A request

[Bodger BrianParticipant @bodgerbrian]

Apologies if this is in the wrong forum but I couldn't think of any other appropriate place.

I'm can imagine that some (many, most?) contributors are far more practical than academic but can I ask that a little care is taken when posting in these forums, particularly if it's aimed at the engineering beginner? I'm not talking about the odd typo or missed apostrophe (heaven knows I've been guilty of that myself) but things that make them unreadable or ambiguous.

At one end of the spectrum is a post I saw a couple of months ago which consisted of a dozen or so lines of prose, with no lines breaks & no punctuation except for a full stop at the end and seemingly randomly inserted commas. The result was that after a couple of failed attempts at de-cyphering the English, I gave up.

At the other end is something a lot more subtle. Someone had posted instructions on how to do something, which basically consisted of the instructions to perform operation ABC & perform operation 123. Fair enough but unfortunately between the two they’d inserted the instruction to use tool XYZ & run it all into one sentence where the punctuation made it impossible to tell as to which operation the tool should be used for.

It brings to mind one of those sentences where the position of a comma can completely reverse the meaning….

Woman; without her, man is nothing.

Woman; without her man, is nothing.

[Bodger BrianParticipant @bodgerbrian]

Unreadable & ambiuous posts

[Steve WithnellParticipant @stevewithnell34426]

It's also helpful for the title of a Post to give some clue as to its content.

Steve

[VicParticipant @vic]

If I have difficulty reading a post I just ignore it. There are a couple of folks on this and other forums that write exactly as they speak. One of them has some kind of mental problem but the other is just lazy and is always right, at least in his own mind. Nothing to be done in either case sadly. One of them can easily be spotted in any forum they frequent no matter what name they use as they very rarely use "I", it's always "went down the pub" or "milled a slot in some alloy yesterday".

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

It's often not the posters fault

You write an immaculate response, hit the posting button and the software squishes it into a solid block of words

People post from all kinds of gadgets nowadays and not all of them work right

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

And this is not an immaculate english forum, it's about folk who do stuff.

Some people struggle with the written word, just as others struggle with maths stuff.

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a tatol mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe.

[brickyParticipant @bricky]

I find that in general shortening of speech is common.New build instead of new building,your spend ,your shop.This is promoted in magazines ,adverts and television.More, is inserted before a word instead of using plurals .Is this to do with texting that people have got used to shortening words .Gripe over.

Frank

[Mick HenshallParticipant @mickhenshall99321]

You believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realise that what you heard

is not what I mean't !!

Mick

[EmgeeParticipant @emgee]

Hi Ady1

Your statement must be true as I didn't have too much difficulty reading your final para.

We have to accept this is a Forum with all kinds of members, grammar and spelling doesn't matter so much to me as long as the message can be understood.

Emgee

[jim’Participant @jim11037]

Posted by Bodger Brian on 16/12/2015 13:41:47:

"I'm can imagine"

I see what you mean………………………………

Edited By jim’ on 16/12/2015 16:22:58

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Bodger Brian on 16/12/2015 13:41:47:

It brings to mind one of those sentences where the position of a comma can completely reverse the meaning….

Woman; without her, man is nothing.

Woman; without her man, is nothing.

.

Brian

That is why those of us that wrote contracts were encouraged to write only sentences where the commas are 'redundant' [i.e. they should serve only to put rhythm into the sentence and not to bias its interpretation].

… But that was the 'day job' and this is an engineering forum.

MichaelG.

[Nick_GParticipant @nick_g]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 16/12/2015 16:37:39:

… But that was the 'day job' and this is an engineering forum.

MichaelG.

.

But rulz ist rulz. Ve hav vayz uv makings yu takings by ze rulz.!

Nick

[Anonymous]

Posted by jim' on 16/12/2015 16:22:20:

Posted by Bodger Brian on 16/12/2015 13:41:47:

"I'm can imagine"

I see what you mean………………………………

Exactly, no point moaning about others who do not live up to your english laguage expectations and not bothering yourself. If it's unintelligible then ignore it, if it's ambiguous there is nothing to stop you asking for clarification.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

I'm tempted to lock this thread straight away!

For some people it is a major step to cross over from just being an observer to becoming a poster on a forum such as this.

If, for whatever reason, they lack confidence in their spelling, grammar or punctuation and they think they are laying themselves open to criticism or upsetting others, they won't post and we will all lose the benefit of their contributions.

It's not how you say it but what you have to say that matters.

Neil

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 16/12/2015 18:19:25

[VicParticipant @vic]

Posted by Ady1 on 16/12/2015 15:11:19:

It's often not the posters fault

You write an immaculate response, hit the posting button and the software squishes it into a solid block of words

People post from all kinds of gadgets nowadays and not all of them work right

Very true. My grammar and spelling is not always the best but it's surprising how bad predictive text can make your posts look unless you triple check before hitting the submit button.

[Peter KroghParticipant @peterkrogh76576]

Right on,Neil!!!

Pete

[Bodger BrianParticipant @bodgerbrian]

Oh the irony

As well as that, no-one seems to have commented on my use of the word 'ambiuous'!

Not really meant as a moan & no offence was intended.

Posted by jim' on 16/12/2015 16:22:20:

Posted by Bodger Brian on 16/12/2015 13:41:47:

"I'm can imagine"

I see what you mean………………………………

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

I can see where Bodger is coming from…

but az long as the infumashun getz across to the reeda duz it really matta ? as menshunned if ther wuz ani problums the reeda can allus aks for clarificayshun, ther ar a lot of peeple hu may not be az eridight az uthers but can stil explane what thay need to to get the messig acros without having tu refer to the oxfud consise dikshionari mebe thay wuznt edicated like wat sum people wer but crikee they produse some bewtiful work…

You have got to bear in mind that even in our education system there has been, or is, a system for pronouncing and writing words phonetically, as my daughter, who is an early years teacher, can vouch for, so I wouldn't get too hung up on grammar & spelling in these forums, at the end of the day if someone is happy with the end result, no matter how they derived the information, surely that's all we 'Hobbyists' are aiming for…

George.

[Chris Evans 6Participant @chrisevans6]

In my short time on the board I have never failed to understand any postings. My youngest Daughter edits and writes books; that is what she does well. Just do not ask here to do maths….. What I am saying is we all have different strengths and should not be critical of others. If you can't read it don't bother.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I'm in agreement with Neil's comments. I have posted this before which is from another forum that I frequent.

"If I could just bring this to the attention of ALL members.

As we grow, we have or will have members that are not too good at spelling etc.

This can be for a variety of reasons, education, medical or even dyslexia, which I slightly suffer from, and rely heavily on my spell checker.

This is no ones fault, if everyone was the same, what state would the world be in.

Members who have these afflictions usually have to work at least twice as hard as everyone else to make up a post, and even then, it can sometimes be almost unreadable. But at least they try, which a few 'normal' people won't even do.

So please, before we dive down peoples throats over these issues, spare a thought about the person who has composed it. Either he/she couldn't or can't make it any clearer or better, or has made a genuine mistake.

Thanks"

J

[Clive FosterParticipant @clivefoster55965]

Posted by Vic on 16/12/2015 18:36:00:

Very true. My grammar and spelling is not always the best but it's surprising how bad predictive text can make your posts look unless you triple check before hitting the submit button.

Oh yay. Predictive text and engineering vocabulary just don't go together. Be nice if you could buy extra dictionaries with the more specialised terms. Spell checks can be as bad. For example been trying to teach my Apple systems that loctite is a valid word for years now and they just won't have it. Can be embarrassing when I don't catch every occasion when it insists on correcting to lactate!

Worst thing with forums is the rapid response cycle means you can't do the classic write it this morning, read it in the afternoon, edit tomorrow morning process which greatly helps occasional writers in avoiding errors or inadvertent nonsense. I guess everybody knows how difficult it is to proof read your own work. You know exactly what you just wrote, even if you didn't. Worse is inadvertent editing clumsy near sense into elegant, or even inelegant, nonsense when you loose sight of the overall text and meaning whilst concentrating on a small part. Done that a time or three myself and breathed a huge sigh of relief after cancelling the post before too many people have seen it. I may be a fool but shouting proof out to the whole world is embarrassing.

Reasonable grammar, spelling and punctuation is the soul of effective communication. It doesn't have to be sophisticated "look I've got a PhD in English" stuff. Simple sentences work fine. Might need a few more but the job gets done. No reasonable person will jump on any contributor whose writing is less than perfect so long as its clear they are making an effort. Its the lazy, steam of consciousness, all one lump of texting contractions that really grate. I've often found that when I have problems carefully drafting out a query setting out the relevant context is enough for me to figure the answer myself so I'm perhaps less patient than I should be when requests for help appear to have been made within a few seconds of getting stuck without taking time for reflection.

Every forum seems to evolve its own tone of normal writing style which folk tend to soak up in greater or lesser degree. I've no doubt that if contributors who are reasonable at English (not me, I do science speak!) keep to a reasonable standard the folk who are weaker in this area will soak things up almost by osmosis until the sudden realisation of "hey I can do just as well".

Clive.

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

Posted by Clive Foster on 16/12/2015 21:12:07:

Posted by Vic on 16/12/2015 18:36:00:

Very true. My grammar and spelling is not always the best but it's surprising how bad predictive text can make your posts look unless you triple check before hitting the submit button.

Oh yay. Predictive text and engineering vocabulary just don't go together. Be nice if you could buy extra dictionaries with the more specialised terms. Spell checks can be as bad. For example been trying to teach my Apple systems that loctite is a valid word for years now and they just won't have it. Can be embarrassing when I don't catch every occasion when it insists on correcting to lactate!

Clive.

Clive, are you saying that Apple systems do not have a means of learning new words that you add to its dictionary?

Ian P

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Ian Phillips on 16/12/2015 21:53:53:

Clive, are you saying that Apple systems do not have a means of learning new words that you add to its dictionary?

Ian P

Any word that is not in Apple's dictionary cannot possibly be valid

Neil

(Always amused me that Microsoft's built in dictionary didn't contain 'Powerpoint&#39.

[VicParticipant @vic]

You can add words to both Mac OS and IOS dictionaries.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Vic on 17/12/2015 00:26:48:

You can add words to both Mac OS and IOS dictionaries.

.

In the original 'spirit' of this thread, I should mention that he evidently cannot.

… You can, and I can, but Clive can not.

MichaelG.

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