Comments crumble with bad grammar, punctuation
Tuesday, Dec 21 2010 08:57 AM
Last Updated Tuesday, Dec 21 2010 09:08 AM
Several times in the past few months, I've deleted comments that were read as insults or personal attacks on other Bakersfield.com bloggers.
In many instances, the reply I received from the offending blogger was, "That's not what I meant."
But it's what you said.
Misplaced punctuation, poorly constructed sentences and lack of context can easily lead to misunderstood comments.
Take the following sentence:
"Another stupid idea, Jane."
Reading this, it looks like the writer is calling Jane's idea stupid.
But what if, a dozen or so comments back, Jane linked to a site proposing an off-the-wall solution for the housing crisis?
Was Jane's idea stupid? Or was the commenter calling the idea put forth by the group in her link stupid?
Many blogs and articles get dozens upon dozens of comments. Unless you're clear on what and who you're referring to, the meaning of your comment can be easily misunderstood.
To be safe, always add the context of what you're talking about. Don't assume people will know, especially since previous comments could have been deleted or edited.
Here are a few examples of how a little comma can change the meaning of a sentence:
"What's the latest dope?" vs. "What's the latest, dope?"
"Giant moving, sale Friday." vs. "Giant moving sale Friday."
One little mark, two very different meanings.
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2 comments:
A big amen to that! It looks like laziness or ignorance, or both, when someone lets grammar, spelling and/or punctuation errors into what they write, and it's hard to take them or their comments that seriously.
And what always cracks me up is when it's someone complaining about English not being the only language here, and their writing is full of the usual lame-brained mistakes, such as "your" for "you're", "it's' for "its", "there" for "they're" or "their", etc. If they had so much regard for their native language, you'd think they'd respect it enough to learn how to use it properly. It's not one of the easier languages to learn in this world, but it's not rocket science, either.
Yeah, it's SO "important" to them, isn't it?! /sarc
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