It's refreshing to visit a forum who's members use correct spelling and grammar

Regarding punctuation... Many novel authors toss punctuation rules out the window and use whatever their writer's voice demands. Sometimes commas can interrupt the flow of a sentence, in which case, the author dispenses with them.

Anybody who's ever read (or tried to read) Cormac McCarthy — who is considered to be one of the greatest novelists of our time by some and considered to be a proliferator of bad poetry by others — has witnessed first hand the rules-be-damned form of writing where 20 sentences or more can be adjoined by n-1 conjunctions and will be considered pure genius. Try doing that in your English class or when creating technical documentation!
 

Lanny said:
This stood out to me the first time I came to Senior Forums.

My mom was a school teacher and was a stickler about correct spelling, grammar and the importance of writing legibly.
She taught us that if we don't take time to do these things, people won't be able to understand us and the results we seek will be diminished by our own hand.

Of course it's only human to make mistakes from time to time but a great deal of posts on other forums are almost unintelligible.
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I hate to admit it but if it were not for spell check I would prove your mother correct. I am far from as smart as I would like to be, but spell check helps me hide that fact.

This week I had to turn in some paperwork involving mostly a record of the driving I do. That means a lot of numbers. My dyslexia makes this very challenging. 9243 comes up as 2943 and then I realize 29__ numbers make no sense, and I have to go back and figure out what number I am supposed to be using. I go threw this hell monthly and strongly consider giving up being a Senior Companion because of the paperwork. My ability to spell isn't any better than my use of numbers. The moral is, spell check is easy to use and some of us really need to use it. I also use a walker when shopping. Using such aids makes life better.
 
SeniorBen said:
Regarding punctuation... Many novel authors toss punctuation rules out the window and use whatever their writer's voice demands. Sometimes commas can interrupt the flow of a sentence, in which case, the author dispenses with them.

Anybody who's ever read (or tried to read) Cormac McCarthy — who is considered to be one of the greatest novelists of our time by some and considered to be a proliferator of bad poetry by others — has witnessed first hand the rules-be-damned form of writing where 20 sentences or more can be adjoined by n-1 conjunctions and will be considered pure genius. Try doing that in your English class or when creating technical documentation!
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I collect old books and often refer to them, and quote them, and the use of punctuation in old books is very different. I like words that end in "t" instead of "ed" such as "slept" instead of "sleeped". But oh my goodness, can paragraphs in old books be long, very, very long. I think the shorter paragraph is an improvement.

Plenty of times I have a real fight with spell check because it does not like my phrasing and I really worry about how spell check can hurt the meaning of what we intend to say. Such as, I feel strongly about democracy being rule by reason, and spell check does not accept that wording. Spell check insists the correct way to say what I want to say is "ruled by reason". That is a distortion of the meaning of "rule by reason". The difference is equal to the difference between being a subject or free man. That is a pretty important cultural difference.
 
SeniorBen said:
Regarding punctuation... Many novel authors toss punctuation rules out the window and use whatever their writer's voice demands. Sometimes commas can interrupt the flow of a sentence, in which case, the author dispenses with them.

Anybody who's ever read (or tried to read) Cormac McCarthy — who is considered to be one of the greatest novelists of our time by some and considered to be a proliferator of bad poetry by others — has witnessed first hand the rules-be-damned form of writing where 20 sentences or more can be adjoined by n-1 conjunctions and will be considered pure genius. Try doing that in your English class or when creating technical documentation!
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Emily Dickinson used chiefly dashes in her poems. When first published after her death the editors deleted them and used grammatical puncuation. Not until T.H. Johnson, in his 1955 edition, were the dashes restored in original form.
 
Hi Lanny. Although this isn't my first post on this thread I now realise that I neglected a greeting to you as a new chum in this forum.

Like Tish, I hail from Terra Australis.

Don't worry about ruffling feathers. I've ruffled enough to make an eiderdown since joining. Misunderstandings are par for the course.
If necessary apologise but you haven't transgressed enough for that yet.

Southeast US? Is that tornado territory?
 
Vida May said:
I hate to admit it but if it were not for spell check I would prove your mother correct. I am far from as smart as I would like to be, but spell check helps me hide that fact.

This week I had to turn in some paperwork involving mostly a record of the driving I do. That means a lot of numbers. My dyslexia makes this very challenging. 9243 comes up as 2943 and then I realize 29__ numbers make no sense, and I have to go back and figure out what number I am supposed to be using. I go threw this hell monthly and strongly consider giving up being a Senior Companion because of the paperwork. My ability to spell isn't any better than my use of numbers. The moral is, spell check is easy to use and some of us really need to use it. I also use a walker when shopping. Using such aids makes life b
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Looks like you're doing great. All that really matters is that folks are able to communicate with each other, right? Many sites I've been to have lots of posts that are completely unintelligible. Haven't seen that at Senior Forums.
Not meaning to pick on anybody but it seems to be mostly young Americans. Not sure if it's lack of schooling or if they're in a hurry or what. I think many are using text-style abbreviations that I'm not good at decyphering.
 
Warrigal said:
Hi Lanny. Although this isn't my first post on this thread I now realise that I neglected a greeting to you as a new chum in this forum.

Like Tish, I hail from Terra Australis.

Don't worry about ruffling feathers. I've ruffled enough to make an eiderdown since joining. Misunderstandings are par for the course.
If necessary apologise but you haven't transgressed enough for that yet.

Southeast US? Is that tornado territory?
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Thanks Warrigal.

Yes, I live in tornado alley. Glad to say I've never been affected though (knock on wood). Average daily winter temperature around here is 50 degrees fahrenheit. If it gets up to 80 degrees on a winter day that's a big trouble sign.
Tell me, do you see kangaroos in the wild very often? From what I gather that's about as likely for an Australian as me seeing a whitetail deer in the wild here.
 
Lanny said:
Looks like you're doing great. All that really matters is that folks are able to communicate with each other, right? Many sites I've been to have lots of posts that are completely unintelligible. Haven't seen that at Senior Forums.
Not meaning to pick on anybody but it seems to be mostly young Americans. Not sure if it's lack of schooling or if they're in a hurry or what. I think many are using text-style abbreviations that I'm not good at decyphering.
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:ROFLMAO:Professional jargon and text abbreviations are sure to exclude others from a communication. However, I must say, plenty of times I have read my post and been horrified by how badly they are worded. Years of experience is improving my post but still sometimes, even when I edit before posting, I will find mistakes the next day and too often I post before editing. It is so hard to believe I am not perfect and do make mistakes. :ROFLMAO: And usually, I am in a rush. I have returned to work and that means less time for the forums I love.
 
@Lanny, just an FYI, sometimes you can correct an error in your title, not all forums permit this. Not sure how many hours you get. It drives me crazy when I post something and hours later I see the wrong word or spelling.

I’ve become very dependent on Auto Correct for spelling. Even when I know I’ve reversed the letters, I just expect AC to fix it.

My biggest error is leaving words out and I don’t see them as missing, even when I do my rare proofreading
 
Jules said:
@Lanny, just an FYI, sometimes you can correct an error in your title, not all forums permit this. Not sure how many hours you get. It drives me crazy when I post something and hours later I see the wrong word or spelling.

I’ve become very dependent on Auto Correct for spelling. Even when I know I’ve reversed the letters, I just expect AC to fix it.

My biggest error is leaving words out and I don’t see them as missing, even when I do my rare proofreading
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My auto correct never seems to work until I've actually pressed ''Post''... I often don't notice errors until I read it later and go in and edit, but equally often I might not read that post again for days by which time the edit window has passed.. and that gobbledygook stays for eternity... :eek:
 
oldaunt said:
Lanny, here in Arkansas I see whitetail deer every day, usually in herds in my back yard.View attachment 214544
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Wow, that's awesome!

My wife and I plan to move to the Ozarks when I retire in a couple of years. We were visiting our land in December and saw 5 whitetail at a distance near the woods. When I raised my camera to take a picture they took off every which way at high speed. Seems they thought I was raising a gun to shoot at them. Made me feel a little sorry for them because we could hear far away gunfire that day.
 
I am having a few chuckles while reading all this about spell check

As some of you know I am having big problem with my right hand and keyboard is hard work so thought I would give Mac's speech to text app. trial run . Most of what I post is done this way.

Well there are certainly some peculiar words in Macs' System and some weird words pop up .
It does help me but I do need two do some editing as it depends on how clearly one speaks. Sometimes it corrects itself sometimes not. So if you see some weird words and spelling in my post please just laugh and ignore
Great fun . It takes my mind off the pain when the hand hurts.
Have a great day
laptop wave.gif
 
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Lanny said:
Wow, that's awesome!

My wife and I plan to move to the Ozarks when I retire in a couple of years. We were visiting our land in December and saw 5 whitetail at a distance near the woods. When I raised my camera to take a picture they took off every which way at high speed. Seems they thought I was raising a gun to shoot at them. Made me feel a little sorry for them because we could hear far away gunfire that day.
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Mine always hang around within speaking distance. Even my dogs just sit and look at them. We are all one big family here, with 26 acres to roam
 
Lanny said:
This stood out to me the first time I came to Senior Forums.

My mom was a school teacher and was a stickler about correct spelling, grammar and the importance of writing legibly.
She taught us that if we don't take time to do these things, people won't be able to understand us and the results we seek will be diminished by our own hand.

Of course it's only human to make mistakes from time to time but a great deal of posts on other forums are almost unintelligible.
Click to expand...
Lanny, you're not about to tell us that our car warrantees are about up, are you?
 

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