English please?

I know I'm not the only one that feels this way, but after trying to decipher through some people's questions on here, my head spins. I really try to be as helpful as I can, but when some do not punctuate, spell out words, and so on, I have trouble trying to understand their question/comment. It also, sadly, affects my motivation to answer questions from those who type this way. It's just irritating to me that some bring "1337 5P34K" and "internet shorthand" into these forums, where a degree of literacy is expected. Sorry, just had to get that off my chest after trying to read some of the threads on here tonight.

please link to some examples, i need a good laugh.

I feel your pain, and though I'm often not 100% gramatically correct (spelling included), more like 90%, I can't stand these common issues, though they're mostly in game:

- Using all caps, especially when you're having a conversation and the person continues to reply in all caps
- Almost always a noob indicator, a sentence with the word "wat" in it and no question mark at the end ("WAT YOU WANT" would annoy the hell out of me)

There are many more, those just popped out in my mind and I can't be bothered to write any more, it's bed time

EDIT: Yes, examples please :-D

^^Perfect example. Thanks eom.

I can't stand the ones who never use punctuation or paragraphs. Makes me want to smack them with a week old fish.

Actually the thing that REALLY gets to me is the simple fact that about 80% of the guru population don't understand the difference between a plural and a possession.

If there's anything that get my blood boiling it's people that can't or don't use punctuation of any sort at all. I can stand spelling mistakes here and there as long as I can understand what a person is trying to say. However, wen u speel liek tis an xpect ppl 2 undastan u den dunt xpect a gud replie. The real issue of course, is that people are too concerned with trying to save some time. As a result, they type in internet shorthand (u for you, for example) and get so used to typing in that manner that they only know to type that way.

I understand using shorthand in instant messaging, etc, but in-game it's unnecessary. The problem I have is when I read this "form" of english in game, I get the notion that the person is a complete noob or an idiot. But not always, from what I've learned. Laziness FTW.
The only thing I get from those messages are a couple of laughs. On GWG, every so often I'll read a paragraph length post that has one mark of punctuation. At the end. -_-

Things that get on my nerbes ingame include:

"Dun agro that group"
What the hell is dun? and when did people start using it. I realize it is "don't" but its moronic since it has been more then one person using it.

Also were used in place of we are, without adding ' to make it we're, I read it as it is spelt, meaning it sounds kind of like where.

Ah yes, the language called "f**kwit". Most commonly used by the sub-species 'Smacktard'. They can usually be seen hanging around street corners swigging on white cider whilst shouting and threatening passers-by with abuse. Failing that, just look out for their mating plumage, it looks something akin to a brightly coloured Vauxhall Corsa with plastic bit's attached and an exhaust two sizes to big which put's out their mating call.

When cornered, these 'smacktards' have a pretty good defense mechanism. They retreat into a huddle and cover their heads with a flappy piece of fabric called a 'hoodie'.

Ah, yes. This has been bugging me for quite some time as well. Since I typically try my best to communicate as coherently as possible, I can't figure out why some people refuse to offer me the same courtesy. What really gets me is when people will use l337speak or some other form of internet shorthand to try and give me commands while fighting in-game, then has the nerve to complain about me not following their commands later on. Since I prefer to play as Mesmer, I typically won't read anything that takes longer than a second to read if I am engaged in combat. I simply don't have the time, and I certinally am not going to try to crack somebody's special code when my attention is needed elsewhere.

In my mind's eye, these people end up appearing as some backwater, inbred, home schooled, buck-toothed hillbillies who are only moments away from creating some 'Deliverance'-like scene where I'm cornered deep within the Maguuma jungle and suddenly told that my mesmer has "a reel purdy mouth."

Another thing that I find amusing are the people who start messages or posts with something along the lines of: "Please forgive my English. It is the fifth language I have studied and am still learning." In my experience, the people who start out with something like that often speaks, or at least writes, the language better than 60%-70% of the people I come across and have no reason to apologize.

At this point, I forget where the hell I was going in the first place…

I guess that I’m essentially fed up with all the people online who might as well be saying something along the lines of: “Hey, Billie-Ray! Ya wanna go frog-stickin’ wit me in a lil bit here? Since daddy been dead drunk an I finnish all ma chores, ma mamma says I’cn ride da mule anywheres I wanna. So, you wanna come an… Hey! Where ma hog go? SSSOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE! SOUIE, SOUIE, SSSSSSSSSOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUIIIIIIIIIEEE EEEEE!”

I really am sick of the ‘f u cn reed dis, y shood i lrn 2 spl?’ syndrome I see all the freaking time.

/Rant&Rave

You need to understand that many players in the us districts are from europe, korea, china, togo, fiji and so on. So you can't expect them to speak and type correctly.

For example if I spend some time in an international district in HA trying to talk to some german guys and if after that german session I listen to my guildies spanish maybe i get a bit confused and type somethin stupid. Of course, there are native americans born in some far corner of the US who speak/type some of the wierdest dialect I ever encountered during my life.

But hey, if you read the EULA you wont see anything that forces people type correctly.

One more thing, sometimes if you don't use TS/Vent in pve and you have a noob (or let's say less experienced player) in the group who is on the way to doing some real stupid thing, you really need to let him know asap that what he does is wrong. So a short line like "don do that", or in some cases "dun do dat" pops up in the chat window even if the author usually dosen't use "internet shrthand"...

P.S. Sorry for my bad english, i do speak 5 languages and i am learning the 6th thanks to guildwars (and it's not korean )

Yeah, but the players who come from non-english-speaking countries try to get their english right, and even though the sentence structure is sometimes bad, most words are spellt correctly.

btw, Fiji's national language is English, they have no excuse, unless of course, that means that we don't mind Canadians mis-spelling things cause they're from french canada and people from NZ mis-spelling things cause they are a dual-language country as well.

Oh yeah, and I claim ESL!

Do like I do. Go away from the Guru for months at a time and return for a few laughs, then leave.

In a year, nothing has changed, the complaints remain the same. But the game has remained great.

It gets to me. Half the time if someone says something that takes me more than half a second to comprehend and it's not an official language (1337 is not a language, just a retarted way of typing that really doesn't shorten anything) i just leave it. Chatbox shorthand i can stand but that's no excuse not to know the difference between now, know and no, as well as (this is my pet peeve) their, there and they're. You wouldn't believe how many people i've seen get them mixed up. HOW PEOPLE, HOW!?!! If a sentence is all shorthand like wot u wont (another inefficient way of typing)I would normally be tempted to pick up a baseball bat and show them up close.

The foreigners...well, that's to be expected. They don't know abbreviations too well, and have learnt a different way to how we have. As a 1st language, English is quite easy to change. As a 2nd or beyond, your 1st language cuts in. By the time you associate a word with an object instead of word-1st language name-object you can shorten it. Basically, i couldn't do Spanish in shorthand and it still takes me a while to recall some things.

Maybe we should have a little English tutorial or something. Give someone a 1337 or shorthand word and then show them how to use that word in proper English. As well as learning to use punctuation. I can stand missing the capitals, I can't be screwed half the time ,but missing commas and full stops makes it hard to read...

Learn a language, speak it, write it type it.

Don't be a lazy guit and try and shorten it.

In all, you will never get rid of this, until people get shot on sight for it.


Oooo...just came to me. Have an auto filter on the forums for shorthand and 1337 5P34|<

To this day I still can't understand why so many native speakers of English can't understand the difference between "your" and "you're" Heck, English was my second language and I can understand the difference. What's their excuse?

I agree
(i'm from Italy )

Ah well, if it's calming for you. The same applies to other languages. I often switch to the english districts, so that i don't have to listen to the stupid babbling of my fellow compatriots.

Not that it is any better in there. But it's easier to ignore for me.

What cracks me up is that of the people I see on the forums that suffer from this the most, they tend to appear to be from England. And the call Americans (from the US) abusers of the language?

There is some tendency to be lax on absolutely correct grammar and punctuation on message boards, but people don't even seem to try or care anymore. If they aren't doing it on purpose, I feel sorry for them when they try to go into a real job.

lol looks like some people get upset about the funniest things. As long as you communicate what your trying to say the way you want to then ‘tough sh*t’ if it upsets anyone else, that’s their problem. If I want to shorten something I say then I will...absolutely the end of story....are you really expecting me to obey your orders?....pft!

Btw nice spelling and grammar mistakes buddy lol… you Smacktard!..... Attitudes like that are the mark of the nOOb.

small minded snobs…..nothing more...get a life and stop bitching about peoples spelling ffs!

Fixed

And what does the Fiery Flame Spitter have to do with anything?


Sorry, couldn't resist

lol nice thank you

Buon giorno.

In all honesty you have to give some people some slack with the typing. When people come home to play a game like i do after doing 6 hours of work and 3 hours of night school, im exhausted......


Asking me to try and remember to type grammatically correct, with correct sentence structure etc etc is just to much after having to do that for 9 hours i just want to have fun.

If i have a message to convey, i want to convey short and effectively. Personally im a fan of using u instead of you, or hu instead of who its just i sometimes i cant be arsed to have to write it all out longhand.

When you guys start being (no other word for it) dikes to the people who come onto this game to have fun, then anet is gonna start losing customers or getting a helluva a lot more complaints.

On a closing note, i appreciate seeing everything neatly typed with punctuation but it is not a requirement for me to decide someones maturity level. I am 24 and may still type like a 12 year old and at those times i just cant be arsed, wlel anyways this is me $.02

hey Azagoth, since when did you come around my local area to see this speicies?

are you also reserching the other speices?
Brit-Chav
Asia-Chav.....(yes, we do have them....like britchav, only deals drugs and think they are black when they are asian lol)
semi-chav.....(they simply want to blend into the native fauna by *looking* like a brti-chav)
and the femail dominatied species....Mom1-chav....also known as Breeder-Chav

i could help you with their habitats and breeding habits, if you like ^^

yes, i to have a dislike for leet and text message typing, though i can usually understand it.
however i have to be frank, my brain wants to talk faster than my hads and spelling can keep up with sometimes, my co-ordination is bad on keyboards and i cant touch type to save my life....
i also get letters mixed up when i type to fast, so they come out backwards...
however, i do try to keep a handle on it when i can..i guess it depends when i am posting, to whom (?) i am reply to and how cold my fingers are...

Internet slang and 1337 are fine once in a while, but I, too, sometimes feel the world of GW to be lacking literate people. Can get annoying if you're in a group with people all going "wut we doin" or people who ignore me when I say "Stop shouting in caps!!!". I spent a while on the europe servers before switching back (because nary a soul was on really due to timezone messups). Saw a lot more realistic PvE names and nothing like, "The Monk Of Doom", and I saw a lot less internet slang/1337. I seem to make more typos on GW than on other comp applications, don't know why, the chatbox seems to just "stick" in a way. Can't describe the feeling. I only use 1337 when I'm doing something crazy, like if we just defeated a boss that took ages. Rayea - I agree, sometimes my brain is faster than my hands, thusly resulting in some messups.

I used to rp a lot on Warcraft III TFT, got so annoyed at the occasional idiot who talked like "wat?". Usually though such ways of speaking are fine, unless excessive or REALLY annoying. I just hate those people who talk in caps all the time.

Many of us Guru-ers seem to be the literate ones and not the crazy ones. We're just one of those "factions" of people that don't act like the usual mindless 12 hour gamer...



...even if we are 12 hour gamers ourselves.

im not the fastest typer ever, so i often write "u" instead of "you", and almost never use apostrophe unless it changes the meaning of what im trying to say. I see nothing wrong with that.

I'll go ahead and ask the same question. I've encountered very many people with English as their native language, and I usually find myself correcting their mistakes. Here's the catch: I'm Norwegian. English is my second language. If anything, they should be correcting me! :P

Ah but that is very much not the case for ESL people.

There is a great difference between learning a second language and learning your native language that you speak every day.

When you learn a second language, there is far more emphasis on learning grammar, vocabulary and word usage. If you don't, you don't learn the other language very well.

When you are a native speaker, you don't really have to learn the rules because you hear them all the time and for the most part you use it correctly, even if you don't know why.

Often times, speakers of more than one language are far more careful and correct in every language they speak/write than only native speakers.

You wouldn't believe the number of people that failed middle/high-school English classes and at the same time, when I was taking Spanish in college, we ocassionally had a native Spanish speaker in our class who would get poor grades. Learning a lanugage is far more than just being able to speak it.

I always like to say that the way that a message is delivered is often more important than the message itself.

Some typos and grammar errors are to be expected. Not everything has to be perfect. But there is a level in which it just becomes unbearable and not worth my time to read or try to understand unless you want to put some effort into trying to convey what you want to say in a coherent manner.

I find myself typing in non-traditional ways in game becuase you are usually trying to get something out quickly in the middle of a fight. I also often wind up typing in caps because my vent press to talk key is the caps lock key, so I am not always sure which mode I am in.

Man you can vent about the grammer usage. Everyone sounds like they have a english major or something. Unlike some, i hve a PhD.

Heh don't wanna be mean or cruel. But it seems the younger ones 15-28, people in school or college likes the shortcuts in writings.

And, the lets say more experinced, um, people whose been on the world longer, likes the correct puncuation and grammar usage.

Communication is a two-way street. Just because you say something the way you want to, doesn't mean you're communicating; the message has to be understood and taken in by someone else before it becomes communication. Which I believe is the problem people in this thread are having: someone tries to save time by using a form of shorthand that actually takes longer to communicate with, due to the misunderstandings it causes.

Just because the person typing it up knew what they meant doesn't mean others will, which is why we have grammatical rules and such to begin with. Messages get across most efficiently when we're all on the same page, which is why in such things as instant messages internet shorthand works fine. Usually you know the person on the other side and have some kind of previous knowledge about their style of shorthand, and they know yours. The problem comes when you throw it out at a complete stranger who has to decipher it and may take three times as long to understand what you've just attempted to say than if you had added in a few extra keystrokes.


...not to rag on individual people, but somewhere in here it was mentioned using "hu" instead of "who," and I thought this illustrated a point. It saves all of 1 key-press, and now has teammates trying to figure out what on Earth "hu" means (if you haven't grouped with friends/guildies who know you, anyway). Phonetic spellings like that seem easy enough to get, but when one is reading silently, they really don't jump out as much as one would think. I don't think there are too many players who read everything typed in the chat box out-loud. Therefore, even using "ho" would be easier to understand, since it is one letter off of the intended word and even the most anti-shorthand players will be quick to understand what could have been an innocent typo so long as the context is there. However, shorthand doesn't follow those rules that take into consideration how the message will be recieved. All it takes into consideration is the time of sending the message off.

In short, the real problem people have with internet shorthand is when its used among non-consenting parties where it doesn't qualify as communication. If you know people don't mind it and can understand you then shorthand just fine; there's no problem. However, expecting strangers to learn your own personal grammar rules is rediculous. Shorthand comes in as many flavors as there are individuals, and personally, I'd rather learn one set of grammatical rules than a billion.

My start into computer gaming is from an old text-based game, GSIII(now IV), where I have spent the last 11 years. I'm new at this 'really' massively-played game. There are times where I just have to say.. Oh.. My.. Stars!

In text-based, all you have is the written word, so right from the beginning you are judged by your name and then by how you 'speak' in-game. So "Lord Doomsday Gunnagetusuker" that pops into the game speaking computereze is going to find himself, if not actually pulled from the game, having a fairly rough go.

I'm in the habit of even spelling out numbers when speaking in-game, nothing is abbreviated. Yeah, yeah, I'm a diehard purest! At least I can say, because of the limitations placed on the players in-game, it carries over to the related message boards, so we really didn't have all this text message woot stuff.

Since I'm new to Guild Wars, I read these forums a lot (as a side bar: thank you to all you wonderful and heplful posters!) Sheesh, there are times when I can't even understand the question, let alone the answers!

I feel so loooost and confuzzzed! I'm in total agreement with those of you that sit back and shake your heads.

I do miss the RP <sniffles> and my head hurts <groans> when I even attempt to understand what's being said both on the boards and in-game.

P.S. If anyone would like to at attempt some RP or at least go out and have some fun in-game.. PM me! (LOL, even took me awhile to figure out what THAT meant!) It's Faewyn Piber and my girls can use all the help that's offered!

Cheers!

Surely a person of your intelligence doesnt get baffled by someone using 'hu' instead of 'who'. My point is that even though you complain about shorthand you still understand it.....therefore by your own admission it is communication so dont pretend its unreasonable to expect others to put 2-2 together and get 4 for a basic typo. My point was also more specifically against those who complain about punctuation etc and being snobby about the English language when most of them arent even English. Im sorry but I will not be told how to speak, punctuate, type or communicate by anyone and I do all of the above just fine.

Also, thats only your opinion that it doesnt qualify as communication ..look up the term 'communication' in the dictionary it is quite specific about what qualifies as communication... including letting feelings known or even gestures.

Dont be snobs about typing English, you only give yourself another unjustified reason to try to look down your nose at others.

lolthxplzwtf

Not exactly. I'd fall right about in the middle of that 15-28 age group. My point I'm trying to make is that it is sad/pathetic/irritating when a certain person's posts are unreadable because of their extreme lack of grammar. Such as 10-line run-on sentences without a comma or period or anything, or the abbreviation of every word in some way. The bottom line is that it makes a person appear foolish and lazy when they type this way. On the other hand, the mere lack of an apostrophe isn't going to get me upset, it's when the person cannot convey what they want to say properly, thus making it difficult to read.

Indira said it well: So I'm not trying to change the world here, but just to point out how ridiculous typing that way here on Guru is.

Battle Torn, for the most part your posts are fine. There are a few mispellings, but nothing to take offense over. However, on these forums, there are rules concerning abuse of the English language. IMO these rules are aimed more at the people that continually bludgeon the English language, using all the aforementioned "shorthand". Whether you choose to follow the rules or not, they are there and hopefully enforced at least to some degree.

Yes true, but you cant hide the fact people are using others lack of grammar etc for no other reason than to be snobbish and look down their noses. Some attacking the lower classes and theorizing on what type of scumbag uses shorthand etc. If someone has such difficulty typing or communicating then its probably due to some disability or lack of education probably due to some circumstances that no one would wish upon themselves and these people deserve our help and support. Even the ones who are just plain stupid do not deserve the remarks and abuse given by some of the others in this post and others like it, acting like a pack of scavengers grouping up and attacking them for some cheap kick and self importance trip. Do not contradict me here...search is your friend, there are plenty of examples, even in this thread.

Also if these rules were enforced to any degree then the threads that make you offended with bad grammar and punctuation would be closed and I havent seen that happen. In addition to this if these rules were enforced then they would discriminate against people with dyslexia or other disabilities or even foreigners whose English is not very good. So do these people get excluded?

Also dont you understand that I do not care the slightest if my posts did 'offend' anyone though bad spelling or grammar etc. I simply do not require it to.

I simply cannot comprehend how bad grammar alone could 'offend' anyone? and if it did then you have some issues. It also sickens me that people are more concerned in arguing the toss with me about spelling when some of the previous posts here are so discriminative and offensive.

What you don't see is the mods attempting to delete all of those "spell-checking" posts. Insulting another user for grammatical or spelling mistakes falls under flaming and isn't allowed.

Search would have a hard time pulling it up.

Currently we only close the most illegible of threads. It's just a huge problem and a waste of moderators' time to go through and edit/close/delete every post like that. I'd close every unreadable thread, but then I'd get a lot of unreadable PMs.

It is for the most part very easy to distinguish between people having a problem using the English language and people being lazy and/or using Internet shorthand. I am very aware of several forum users who are nonnative speakers or who have disabilities; the most problems do not typically come from these two categories of people but from (in their user profiles anyway) teenagers.

The problem is not the lone grammatical or spelling mistake, but when the whole thread is plagued with them something's wrong. Repeatedly typing with shorthand indicates 1. you didn't bother reading the guidelines, or 2. you don't care to follow them, neither of which shows much on your part. Constantly typing run-on sentences or illegible paragraphs is not typical of even nonnative speakers and shows either a lack of education or unwillingness to edit.

If your posts are terrible grammar- and spelling-wise, one suggestion is to use a spellchecker on it first, or at least manually go through your posts. I usually make 3 or 4 revisions before I make a long post, and I usually catch my own mistakes.

ok fair point I cannot see the regulators attempts to delete posts, it would take too much time to delete all posts etc, perhaps others should leave the regulation to the regulators and refrain from posting negative remarks or flaming. But as a regulator I find it disturbing you havent mentioned the posts in this thread that are offensive other than to comment that they are not allowed. Indeed I did read the forum guidelines and you can see from my posts that I follow them, my point is that others commented that they were offended by some posts...haha I still cant how someone could be 'offended'.

people are getting away with flamming too much and I see repeated offenders. by flamming i reffer to the offensive remarks/posts similar to some in this thread. I do however notice that they are still there.

Lastly if you read my reaction you must realize I was responding to others who deserve your negative comments more than I do.

That is the funniest thing I have read all day.

One thing I really find hard to understand is how using numbers instead of letters came about in the first place. Do people type like that to look cool or something? Because I can't think of any other reason. Surely, most people are used to typing with letters therefore replacing those with numbers would take a little longer to get your head round to type. So, it is by no means an easier way of typing.

However, that's called l33t speak, and is not the entire issue here. The Guild Wars Guru Forums are a majority-English forum on which people write in English, but that doesn't mean people who don't speak English can't attempt to communicate in it here. I would make a swooping guess that around 20-30% of posters here aren't English-speaking. I admire how thoroughly people in other countries learn the English language, and I greatly respect those people for simply being able to write here and be understood, something I think I would never manage to do in another language. I don't at all mind non-English people posting here, and I also don't mind when they make small errors. Of course, if they are making so many mistakes that it is illegible to English-speaking people, they should re-consider whether they should be posting here, but I have never seen a case like that.

Now I know there are varying levels of writing ability in these forums, which is of course evidenced by spelling and grammar mistakes and the like. Generally, of course, those making spelling and grammar mistakes (I'm talking about English-speaking people here) are likely to be younger, whereas older people have been fully educated and do not really make mistakes. I respect these different levels of writing ability. However, whatever your writing ability is, please don't write completely like you would in instant messaging programs and such. Small things like lol, rofl, lmao, omg, and shortenings of game terms are ok. But when you start writing everything as shortened as possible, I think people other than just me get annoyed. Often in the time you are spending thinking about shortening things you could have written it out in full. These are internet forums, or message boards, and in most places like this you'll find you are expected to write in full, like if you were handwriting a letter or something, not as if you were on MSN Messenger. Whatever your normal best writing (dammit typing) ability is, use it. Refrain from shortening and try to look over for spelling and grammar mistakes that might confuse people.

Most of all, I really dislike it when people use l33t speak. If you use this, please use it only amongst others that use it. I don't think it's cool and I don't think it's easy to type.

Anyone ever get 'lol tis es teh internet u donts need 2 talk good lol'?

One time this person was screaming at me non-stop in all caps about how he wanted me to use the AOL Girl Chat language. The lollersation went on for about 20 minutes, though it was rather one sided