Internet Etiquette

[cbudvet]

Blue! I don't know how to put that little squiggle above the E! I live in Indiana and we don't get to use them.

Steve, I love the lesson in punctuation. Maybe Grandpa is really tasty.

Carl

[sblake01]

Blue! I don't know how to put that little squiggle above the E! I live in Indiana and we don't get to use them.

press and hold 'alt', hit 0233 and then release alt.....

[Arne]

Blue! I don't know how to put that little squiggle above the E!

press and hold 'alt', hit 0233 and then release alt.....

Or on a Mac, hit the 'e' key while holding the 'option' key, release both and hit the 'e' key again. é É

[Travel'n Man]

Our lawmakers make their own laws so they all get rich - to hell with the typical American.............. and now, most of us can't spell or us proper English because we are all too lazy - we're having a hell of a time! And the problem is .......it isn't getting any better!

[240260280z]

times r a chang'n

[sblake01]

You could use that as an excuse for just about anything...if you choose to.

[5thhorsemann]

The real problem is that the bar keeps getting lowered so even the dumbest kid can stumble over it and get his trophy along side the brightest.

The brightest, no longer being challenged to excel, become lazy and stupid and choose to cruise through life, exerting a minimal effort to achieve a minimal goal.

Rightly so, if you are smart enough to make a good living, you are likewise smart enough to see how big brother takes bigger and bigger chunks of the pie you struggle to grow. So you find that happy place where you make what you need to live the way you wish, and pay the lowest possible tribute to the Pharos and lords. Then you hope against hope that those morons don’t collapse the house of cards too soon.

Always remember that 49% of people are of below average intelligence, and it shows in the way they attempt to express themselves using the written word.

[TomoHawk]

What's really weird is that in the late 19th century, about 80 % of the adults were literate, and by the 1960s, it was down to 60%... Thank God that that value is slowly coming down again. But judging by cbudvet's point things may be at some kind of a stalemate.

OTOH, using the text shortcuts was appropriate a couple decades ago, when computers were limited to the number of characters you could use for names, and network bandwidth (and computer memory and screen space) in general was limited, so using acronyms, like AFAIK, and helped you save time and space, but that's no longer the case. Even cheap smartphones and tablet devices have screens that compare to the early color CRTs.

So yes, please take those extra few seconds to think of your statement so it make the point you mean, comes out in whole sentences, with good grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Make your elementary school English teachers proud of you!

I'll try not to type in the dark, so I can see where my fingers are on the keyboard; it cuts down on the typos.

[chaztg]

Latin and Ancient Greek should be mandatory in elementary education and English should always be the only recognized official spoken and written language of all legal citizens of this country, period. Competence in language and grammar is a skill only obtained through practice and reading (another lost discipline).

[psdenno]

Latin and Ancient Greek should be mandatory in elementary education...

Not sure how you came to that conclusion, but it's interesting. My child had four years of Latin in high school which may prove useful only if he needs to ask for directions to the bathroom while visiting the Vatican. On the other hand, he'll be starting his 3rd semester of Spanish at a major university in a few weeks. That will be useful in asking for directions to the bathroom almost anywhere in North America and most of South America.

Dennis

[5thhorsemann]

That's a depressing thought.

[TomoHawk]

Competence in language and grammar is a skill only obtained through practice and reading...

With the Internet, email-, and text-messages being the majority of the reading and writing younger people do these days, it pretty much explains the sad state of things.

From experience, even some people driving $50,000 cars, wearing $500 tailored suits and using $3,000 notebook PCs can't even form a good paragraph, despite the assumption that they have a good enough education to get a high-paying job to afford that expensive stuff. Some of these guys couldn't even handle a basic IT-101 assignment, despite them telling you, "I know all computer stuff, like Microsoft 'Words.'"

MS "Words."