When it becomes socially unacceptable to insist on standards and correctness, people either don’t learn how to write properly - or they are cowed into silence when making corrections.
It is also just disgraceful and disrespectful toward something as magnificent and powerful as language, akin to scribbling on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. It’s one thing to know the rules and intelligently break them in a novel way, but the lack of correctness we’re talking about is merely laziness.
Just to reiterate here: the issue isn’t so much about minor unintended errors, it’s about the attitude that minor errors are acceptable and that aspiring for some kind of excellence is discouraged.
Yes, and spelling errors don't really matter to express yourself.
> disgraceful and disrespectful toward something as magnificent and powerful as language
If language wants to take that up with me, send him or her over to my place and I'll beat 'em up! But seriously, language is a tool, it's not a work of art. Things you make with language can be a work of art, so go read those instead of the misspelled crap that drives you to this level of anger.
> it’s about the attitude
You need to chill about other people's attitudes. You cannot affect other people, and you shouldn't let them make you see red like this. Other people's opinions and attitudes are none of your business, frankly.
“It’s none of your business. Don’t worry about other people. Why are you so angry?” Etc.
I speak English and am a part of a culture that speaks English. That gives me some extremely minor influence on that culture, as it does for you and anyone else. So I certainly can “affect other people.”
Is it so hard to believe that some people like nice things, and that creating and maintaining nice things often requires adhering to certain rules and regulations, rather than unquestioning acceptance of the selfish whims of every individual?
People act like this about folks who police arbitrary standards because it's distasteful. English is what the whole body of humans who speak English make it, not some random Council of English Grammar. Anytime I write or say anything, it's English, no matter if I fucked the grammer or speeling up.
There should not be a monopoly on communication. Some people simply don't have the ability to do perfect English grammar. Neurodiverse people can have trouble saying the right thing or using the write words. I hope you understand that not only do people hate "grammar police" because you're annoying, but also because not everyone can, needs, or wants to speak perfect English.
In closing: stop being pedantic, no one likes it. I hope all my errors keep you up at night.
I'm not responding further, this conversation has run it's course.
When it becomes socially unacceptable to insist on standards and correctness, people either don’t learn how to write properly - or they are cowed into silence when making corrections.
You're wrong there.
Also, kinda inadvertently proved the parent's point: that people rush out of the woodwork to cow everyone else into silence.
> There should not be a monopoly on communication.
So why are you trying to enforce your standards on someone else?
Dude, he can speak all the proper English he wants. I’m not enforcing anything on anyone, I’m saying keep your nose out of other peoples grammar. You people give me a migraine daily, Jesus H Christ. I’m done here, you folks are insane.
Does this not indicate, to you, that you're holding a significant minority opinion? While neither significant minority or significant majority opinions are automatically wrong/right, if you're reacting this strongly to everyone around you, the only common factor is you.
IOW, when I find that I am at odds with everyone around me, I re-examine whether or not the problem is me: did I incorrectly read the room?
For example, sarcastic comments on reddit r/programming garners no real attention from the readers, while the same comment on HN gets downvoted.
What I am trying to say is, read the room.
BTW: you are reacting pretty emotionally to my posts, which are all (as far as I can tell, anyway) devoid of any emotion or personal remarks. GP's original complaint was also, as far as I can tell, devoid of any anger or other emotion. Your reaction was, to me, very angry with no real reason why this was so.
Even then - yes, if you want to treat it as purely a pragmatic thing, then it’s kind of important to everyone to have the same set of rules to follow. Unless you want a church comprised of people that can’t communicate with each other because their language isn’t standardized?
This already happened in the 19th century, when spoken languages had many orthographic variations. The reason we have rules like the ones we do now is because it was a problem that needed to be solved. When you have fifty different ways of writing grammatical rules down, it becomes difficult to communicate.
Uh, you mean "standardised"? :-P
My kid is learning to read right now and the amount of exceptions I keep tripping over is crazy. And then you get things like Jabberwocky where undefined words never seen before were a large part of the point.
Things need to be "standardised enough" for the message to get across, but I'd cry if it were a 100% completely detailed specification.
not tldr but provocative thought derived: why insist that "it's" as a possessive is wrong, when it follows an existing pattern (john's, everyone's) and speech doesn't make the distinction?
for everything else, there's "its"
I believe that will get you out of 99% of the "it's vs its" problems you find in day to day life.
Bonus: If you're almost sure you need "it's" but not totally, just read the sentence as "...blah blah IT IS blah blah..." and if that doesn't make sense use "its" instead.
Edit: Some would gatekeep English, I don't personally care except that it seemed to give you a lot of stress and I hate to see someone upset, truly, so I thought I might help. I have a lot of trouble with grammar rules, too, so I have certain ways of thinking that I figure could help you and others. In reality, its or it's will read the same in your head and have further context as you read, so it doesn't really matter.
> for everything else, there's "its"
"it's" can also mean "it has".
Maybe the fact that english is so damn flexible with so many exceptions and patterns I just saw what was intended and rolled with it without even registering?!?
The top comments are going nuts over "it's" ?!? Really? I didn't even blink.
When the top comments talked about the error I reread the line a few times and saw zero issues with it.
The words flowing out of my brain say it is a "referential possessive" IE "it" in this case refers to the last noun referenced, and it has a singular relationship bound to the creator.
Yes it reverses the traditional concept of ownership (normally the creator owns the product) but that is the whole point - the website seemed to have a life of it's own and has been a burden/boon to the creator these past many years - so who really owns who in that relationship?