Do you ever feel like you're going to explode when you're arguing with someone on MN....

[Kathyis6incheshigh]

....and their spelling is just awful?

And you know that if you give into the temptation to shriek 'it's MISOGYNIST' or 'USE SOME F*ING PUNCTUATION!' you will lose the argument, show yourself up as petty and snobbish, and in all ways demonstrate that you were the lesser person.

But the fact that they are saying things you don't agree with and murdering the English language at the same time makes it very hard to bear.

"'are' the lesser person", that should be

I would admit to walking away from / not contributing to threads where one or more of the active posters has no concept of either spelling or grammar - is that close enough?

Deep breath Kathy - walk away from the nasty people who can't spell

But sometimes it's a good argument. Or it's something you think is v v important and they must be shown the error of their ways!

Kathy - yes!

Yes. Very irritating when someone thinks they know it all but can't even bloody spell 'all' and you have to restrain yourself from pointing this out.

I take the "just not going there" approach.

No ...its a message board not a bloody english exam

So long as you dont let the two thoughts - you are wrong/you cant spell - merge.
Someone who cant spell can still be right, it often gives too easy a reason to dismiss someones opinion.
(not that you are doing that, just thinking out loud!)

As random says, it's a message board, not a bloody English exam. But, what people who can't spell seem to overlook is that people react to the form of the message, when it's incorrect, and don't move beyond that to the content. It's a bit like Gordon Brown vs Tony Blair. People are put off Gordon's message because of how he puts it across. Same goes for rubbish spellers and people who can't punctuate. How you write is the only evidence other people have of your intellectual ability, until you prove otherwise. Forget the liberal rubbish that well-meaning teachers have told you: good spelling and punctuation crucial.

of course that should be "are crucial".

Yes and no.

I was disagreeing with someone earlier over a point of language - it was to do with what someone had meant by a certain word. We had to agree to disagree, because neither of us could see how the other person was right.

Sometimes it's a mixture of the spelling etc and subject matter. 'I fink mi babby is well brite an i wan hm 2 go 2 grammer skule' will have my teeth itching, whereas hunning about I find irritating, personally, so I avoid those threads.

It's crap grammar on M&S ads and so on that has me going

My usage of language is generally v good and my grammar is decent, but as a memeber of the spell-check generation my spelling (unchecked as it is here) is dreadful. And I don't care. And I know that sentences shoudn't start with "And" but I do it anyway because on message boards people tend to write in a more colloquial (now that spelling has GOT to be wrong??!) form.

I figure its just poor typing.

It's a message board so all communication is written. So it matters if someone makes mistakes. The odd typo is inevitable but if a poster is being aggressive and can't even be bothered to write their message accurately, it does make me wonder about their intellectual ability. Although of course lots of people are dyslexic or have other problems and so on.

No, I like a good pedant as much as the next person (if I may use it as a verb ) but it doesn't bother me too much when I'm on a completely unrelated thread. Txt spk amuses me, lack of paragraphs annoys me. "A lovely photograph of DH and I" annoys me beyond what is normal, but other than that I don't really notice.

Agree (I rather often do) with Edam.

I shall hold back from my usual tedious disquisition on Different Attitudes To Writing, because I am feeling kindly and had a glass of wine this afternoon .

I don't mind bad spelling since often it can be a typo. It often is for me anyway.

What I can't stand is people who don't use capital letters, especially as those people often don't use punctuation properly either and you spend ages deciphering where sentences begin and end.

I know it doesn't have to be perfect and we aren't here for tying practice but I agree that it does detract from an argued point when you can read it easily.

I find it frustrating seeing a debate on here when one party has poor english skills because even if they are correct - I'll say it again; someone who cant spell can still be right - they offer an all too easy way for the other party to patronise and degrade their points.
Purely from that POV I would like to see people take a bit more time in their posts. Having said that I often dont preview and I post some terrible stuff that even I can barely understand!!

Oh god you would hate me then, my spelling, and mostly my typing, is awful at the best of times, sometimes i read back over my posts and think wtf but i dont really give a feck as long as i am getting my point across

I often can't be bothered to write accurately on MN.

I type fast and don't bother checking as I want to minimise my time on MN whilst also making the odd point I have here and there.

I am generally much more in the , I'm intersted in what poele say rather than how they say it camp, though, but obviously can see that professinally and acedemically there need to be standards.

Don't give a toss on MN though.

i thnik we shvodl all hvae a wkek of trying to wrtie lkie cod. it's acutallty a lto mrpe difficlt than it loko at frist.

but if you can actually follow the argument and respond then spelling not such an impediment

it is discussion board not Harvard referenced discourse