Disappointment with the grammar and spelling of some TA users
I've noticed that many of the forum discussions that TA has tweeted lately have contained glaring grammatical and spelling errors. I find this disappointing and even personally embarrassing as it inevitably reflects not only on the original poster but on the forum as a whole and, by extension, the larger atheist community. I know written communication isn't everything, and it certainly isn't a high priority among the public generally, but we should try to meet a higher standard. Given the unlikelihood that individual posters will suddenly take more care when writing, I think the operators of the site's Twitter feed should consider not tweeting discussion titles with serious errors.
That's one poster's opinion, for whatever it's worth.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by David Conrad on -
Some would argue that if you can't communicate your point in a sentence--or in, say, 140 characters--then you don't understand it yourself. :)
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Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on -
Are you aware, David, that you used 141 in that comment?
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Permalink Reply by David Conrad on
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Yes, two of which constituted an emoticon so you (and other longwinded posters like Unseen) wouldn't take the sentiment too personally. :)
One of my favorite quotations, or should I say several of my favorite quotations, involve the notion that expressing oneself concisely and briefly is preferable to, and more difficult than, doing so at length. A discussion of such quotations can be found here: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/
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Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on
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Emoticon unnecessary, I never take anything personally, or seriously either - seriously --
But as your link itself made clear, sometimes, when commenting, we don't have time to be more concise.
Then we come to the part in your provided link, which cites a quotation by Spanish writer, Baltasar Gracian: “Good things, when short, are twice as good” - try telling THAT to a woman and see if you get a second date!
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Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on
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A couple of decades ago, the youth of the era were known collectively as "the MTV Generation," equating their short attention spans with the short, choppy scenes from the then TV show, MTV. I can't help wondering if the 140 character "tweets" weren't designed for today's youth who seem to have even shorter attention spans, or as I've come to call them, "the ADD Generation."
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Permalink Reply by David Conrad on
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Personally I don't think so. I don't usually by into theories of societal declension. To begin with, I don't know how one would determine the average attention spans of previous generations. As far as Twitter goes, plenty of non-youths find that Twitter is a convenient and enjoyable vehicle for communication. And, as you have no doubt surmised, I don't believe a preference for brevity necessarily implies a short attention span.
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Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on
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@Wesley - nice catch!
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Permalink Reply by Sagacious Hawk on -
Should we formalize that? $10 is the price to... buy a vowel.
Sometimes, I can't help myself.
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Permalink Reply by archaeopteryx on
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Sagacious - maybe you could help the Hebrews with YHWH --
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Permalink Reply by Unseen on -
I don't think someone who really understands the ontological argument (which has several variations) can refute it in a tweet.
What you are saying is something attributed to Einstein who supposedly attended a lecture by a fellow physicist and collared him after the talk to ask if he could summarize his theory in a few words. The man replied that his theory was far too complicated and sophisticated to summarize. Einstein reportedly replied that "If you can't explain your theory in simple terms, then you don't really understand it yourself."
However, Einstein didn't place a 140 character limit on his interlocutor.
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Permalink Reply by David Conrad on
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I'm afraid you are wrong to equate my opinion on brevity to Einstein's supposed opinion on simplicity. I happen to share that opinion, and I believe the two ideas are related, but they are distinct. Many writers agree that brevity is a virtue and that it correlates strongly to clarity of thinking and expression.
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