Now, I'm sure that this has been ranted about before, but it's really really pissing me off. This is not a flame on anyone or anything in particular. Er, and obviously, I'm not expecting P.L.O.T.E.'s to follow these perfectly.

Grammar is just as important to good writing as creativity. I mean, think about it: the point of grammar is to improve clarity in writing and speech. It doesn't matter if you have all these great ideas if you can't, no, won't take the time to express them properly.

Punctuation and capitalization are your friends. Embrace them--and don't be lazy and write in "ee comings style [sic]" because you think it's "cool". Names get capitalized; sentences get periods on the end. This is the English language, and, while you may not like it, the rules are there for a reason.

Punctuation is not decoration. This insults punctuation and makes punctuation sad. Do you want punctuation to be sad?

Contrary to popular belief, adjectives are different from adverbs. Thus, your rp is never "real cool" but instead "really cool".

Yes, I do have a stick up my butt, but I'm sick and tired of seeing "advanced rp's" who make these mistakes all the time. If these rp-ers were sending their pieces in to my literary magazine (yes, I am really the fiction editor of a lit mag), I would probably reject them, solely because of their terrible grammar. It's simply ignorance to not use correct grammar, and, furthermore, it's quite a sad thing to see.

That is all. Thank you.

Amen. I am such a grammar/spelling Nazi, it's scary. I read the grammer secton of my newspaper every day...for fun. This one gal I know is a decent enough writer, a really nice girl, but her spelling is really atrocious. It honestly reduces me to tears. For her, 'tough' is 'tuff', 'have' is 'half', 'portrait' is always, ALWAYS 'portriat', and the list goes on.

I like to feel as if each RP post is an add-on to a work of fiction, not a sixth grade English report.

'Hypocrite lecteur, mon semblable, mon frère'--check over the post you just made.

^ I knew that would happen. I'm not entirely sure what you're referring to--I used a hyphen instead of a dash somewhere, but is that what you caught?

Please correct me. Please. I can take it and dish it out.

(Oh, and the title of my post can be seen as bad grammar, I suppose.)

And I'll defend to the death my Oxford commas. :p

Perhaps it was me? Well, I can take it, if it was.

LOL. Well, neither of you did anything egregiously bad, but doesn't [sic] go outside parentheses? And "advanced rp's"--no apostrophes after acronyms.

My main point here is quite simple. It's OK to like people to keep to a certain standard, but, really, demanding perfection is a recipe for disaster. RP is supposed to be for fun. If you don't want your board overrun with people who can't write... uh... don't... accept them? It's worked for me. I've got a board full of friendly, good writers, just because I have the balls to flat-out reject.

ED: Another--you referred to RPs as 'who,' which isn't, I don't think, technically correct But I don't care. :p

Here's the thing: some people 'get' grammatical rules intuitively. I don't know why. Perhaps they've read more or written more, and absorbed proper grammar in that way. But it seems to me that grammar is only infrequently learned in school, and even less-frequently (read: never) learned due to online harangue. I've come to treat proper grammar and good writing in RPs as an extra treat. I don't demand perfect grammar on my site (I do demand a lot, but I never critique grammar after my initial accept/reject post to an app); I enjoy it when someone with perfect grammar happens along. It's a pleasant and peaceful way of life.

That said, I sometimes do get pissed off when I see horrid grammar and spelling about--and that's why I spend very little time on any forum but my own. :p

Hmm, well now I feel rather dumb.

^SmathNa, not to pick a fight, but those are the British rules. Americans (including me) still use apostrophes after abbreviations.

The reason I'm so nitpicky about grammar is that I'm a very auditory person. Grammar really impacts how I read a sentence: you know, where the pauses and inflections go. Really bad grammar I can't read and have it make sense to my ear. The whole piece suffers greatly.

That being said, I don't go all Nazi-ish on the members of my rp for using bad grammar, nor did I post this in the debate forum. This was me blowing off some steam at people I wouldn't normally tell off, because I know perfect grammar is near unattainable, however much I wish otherwise.

ETA: And Arakis, your post is kind of ironic, because it's near-perfect, grammatically. hee hee.

I'm going to have to agree with my buddy Sam up there. She's right about some people picking up grammar more easily than others. It's not worth the effort to get worked up over missing commas and such. I used to do it, but not anymore. Sure it might take me one or two reads to get it right because that comma they missed was critical to the flow of the sentence, but in the end, it's still easy enough to comprehend.


PS. I'm surprised no one started up with the "no starting sentences with conjunctions" rule. :p

I'm going to avoid the overall discussion since I know there are people far better suited to it than I. I couldn't resist the apostrophe/acronym topic, though.

Sam's actually American, as am I. And I definitely did not learn to use an apostrophe after an acronym. (It's actually a huge pet peeve of mine. :) Perhaps this is something which is taught differently across the country? I know that consistent rules about any subject are not hard and fast when it comes to schools.

Wow, people are on my side? That takes all the fun out of it.

Seriously, Lima, I'm not picking a fight with anyone. I get frustrated by bad grammar, too, but it's completely avoidable. Just don't post with people whose writing you can't stand. If that's no one, you need to reevaluate your membership criteria. It's quite simple.

I like good grammar but I don't try to enforce it beyond the simple stuff because grammar isn't really in these days. Rules like not ending sentences with prepositions or starting them with conjunctions are very, very outdated now. My grandmother tries to enforce them. Also I don't have the patience with the rules that I see as silly to learn perfect grammar.

I looked the apostrophe situation up because it makes me want to kill something when I see RPG's or something of the like and very sadly it's acceptable either way. Not that I will accept it. But that's the way it is.

Where did you check, Emma? Strunk & White?

It's deplorable, but more and more grammar rules and spelling standardizations are being eroded by popular misuse.

I have no idea what that is. I just looked up a few websites on the Internet, as I do. Some fancy places that looked knowledgeable and had URLs that I trusted because they were poncy names I knew but can't remember now.

Not that it really matters whether it's correct or not, because people do it anyway.

Some really do need to go, but others should stay. In my opinion. If the world was perfect everyone would use my grammar. If it was nearly perfect everyone would choose their own grammar and make sensible choices about which rules to ignore and which to adhere to. Sadly it's a terrible world and a lot of people abuse it. -sniffle-

Strunk and White accepts the apostrophe, as does Lynne Truss (in her American section), as does my middle school grammar textbook written before the fall of the Soviet Union, as does the current MLA guidebook. Erosion of grammar standards? I think not.

Just so you know, I really don't care. You are all members I genuinely respect/enjoy, and I'm not going to come to blows over an apostrophe. This was directed to the grammar troglodytes of the world, not genuinely good writers.

I'm sorry if I'm seen as fanning the flames, but for years and years I've been running away from disagreements that always seem to arise, funnily enough, from my rants. You have your opinion, I have mine.

(Besides, this isn't about the people I rp with, Sam, though thanks for the advice. I really appreciate it. It's about rp's and rp-er's I see around who blatantly use some of the worst grammar/syntax I've ever come across (and I've recently read the diary of a 4th grader) and then sometimes fancy themselves "advanced".)

All right, (See how it's not alright? Alright isn't a word) I'm done here. If this wants to become a debate it can, but I, for one, will be keeping my neb out of this.

:p 'Alright' is accepted as a word. I checked.

Now I'm really amused.

No hard feelings! I happen to agree with you--rants are rants, I know. I've gotten into trouble that way myself.

Cheers!

"Alright" goes either way. Some sources accept it as valid and some don't. I've always thought the difference between all right and alright is that all right means everything is right. Alright is an alternative to saying "okay".

I kind of have to agree with you, Lima. Poor spelling, grammar and misuse of punctuation get to me, too. I never say anything about it because I don't know all of the ins and outs of grammar, etc. and I'm sure I make a bazillion mistakes when I write. I tend to get bogged down in the details, however, and when I read a post where something is incorrect it drives me to distraction. If the post is absolutely riddled with inaccuracies I'll sometimes skip over it because it's so overwhelming. Like I said, I'm so consumed with the details that I don't pick up the larger picture.

I would never beat anyone over the head about this, although I'm not saying that's what you're doing here. I look at it like it's my shortcoming for having tunnel vision.

bad spelling drives me to tears.

grammar & punctuation not so much.

*points to Death (of the) Author by Roland Barthes*

if you do it right, that stuff can keep your readers interested.

see also; Marshal McLuhan

My friends call me a grammar nazi. I definitely agree with you! I hate when people can't use proper grammar. It isn't as if it's sincerely hard to add a period or capitalize a word. My site even has a forum for RP/Grammar help!!!!

I really really really hate text talk as well. People think it's acceptable to use it in RP. I don't even think it's acceptable for instant messaging! The only time I use text talk is when Im almost to my character limit on my phone. It's annoying.

Good grammar and spelling help people to be able to read a post in the first place and understand it in the second. If I see something written all lower case, with no attempt at paragraphing or punctuation, you know what? I'll skip it. I won't even try to read it because it makes my eyes hurt and my brain explode.

One of the things that really bugs me shows up in print, in the women's weekly magazines I read when on my breaks at work (out of pure boredom, I hasten to add!): 'Me and my husband...' or 'My husband and me...' You don't say 'Me did this'; you say 'I did this'. Therefore, it's 'My husband and I...'

That's the only one I can think of off the top of my head.

Baha. My favorites are always...you're and your. Srsly. It is NOT your a jerk. IT IS YOU ARE A JERK! Get it right. Same goes with their and there. People suck at getting the correct word. That annoys the hell out of me. Other then that, I'm cool with most grammar. It's just the simple easy shit that bothers me.

Seriously, Lady Hikari.

My other favorites are they're, their and there. People find fun ways to screw this one up.