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Re: Why ? !!!

Posted: Thu Oct 24, 2013 8:59 pm
by Punya
uan wrote:
Simon E. wrote:Yes, well until and unless we all become you, perhaps careful sentence construction will serve communication better than will a forest of exclamation marks.
I could have phrased it as:

1. Simon E. thinks to himself, "hmmm, if only all people were me ... "

or

2. If all people could become you with careful sentence construction that matches specifically how you process information ...

or

3. People tend to respond best to a specific communication style and it's more challenging to understand others when they communicate differently from how we normally process information. It'd be great if everyone could change to match our own specific style of communicating, based on our own specific brain functioning, the culture and life experience we've had, the type of education and learning we've had, our own level of understanding on a given topic, our sense of humor, our world view, our etc ad infinitum. Even more importantly, if only people could be mind readers to know exactly what we need to know. And when we write to others, to fill in all the gaps and inferences and nuances that is implied in want we write.

or

4. There must be some wisdom in, and reason behind, the 84,000 Dharma doors.
:rolling:

I love this uan. I've no idea whether it applies to Simon but this is how I spend my day. Hopefully my mind will eventually become more flexible and discard these unwanted habits.

Personally, with all due respect to beloved english teachers, I am happy with DWers expressing themselves in whatever manner they like as long as it meets the TOS. And that includes the text talk, exclamation marks of which I am fond or even starting sentences with "and".

Re: Why ? !!!

Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2013 7:19 am
by disjointed
Special writing styles distinguish internet dialects from each other. ( º, ª )

Re: Why ? !!!

Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2013 7:21 am
by disjointed
Punya wrote:
uan wrote:
Simon E. wrote:Yes, well until and unless we all become you, perhaps careful sentence construction will serve communication better than will a forest of exclamation marks.
I could have phrased it as:

1. Simon E. thinks to himself, "hmmm, if only all people were me ... "

or

2. If all people could become you with careful sentence construction that matches specifically how you process information ...

or

3. People tend to respond best to a specific communication style and it's more challenging to understand others when they communicate differently from how we normally process information. It'd be great if everyone could change to match our own specific style of communicating, based on our own specific brain functioning, the culture and life experience we've had, the type of education and learning we've had, our own level of understanding on a given topic, our sense of humor, our world view, our etc ad infinitum. Even more importantly, if only people could be mind readers to know exactly what we need to know. And when we write to others, to fill in all the gaps and inferences and nuances that is implied in want we write.

or

4. There must be some wisdom in, and reason behind, the 84,000 Dharma doors.
:rolling:

I love this uan. I've no idea whether it applies to Simon but this is how I spend my day. Hopefully my mind will eventually become more flexible and discard these unwanted habits.

Personally, with all due respect to beloved english teachers, I am happy with DWers expressing themselves in whatever manner they like as long as it meets the TOS. And that includes the text talk, exclamation marks of which I am fond or even starting sentences with "and".
When I was in university years and years ago, my English professors stressed that you CAN start sentences with "and" and "but".

Re: Why ? !!!

Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2013 8:53 am
by Simon E.
And this is relevant to the thread, how ?

Re: Why ? !!!

Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2013 10:28 am
by Punya
Thanks disjointed. I'm relieved to hear it!

Re: Why ? !!!

Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2013 10:46 am
by Anders
Johnny Dangerous wrote:I'm more guilty of "....." than "!!!", and the cause is pure laziness.
I love a good "....". A dramatic pause goes a long way.

Re: Why ? !!!

Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2013 11:20 am
by Simon E.
Do you ?...................me too.
But you see ........hadn't been invented in Mr Russell's day so his internalised voice is silent on the topic. :smile:

Re: Why ? !!!

Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2013 1:27 pm
by Seishin
I think I'm guilty of just about every grammatical error so far on this thread. :consoling:

Re: Why ? !!!

Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2013 1:32 pm
by Simon E.
Me too. That doesn't stop me from having my pet beefs. :smile:

Re: Why ? !!!

Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2013 2:00 pm
by Anders
This excellent video by Stephen Fry sets the tone for how to approach language well enough for me:

phpBB [video]


Aside from that, I tend to follow a few simple maxims from Bertrand Russel's How I Write:
  • "First: never use a long word if a short word will do.

    Second: if you want to make a statement with a great many qualifications, put some of the qualifications in separate sentences.

    Third: do not let the beginning of your sentence lead the reader to an expectation which is contradicted by the end.

    Take, say, such a sentence as the following, which might occur in a work on sociology:

    Human beings are completely exempt from undesirable behaviour-patterns only when certain prerequisites, not satisfied except in a small percentage of actual cases, have, through some fortuitous concourse of favourable circumstances, whether congenital or environmental, chanced to combine in producing an individual in whom many factors deviate from the norm in a socially advantageous manner.

    Let us see if we can translate this sentence into English. I suggest the following:

    All men are scoundrels, or at any rate almost all. The men who are not must have had unusual luck, both in their birth and in their upbringing.

    This is shorter and more intelligible, and says just the same thing. But I am afraid any professor who used the second sentence instead of the first would get the sack."
For the second maxim, I would expand it to say, especially in internet discussions:" Where at all possible, break into paragraphs. Stop short only when your prose begins to resemble poetry."

Re: Why ? !!!

Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2013 2:11 pm
by Simon E.
Well, one pats one's little thoughts on the head and sends them out into the great world of cyber like anxious parents. Whereupon like children, they return changed and grown and have matured into something quite different.
Which is a good and natural thing.
This thread for example has become a very different creature from my light hearted moan about the plethora of exclamation marks which characterise some responses.
Hasn't it done well , bless it ? :D

Re: Why ? !!!

Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2013 5:16 pm
by Anders
It has!!!!

Re: Why ? !!!

Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2013 6:00 pm
by Simon E.
I see what you did there... 8-)

Re: Why ? !!!

Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2013 6:09 pm
by DGA
I teach composition for a living (most semesters anyway--right now I'm a copy editor at an academic journal). So I know some things about punctuation. Here's the most important thing: the purpose of punctuation, spelling, and other conventions of usage is to get a specific meaning across in the way you want to get it across, to a particular audience. If this means using sentence fragments, starting sentences with coordinating conjunctions, throwing in ellipses to indicate pauses... then it's effective.

Back to the OP: My gripe with all the INTERNET SHOUTING!!!1! of the zzzOMG! OBAMAR IS A TERRIST!!1!! variety is that it communicates so little, and what it does communicate is often against the intentions of the author. It convinces no one who is not already convinced.

Re: Why ? !!!

Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2013 6:12 pm
by KonchokZoepa
Jikan that is some intelligent communication skills you have there.

Re: Why ? !!!

Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2013 9:55 pm
by Punya
Simon E. wrote:Well, one pats one's little thoughts on the head and sends them out into the great world of cyber like anxious parents. Whereupon like children, they return changed and grown and have matured into something quite different.
Which is a good and natural thing.
This thread for example has become a very different creature from my light hearted moan about the plethora of exclamation marks which characterise some responses.
Hasn't it done well , bless it ? :D
Yes, I've noticed that. It's best not to get too attached. It reminds me of Kahlil Gibran's verses about children:

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts, 
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
 and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Re: Why ? !!!

Posted: Sat Oct 26, 2013 6:43 am
by shel
Simon E. wrote:I have have become over sensitive to the phenomenon...
I suspect Mr. Russell might have had something to say about say saying things twice twice. Or are you a stut ttt tt stutterer!!??

Re: Why ? !!!

Posted: Sun Nov 03, 2013 5:26 am
by padma norbu
Jikan wrote:I teach composition for a living (most semesters anyway--right now I'm a copy editor at an academic journal). So I know some things about punctuation. Here's the most important thing: the purpose of punctuation, spelling, and other conventions of usage is to get a specific meaning across in the way you want to get it across, to a particular audience. If this means using sentence fragments, starting sentences with coordinating conjunctions, throwing in ellipses to indicate pauses... then it's effective.

Back to the OP: My gripe with all the INTERNET SHOUTING!!!1! of the zzzOMG! OBAMAR IS A TERRIST!!1!! variety is that it communicates so little, and what it does communicate is often against the intentions of the author. It convinces no one who is not already convinced.
One thing I can not remember since my mother corrected me a few years ago (she's basically an english teacher) was about the use of quotations. I have asked her 3x now and can't seem to remember, but I think there is one exception to the punctuation-goes-inside-quotes rule (e.g. "this," and "this.") Whenever I Google it, I always find conflicting opinions. It seems logical that if you are talking about a list of items, the comma would go outside the quotes (e.g. "a", "b", "c", "d", and finally "e"), but I'm fairly certain it should not, since I am pretty sure I quite clearly recall that being the specific mind-boggling truth I was forced to accept several years ago (in other words, in America, at least, I believe it is supposed to look like this: "a," "b," "c," "d," and finally "e."

But, there are other occasions where perhaps the punctuation comes after the quotation mark, I think; for example, if you were to write someone might think the "e" should always come after the "i", but that is not always the case, as in the case of the word "weird." Following the convention of punctuation-inside-quotation, the last half of that last sentence should be written like so: …for example, if you were to write someone might think the "e" should always come after the "i," but that is not always the case, as in the case of the word "weird." …But, I'm fairly certain that form is incorrect. Now, about that last ellipsis: should it have come at the end of the previous sentence, like so: "weird…" …or did I do it correctly? What about that last time? :) How about that weird problem with using italics and then using italics within italics so that you have to revert back to regular non-italics as I did above? Stephen King does that all the time. I think it can get awfully confusing.

By the way, nothing irks me more than an improper ellipsis, so while we're on the subject, it's not "three dots" or "four dots" (or more), it's an ellipsis! Three dots looks like this: ... and for dots looks like this: .... but an ellipses looks like this: … Please note the kerning between the so-called "dots" as the lower class may refer to them. Harrumph! It is an altogether distinct mark with it's own keyboard equivalent ("command ;" on a Mac). Now, then, I am off to stir a great big pot of manure I like to keep warm on the stove.
:stirthepot: