Yes, Codeine Coma, I
am a intermittent Grammar Nazi - but only to people who claim to be writers. Standard English would have made your post easier to read, granted, but don't worry about it. The main reason these rules exist is to make it easier to communicate.
Keep posting; I'm glad to see you here.
jenna wrote:As far as the spacing issues go.... who cares? Who was the horribly bored anally retentive person that came up with the idea that sentences had to be followed by 2 spaces anyway? What's wrong with no spaces or for that matter having 30 spaces?
It's for clarity. The human brain can process things faster and more efficiently if they are presented in definable packages. Also, the spaces imitate the pause at the end of a spoken sentence, which is longer than the pause one uses after a comma. Commas, semicolons, colons, and periods all indicate a specific type of pause in a sentence - which in turn structures the rhythm of the sentence. The rhythm of a sentence is an important part of discerning its meaning.
Communication cannot exist if people are unsure of what is being said - is "2" being used as a number or as a substitute for too or to? Does "ur" refer to the Ur-Father, is it a shorthand for "your", or is it a typo of some other word? Confusion of this sort is the antithesis of communication.
jenna wrote:Same thing with my issue with capital "i". Who decided that "i" gets capitalized when "you" doesn't? Sounds like someone with serious ego issues invented the rules for our language. (And no my penchant for lower case "i"'s has nothing to do with the traditions of certain online cultures. lol)
English is full of such anomalies, so "I" being capitalized is a non-issue for me. Since we've taught our brains to understand that "I" means "the person speaking" in the English language, it seems obstinate to insist on using "i" when attempting to communicate with others. There's really no logical point in making the other person work harder to understand you.
The idea that some people claim to use the lowercase "i" because of some sort of humility is laughable - the very use of the lowercase "i" out of philosophical or moral reasons results in deliberately drawing attention to oneself - the opposite of humbleness or non-ego.
None of this is in any way a slam on people who truly have difficulty expressing themselves in writing...
<wicked grin>
Unless they claim to be any sort of writer.
The last time I checked, neither e.e. cummings nor Prince was registered on this board...