Is Grammar & Punctuation now a thing of the past?

Rocker

I ask as every week I receive a long text from a golfing buddy, a text that has no uppercase letters, no punctuation etc.  I usually have to read it three or four times to get the sense of the message.

I am only very average at grammar and punctuation but I usually start a sentence with an uppercase letter, insert a comma where I deem it is needed and a full stop at the end of each sentence.  My interests in school were mainly engineering rather than academia but I learned that punctuation is one way the writer informs the reader on how to read the text.  The inclusion or exclusion of a hyphen, for example, can change the meaning of a sentence.  For example:

        The band are reforming.

         The band are re-forming.

The hyphen has changed the meaning of the sentence completely.

I know we have at least one professional writer in our group, I would expect that a writer would have definite opinions on grammar and punctuation.  What is the your  opinion on this subject?  Does it matter and would you care if grammar and punctuation were consigned to the past?





* I am not an expert on this subject so the grammar and punctuation police might feel it necessary to point out several flaws in my writing.  No problem if they do.

Jalapeno

Grammar ?  Punctuation ? Thing of the past ?

To paraphrase Charlton Heston - "From my cold dead hands" !!!!!!!

Bridgehouse

It's the difference between knowing your shit, and knowing you're shit.

Kebabkid

Reading this brought to mind the popular book "Eats, shoots and leaves" by Lynne Truss and I looked it up on Wiki and found the following extract. It seems that even the experts can't get it right or agree amongst themselves:-

In a 2004 review, Louis Menand of The New Yorker pointed out several dozen punctuation errors in the book, including one in the dedication, and wrote that "an Englishwoman lecturing Americans on semicolons is a little like an American lecturing the French on sauces. Some of Truss's departures from punctuation norms are just British laxness."

In The Fight for English: How Language Pundits Ate, Shot and Left (Oxford University Press 2006), linguist David Crystal analyses the linguistic purism of Truss and other writers through the ages.

In 2006, English lecturer Nicholas Waters released Eats, Roots & Leaves, criticising the "grammar fascists" who "want to stop the language moving into the 21st century." This view was shared by dyslexic English comedian and satirist Marcus Brigstocke in a 2007 episode of Room 101, in which he blames Truss's book for starting off a trend in which people have become "grammar bullies," who are later put into Room 101.

monquixote

You always know it's a rocker thread just from the title.

scrumhalf

I know someone who altered a school report from:
"works hard, and with a lot of effort should do well".
to
"works hard and with a lot of effort, should do well".

It always seems to me that those who deny the need for rules about spelling and punctuation are those who do not have much need of them in their daily lives.

EricTheWeary

Bridgehouse said:

It's the difference between knowing your shit, and knowing you're shit.

Grammar, spelling and punctuation are there to help us get our point across and it's ever changing - in English anyway. Within the context of, hmm let's say, a text about what time you are playing golf, it probably doesn't matter that much. It's just a tool and, unfortunately, also a way to try to demonstrate your intellectual superiority over somebody else. 

boogieman

Text speak is different from proper writing tho innit lol. 

lukedlb

I teach English as a foreign language and regularly explain to my students the absence of grammar in the education of the English (compared to the rest of Europe; don't get yer knickers in a twist just yet), requiring an extra effort of my students to think like the English, a language learnt by empathy and imitation by the general population. In addition, my students study language construction, and learn to resist any long contract-like sentences, common in Italian. 
I explain there has long been a battle between English professors and English speakers over grammar mistakes; the uneducated English speakers always win, the language continues to develop, and English remains relevant.
however, these punctuation mistakes are laziness or an ineffective spellcheck T9, which has failed to capitalise the letter h at the beginning of this sentence. Typing with a thumb on a smartphone is the culprit. Making the same mistakes at work is probably unacceptable. 

HAL9000

There, their, they're.

TheBlueWolf

When I'm writing horror fiction it's very important, as I'm trying to relate a certain type of situation and proper grammar/punctuation is essential.*

That said, if you ever hear me talking you'd wonder if I ever went to school.

*No, I'm not a Grammar Nazi

richardhomer

Not sure - but I've heard exit signs are on the way out....

Dominic

EricTheWeary said:

Bridgehouse said:

It's the difference between knowing your shit, and knowing you're shit                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     It's just a tool and, unfortunately, also a way to try to demonstrate your intellectual superiority over somebody else. 

Why is it unfortunate ????
That is what defines well educated people and people of higher intellect
It is "just a tool " in the same way that if you saw a surgeon about to operate on you with a rusty penknife you may well prefer another surgeon who was equipped with a sharp and sterile surgical steel scalpel.
  Sorry but I think your analogy is totally misplaced .
I find dealing with undereducated people in departments of large companies and institutions to be extremely frustrating.
Recently I found myself  "dumbing down " my complaint when dealing with an "innit " because in explaining why I had sought to have an item repaired rather than returned I used the word "mitigate " which he was unable to understand -in exactly the same way that I was unable to understand his appalling grammar and mis-spelt email.
 We strived upon pain of a beating or the cane at school to learn these things and worked hard to pass entry exams in order to acquire a good education ...........why should the playing field be levelled by low achievers as the common denominator ?

Gassage

You mean 'Are grammar and punctuation now things of the past?' surely?

holnrew

Dominic said:

EricTheWeary said:

Bridgehouse said:

It's the difference between knowing your shit, and knowing you're shit                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     It's just a tool and, unfortunately, also a way to try to demonstrate your intellectual superiority over somebody else. 

Why is it unfortunate ????
That is what defines well educated people and people of higher intellect
It is "just a tool " in the same way that if you saw a surgeon about to operate on you with a rusty penknife you may well prefer another surgeon who was equipped with a sharp and sterile surgical steel scalpel.
  Sorry but I think your analogy is totally misplaced .
I find dealing with undereducated people in departments of large companies and institutions to be extremely frustrating.
Recently I found myself  "dumbing down " my complaint when dealing with an "innit " because in explaining why I had sought to have an item repaired rather than returned I used the word "mitigate " which he was unable to understand -in exactly the same way that I was unable to understand his appalling grammar and mis-spelt email.
 We strived upon pain of a beating or the cane at school to learn these things and worked hard to pass entry exams in order to acquire a good education ...........why should the playing field be levelled by low achievers as the common denominator ?

Using anything other than a line space to denote a paragraph is anachronistic, and an ellipse is just three full stops immediately following a word with no space.

To answer your question, though: there's more "dumb" folk. Language is dictated by the majority, and if you want to be understood, you play by their rules.

Everybody needs to communicate, you can't compare it with surgery. 

slacker

A wrong word error is a thing of the passed. 

Rocker

Gassage said:

You mean 'Are grammar and punctuation now things of the past?' surely?

I think you got it @Gassage.  Even basic grammar and punctuation helps in understanding what is being written about...

lukedlb

 Gassage said:

You mean 'Are grammar and punctuation now things of the past?' surely?

A perfect example of the professors vs the people, one which I am guilty of (we won that battle too). I cringe saying grammar and punctuation is, yet the question form will probably become acceptable if it hasn't already. 

snakemanStoo

Is this chap one of you lot?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39459831

jonnyburgo

I thought I saw your name on a loaf of bread, however on closer inspection it said "Thick Cut".

Gassage

As I have mentioned before, possibly the most annoying piece of linguistic abuse currently in vogue is referring to people with the reflexive pronoun...

"If you'd like to return the documents to 'myself' or...'We'll be looking for the best deal for yourself...."

FFS, what is wrong with the elegant simplicity of 'me, I and you'......

It is enough for me to terminate phone calls.