Butchery of the English language on this forum

[Jim27]

I'm no language snob, but one thing I really liked about this forum when I joined was it's excellent use of English, correctly spelt and well constructed. It made all the threads nice and smooth to read, if that makes sense.

But in recent months I've seen the fight for proper sentences, words and punctuation start to lose ground substantially, and we have text speak, incredibly poor spelling and half-baked sentence construction all over the show.

Call me what you like but it feels like the operating level of the forum has dropped a few notches. I fully understand that some people have difficulty with sentence construction but come on - as a courtesy to other users we, as a forum, used to make the effort to at least do our best to correctly format and spell our posts. But of late it seems that every other thread has some teenage-level drivvel of "Yeh man u lovin da car innit" and the like.

I don't particularly care what people think of me or my opinions but I've held back from posting any rants for a good while here but this is really just getting my goat. Is the balance of vocal ownership really shifting so much towards people who either can't spell/write properly or just can't be bothered to try?

Yes, it could be due to the prices of Skylines ("Liners" What. The. F**k?!? This also seems to have become more prevalent...) falling to the point where a certain level of ownership is appearing with the older/cheaper cars that was previously barred by virtue of cost. I know that there will always be 'rough diamonds' in the general make-up of any such forum but it just feels more and more like a 'Max Powah Skyline Cwooz' forum than it used to.

Maybe I'm just getting older and more cynical, or maybe it's because I've sold my GT-R so I'm doing more reading of the forum and less contributing (so I notice it more) but there does most definitely seem to be a change in the forum dynamic for the worse.

It makes me cringe every time I read "u" instead of "you", "wot" instead of "what" and "Liner" instead of "Skyline". It conjurs up images of blokes with necks thicker than their heads, with half their teeth missing, wearing gold sovereign rings on both hands and proudly wearing the latest (stolen) range of Burberry, Kappa and LaCoste.

I used to think it was a basic common courtesy to other users to stick to proper Queen's English but it appears that the insipid creep of text talk and lazy posting has finally become accepted amongst the forum members. I don't blame the mods as this sort of thing really has to be self-moderated by the membership, but as more and more Liner-drivin, gold-sov-wearin yoofs join the board I suppose the natural swing to this sort of language has become more pronounced and less contested.

Shame.

[Sean-it]

I tend to agree with you, not just on this forum but in general, even e-mails. Why people insist on reverting to "txt speak" when a complete keyboard & time to type out constructed sentences is available. I don't see it as just laziness either or am I too cynical & out of touch.
I too don't come on here as often - is it a contributing factor that the threads go off topic so much.

[R33_GTS-t]

Here here. Proper use of punctuation and paragraphs please.

[gtrlux]

And for thoses who can't even speak proper "Victorian English", get this inside your heads "bounder"!!!!!

Astounding!: Awesome!

Biscuits: Cookies.
Bobby: Policeman, cop (England).
Bounder: SOB, bastard, thoroughly wicked man. See "cad".
Braces: Suspenders.
By Gad!: Moderate oath; euphemism for "By God!"
By God!: Strong oath, not uttered in front of ladies and clergymen.
By Jove!: Moderate oath; euphemism for "By God!"
By Jupiter!: Moderate oath; euphemism for "By God!"

Cad: SOB, bastard, thoroughly wicked man. See "bounder".
Cashiered: Fired, canned, sacked.
Chap: This is the best, general term to cover males, slightly less formal then "fellow".
Constable: Policeman (England).

Demoiselle: Girl (French).
Dame: Woman, lady (French). Pronounced "dam".
Dastardly: Bad, sneaky, unworthy.

Fellow: Slightly patronizing or formal form of address ("My dear fellow").
Fiendish: Bad, sneaky, unworthy.
First floor: Second floor.
Flat: Apartment.
Fraulein: Miss, girl (Germanic).

Gendarme: Policeman (France).
Great Scott: Moderate oath.
Ground floor: First floor.
Guard: Policeman (Bayern, Prussia, etc.)

Holiday: Vacation.

I say!: Hey, there!

Knickers: Underpants.
Knickerbockers: Knickers.

Lady: Woman, girl.

Mademoiselle: Miss.
Madame: Mrs., My Lady (French).
Mein Gott!: Strong expletive (Germanic). (="My God!")
Merde!: Unladylike French expletive (="Shit!")
Metro: Subway (France).

Not at liberty: I can't.

Outrage: Another word which cannot be overused; "it's an outrage, sir!" is a standard comment on anything which gives one displeasure.

Pavement: Sidewalk.

Rogue: SOB, bastard.
Rooms: Apartment.
Rum do: A strange happening, something out of the ordinary, puzzling. [Note: I'm not sure that this is appropriate for upper class characters.]

Sacrebleu!: Moderate oath (French); euphemism for "Sacredieu" ("Holy God!").
Sacredieu!: Strong oath (French), not uttered in front of ladies and clergymen (="Holy God!").
Shan't: Can't.
Shouldn't: Wouldn't.
Solicitor: Lawyer.
Slain: Killed, "wasted".
Sound thrashing (to give a): Beat up.
Suspenders: Garters.

Trousers: Pants.

Underground: Subway (England).

Vest: Undershirt.

Waistcoat: Vest.

and at the same time I would send this letter again to the mob on the other side of the atlantic sea, as they are mostly responsible for the slaughter of the english language:

ohn Cleese Letter to America
(Notice of Revocation of Independence)
Variant of 'Notice of Revocation of Independence' purportedly authored by John Cleese (Dec. 2004)

NOTE: This is one version of a text circulating via forwarded email since November 2000. Though attributed to former Monty Python member John Cleese, it was not actually written by him. To compare versions and read about the history of this satirical piece, start here.


To the citizens of the United States of America, in the light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up revocation in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up aluminium. Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour', skipping the letter 'U' is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters. You will end your love affair with the letter 'Z' (pronounced 'zed' not 'zee') and the suffix ize will be replaced by the suffix ise. You will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra' e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to respell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you can't cope with correct pronunciation.

Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up vocabulary. Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up interspersed. There will be no more 'bleeps' in the Jerry Springer show. If you're not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn't have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary then you won't have to use bad language as often.

2. There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize.

3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard. English accents are not limited to cockney,upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier). You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents - Scottish dramas such as Taggart will no longer be broadcast with subtitles. While we're talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is Devon. If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become shires e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters. British sit-coms such as Men Behaving Badly or Red Dwarf will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can't cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, God Save The Queen but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

6. You should stop playing American football. There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American football is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays American football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US Rugby sevens side by 2005. You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the 'World Series' for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders,your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls' game called rounders, which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.

7. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don't believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2nd will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called Indecisive Day.

9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean. All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time,you will go metric with immediate effect and conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips. Fries aren't even French, they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat. Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

11. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.

12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all, it is lager. From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer,and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. The substances formerly known as American Beer will henceforth be referred to as Near-Frozen Knat's Urine,with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as Weak Near-Frozen Knat's Urine. This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in Pilsen,Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.

13. From November 10th the UK will harmonise petrol (or Gasoline, as you will be permitted to keep calling it until April 1st 2005) prices with the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon- get used to it).

14. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.

16. Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).

Thank you for your co-operation and have a great day.

John Cleese

[Mookistar]

I cna barely tipe!

[Jim27]

Originally Posted by Mookistar

I cna barely tipe!

That's because of all the plasticine you ate as a child is now slowly dissolving your nervous system. "Non-toxic" my arse!

[Mookistar]

oh ****!

[bkvj]

the only thing i dont do is use capitals at the begginning of a sentance. i use it for names and such. i think its because Microsoft Word made me lazy, it does all those things for you (bar using capitals for some names, like mine).

[andyneed4speed]

Originally Posted by R33_GTS-t

Here here.

I believe that's "Hear, hear." - but I may be wrong

Originally Posted by bkvj

the only thing i dont do is use capitals at the begginning of a sentance....

You also can't spell beGinning or sentEnce (sorry Bas)

Jim - I posted a similar thread myself a while back. Just waiting for the supposed "dyslexics" to start commenting on your justifiable rant

Wot eva m8 innit

[bkvj]

Originally Posted by andyneed4speed

You also can't spell beGinning or sentEnce (sorry Bas)

whoops, cheers for the pointer

[Mookistar]

Originally Posted by Jim27

Im n lngwij snb, bt 1 tng I rly liked bout DIS 4m wen I joined wz it's XLNT uz of eng, coReclE spelt & weL CstructD. It mAd aL d threads nIs & smooth 2 rED, f dat mAkz senS.

Scary shit!

[R33_GTS-t]

Originally Posted by andyneed4speed

I believe that's "Hear, hear." - but I may be wrong

But I want it to happen here here. Knew I should have read that House of Commons transcript.

[whoflungdung]

Well "Jimbo" its nice to see you back on track
Just warming up for the new year are we?

I am afraid my grammar etc is not up to scratch, but I do try
But I do hate all those "init", "peeps" complete utter b@llocks
They should stick to texting and bugger off

Anyhow Jim, you are the man(to coin a phrase )

And I still love you
But not as much as when you owned a "Liner"

JIM27 For Ranter Of The Forum

[kismetcapitan]

I have actually noticed this trend, and found that it conflicted with my (as most Americans hold) stereotype as the British who, if nothing else, could spell properly and in general sound more educated than your average American, mostly due to a greater use of vocabulary. The average native-speaker American knows 40,000 words, out of an estimated 200,000~250,000 in the entire English language. I've been told that the average Briton uses perhaps one and a half times as much, around 50-60,000. Or perhaps it's the small differences in expressions which we Americans don't quite "get" that makes y'all sound more intelligent.

Anyways, I've found that stereotype to be, generally speaking, broken, the more time I spend here. Admittedly, this is my only true exposure to British culture and language, and although I am concerned enough about my native tongue to own and cherish an unabridged OED, I do stick to American spellings - after all, habits formed in elementary school are hard to break!

although it doesn't irk me enough to start a thread about it, I do declare that the spelling here has indeed sunk below the average of the other boards I spend time on (U.S. based music boards).

[shadowninja]

http://www.rinkworks.com/dialect/dia...age-forum.html