Is it my imagination or...

Weedpacket

...is programming hazardous to people's shift keys?

Or maybe people are terrified of having keyboards explode if they hit those keys?

Or perhaps they just don't want to kill off the sentient moulds that are building a little civilisation under them?

Sorry, it's just that I've just been using English lately and it's hard to kick the habit.

tekky

shift key? I use charmap and right click+paste... and no idea about this english thing you mentioned.... can you post a link? 😕

😃

bubblenut

ithinkthereareanumberofkeyswhicharenowbeingfogotten ipersonallyblamethewholefenomenonontheinternetrevolution wenolongerhavetoreadfrombookswhichhavebeenbyintellegentpeopleandeditedbyotherintellegentpeopleallofwhomnohowtowrite thewrittenwordcannowbedisplayeduncheckedbyanyonewithaninternetconnectionwhichalthoughithasitsgoodpointsishavingaverybadeffectonlanguage ithinkthatlanguagetheworldoverisgoingtogothroughadrasticandunprecedentedmetomorphosisoverthenextfewyearsforeaxactlythisreason imonlygratefullthatasyetihavenotbeenaffected
bubblenuT

andymoo

I think I understand what you're saying here.

English may be the main language globally yet soo many people fail with it when written. Not just coders but customers (bless em) are terrible too. I get stacks of badly written emails like "iv probz wimmi tone" - not only is it badly written crap the worse thing is when that's all they say. Could these people try a little harder to be any less specific?

A lot of the time I'll write everything lower case as I'm lazy. No excuses and no point in lying.

My keyboard is a Mac pro one - the kind without any screws that you can turn to get in and clean. There's not just a mould civilisation under there it's managed to develop and mutate to something far worse, there's something under there that looks a bit nasty, I suspect that might be the leader of all the bits of tobacco and dead skin cells.....

Mmm how tasty a thought..... urgh :rolleyes:

andymoo

Originally posted by bubblenut
ithinkthereareanumberofkeyswhicharenowbeingfogotten.......

That is class, lmao.

I've a friend* who sends me emails like that, just condensed text and no subject. He's a jouno and is now wondering why the BBC have not offered to renew his contract.

How well can you cope with a pen? I think real writing is a skill which took thousands of years for us mammals to learn and we're forgetting it in two decades, I'm terrible with ink, my handwriting changes from day to day yet I type at silly words per minute.

* A friend? Yes it's true. I even go outside sometimes though daylight scares me and I dislike people en-masse 😉

dalecosp

HI WEEDPACKET,

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT. I MEAN, WHAT IN THE WORLD HEY WAIT A MINUTE ?>?<>?:?<>?ZZXCZCZZVz ahh, that's much better. I think my "shift key" was stuck. Must be all the programming I (don't?) do.... 😃

The state of education (at least in the States) is not so good; this is likely because the state of society in the States is also on a downward path.

It is, perhaps, our sense of aesthetics that is suffering the most, and the earliest. First, we lost our appreciation of the fine arts, then poetry, then music. Now language in general is going the way of the dodo. I'm sure that we could discuss (perhaps not intelligently, in my case) the state of religion and philosophy and gain some insight into this phenomenon....

I'd just blame IRC if that were the real reason, but it seems like that isn't the case.... :eek:

Moonglobe

I know someone who, up until last year, didn't know what the shift key did. For every capital letter he would hit caps, type the letter, then turn off caps :p

Elizabeth

Originally posted by dalecosp
Now language in general is going the way of the dodo.

Yes, we're going back to the caveman way aren't we? 🙂

Weedpacket

Originally posted by andymoo
How well can you cope with a pen?

Very badly, it's true; I can write (well, print) clearly and legibly when I have the time (and I expect my writing to be readable by others), but handwriting is just so frustratingly low bandwidth! It takes forever to get anything down. I guess that's why when I'm writing "at speed" all of the letters end up approximately 2mm wide and 7mm tall. I've got a whole kit of ligatures that don't appear in any typesetter's case (containing digraphs like "th" and "tt" and so forth). That's why I taught myself how to type; it's faster and looks better. And, on a PC, much easier to edit. But at least it's still spelled correctly and grammatical. The only time the abbreviations take over is when I'm just jotting a brief note to serve as a mnemonic that only needs to serve for a few minutes.

Funnily enough, when I'm writing mathematical notation, it's a lot clearer....

Weedpacket

Originally posted by Elizabeth
Yes, we're going back to the caveman way aren't we? 🙂

From point and grunt to point and click, you mean?

dalecosp

Originally posted by Elizabeth
Yes, we're going back to the caveman way aren't we? 🙂

Well, I'm trying not to. But we who type correct English face at least two battles: one, we can't expect some folks to be proficient (disabled individuals come to mind, as well as the fact that we should probably allow a tad of liberty to those for whom English is a tertiary language), and two, the hosts of "|33tSP33|<Inq" script kiddies who believe that unpunctuated strtolower()'d (and oft mispelled) is completely acceptable and no one has the right to expect any better from them.

I personally do want to thank the large majority of the regulars to this site who have taken time from their valuable schedules to type their messages correctly.... 🆒

As to the caveman stuff, and noting you're moving back to an older title, how does "/you slave /me Dicky B" grab you ... (yeah, I guess the pun is intended :rolleyes: but per the usual, no offense is ... :eek: )

😃

Moonglobe

well, I'm sorry if I've been guilty of strtolower()ed posts (especially "i"), but i like to think I have fairly good english. Of course, I don't quite stack up with teh likes of Weed or dale, but I'm happy enough to read your posts, basking in what I clearly realize is better writing than my own 🆒

goldbug

omg u r so rite!

😃😃😃

Merve

http://origins.racknine.net/bitch/msn.html

😃😃

Sorry for the profanity in the link...

andymoo

From that URL: You're telling me that these people deserve to live?

Erm, no they don't but anyone so bold to say so is normally hushed up in this age of politically correct madness or seen as a threat to global security.

I think an internet proficiency test should be introduced with candidates being sent to net boot camp to teach them once and for all ThIS AiNt dA WaY 2 TIPe and CAPITALS translate to being shouted at.

If you're not allowed on the roads till you can drive well enough why should the net be any different, it is afterall said to be a superhighway?

dalecosp

Fact: Many people tried discussing this article but used "MSN Talk" and no one understood each other so they all gave up and killed themselves. Good.

This brought a hearty chuckle, indeed...now, if it were only true!!

dalecosp

Originally posted by andymoo
If you're not allowed on the roads till you can drive well enough why should the net be any different, it is afterall said to be a superhighway?

Hmm, yes; I quote myself, actually, as saying that "Truth was the first casualty on the information superhighway..." (apologies if anyone else said it first; I've never heard it but from me AFAIK).

The problem with proficiency testing for the Internet is that it would break Microsoft's business model ....

andymoo

Originally posted by dalecosp
The problem with proficiency testing for the Internet is that it would break Microsoft's business model ....

True, very true but would that be a bad thing?

$£$£$ for a CD / licence of M$ filth = A fool as his money are easily parted.

If money is the route of al evil then Mr Gates (aka his dark lordship) must be the devil?

Thinking about it the Penguins might be our true spiritual leaders and the ones with Red Hats are Gods? It's more logical than the mice in hitchikers?

Dalecosp - you mentioned religion so I'll herald you as inspiration for my moment of oddness there. It is Easter so what better time to shatter 2,000 year old myths.......

bubblenut

Originally posted by dalecosp
The state of education (at least in the States) is not so good; this is likely because the state of society in the States is also on a downward path.

I thought semi-colons were supposed to seperate independant clauses in a sentance? :rolleyes: 😉 Where is the line between appreciating good use of language and being anal? Did I just cross it?

bubblenut

A really funny book on the state of the English language (which my Mother gave for Christmas and was easily the best present I recieved) is Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance approach to Punctuation. I haven't read the "perfect partner" but I'm deffinately going to get it.