase lock rather cute tho ; ) and deliberate bad spelling is great fun
...and I use the ellipsis overmuch which I maintain is not as bad a habit as using 'etc.' which rarely adds worthwhile meaning to a sentence.

― Gordon (Gordon), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 18:53 (twenty-three years ago)

I do find it hard sometimes to read stuff that is in all lower case. Plus I've never been into reading from a screen (I print out some of the longer threads).

I can only type at about 25-30 wpm, that's why my posts are short.

― jel -- (jel), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 18:53 (twenty-three years ago)

my writing has alwyas sucked by i find my typing is getting preogressibvely worse. I didn;t do that on purpose by the way.

― g (graysonlane), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 20:01 (twenty-three years ago)

away with the old niceties, in with the new :)

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 20:07 (twenty-three years ago)

The nu-niceties are terrible. There was a time when you could dismiss people with bad spellink as idiots, so you didn't care if your searches missed pages mentioning Enimem. But now even the smart people tlk lk ths, which aside from screwing up my searches, is hell on second-language types and is ugly ugly ugly. Vowels are much better looking than consonants.

― B:Rad (Brad), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 20:33 (twenty-three years ago)

The nu-niceties are terrible.

B:Rad is my friend.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 21:10 (twenty-three years ago)

I have loosened up from my formally correct way of writing, but I hope I loosen up to effect, when appropriate (actually I don't really believe I do, but I try).

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 21:22 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm a 70wpm touch typist too and used to be a secretary so I find it quicker to type caps and punctuation and so on like Jody Beth. I used to be lower case but it felt affected; my little fingers kept going for the shift key of their own accord. (I am also addicted to semi-colons but I think this is just a temporary academic tic and will pass when I finish my thesis). I've given up on ellipses too because I'm a lot less fucking vague than I used to be. You get to thirty, your sentences end on a small bdm-tish and your paragraphs with thankyewandgnight. There's no more drifting.

― Ellie (Ellie), Wednesday, 23 October 2002 22:13 (twenty-three years ago)

.... etcetc

― Ray M (rdmanston), Thursday, 24 October 2002 10:15 (twenty-three years ago)

Don't be put off semi-colons too quickly, Ellie. Henry James said that the correct use of the semi-colon was the mark of a civilised person, except I think he said 'civilised man', which is the trouble with quoting old fools like Henry James.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 24 October 2002 10:19 (twenty-three years ago)

Never having much fancied my writing, I've kind of given up for a bit but expect to re-start soon. Maybe after I've moved.

― Tim (Tim), Thursday, 24 October 2002 10:27 (twenty-three years ago)

I love semi-colons; they make you look clever.

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Thursday, 24 October 2002 10:30 (twenty-three years ago)

I like the way spell check on word puts in lots of semi-colons for you.

Writer type people: do you find it easier writing straight on to the computer or do you make notes first?

― jel -- (jel), Thursday, 24 October 2002 10:33 (twenty-three years ago)

Yup, I'm 70wpm too. It actually slows me down to write in all lower case because I type capitals by mistake, then have to go back and 'correct' them.

Also, I mean, there's a reason why punctuation's there. I can't stand it when somebody posts a long message to a mailing list with one ginormous paragraph, no capitals and sporadic punctuation. I'm so much more likely to skip read something that's on a screen rather than paper, but not breaking text down into handy bite size chunks just makes me skip even more... or just delete.

But for slower typers, if it's just a short message or instant messenger or something, I can see the attraction.

― Madchen (Madchen), Thursday, 24 October 2002 10:36 (twenty-three years ago)

Written Hebrew doesn't notate vowel sounds either, you have to guess them from cntxt -> Moses invented the mobile phone.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 24 October 2002 10:39 (twenty-three years ago)

Full circle!

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_695993.html

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 24 October 2002 10:42 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeesh, Jesus SMS. At least they're not doing the whole thing, I spit on the people who cruelly ravished the gorgeousness of the King James prose. "Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?"

Being an (if ungrammatical) anal wench (mmmm, good band name), I tend to punctuate properly even when texting, although this has been eroded gradatim. And of course, when typing, for clarity and proper expressiveness ('nice' in its C17th-ish sense) one takes care with thing. And I'm a really good speller; modest too.

Anyway, can this thread include handwriting? Mine's gone dreadfully downhill from its acme of beauty when I was writing loads of essays by hand at school. And the signature! Ye gods.

I *heart* the semicolon.

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Thursday, 24 October 2002 13:43 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm with Madchen - if someone abandons normal punctuation, capitalisation and so on I am rarely far from giving up on them. Unless they are a genuinely talented writer - Mark S breaks loads of the rules much of the time, but I never feel as if I'm struggling to understand his English, even when I am struggling to grasp the ideas.

Yes, my texts are all in proper English, full stop at the end and everything. I must look an absolute fool!

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 24 October 2002 17:51 (twenty-three years ago)

liz i know what you mean about handwriting, mine is pretty bad now too ( i think we have discussed this before ). butin my handwriting i am still very particular about punctuation.
i have to admit, grammar is still a big thing for me, and spelling too. i do get annoyed at bad grammar, especially with oral expression.
punctuation such as full-stops and commas is still important sure, or it becomes too difficult to read what is written.
i guess my main thing now is that i have given up on capitals and apostrophes.( in typing) but i have never been a 10-finger typist so any extra keys i dont have to push is easier for me.

― donna (donna), Thursday, 24 October 2002 18:42 (twenty-three years ago)

and that last sentence was an example of bad grammar hahahahaha

― donna (donna), Thursday, 24 October 2002 18:45 (twenty-three years ago)

heh I used to be a language/typing [whatever] but now I realise ~~it is a tule of thee patriarchy~~ I'm too bored to communicate. etc. haha also as a POET I am engaged in deathwrestling with language! fite! etc
(heh, every two months or so another friend get v.v. fed up with this, though).
(or, rather, I tend towards clarity in text when I'm in a calm & tranquil mood, which is NEVER => scrath the itch!)

― Ess Kay (esskay), Thursday, 24 October 2002 19:16 (twenty-three years ago)

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