Language skills

[Hyperbole-hydraxian-waterlords]

Now a general answer to all :
Nope, I’m a non-native speaker as well
I actually think most of us has English as our second or even third language, and I’m happy for this - I’d be hard pressed to write coherent sentences in a lot of other languages. (even though I understand to some degree a lot of them, understanding and writing are different things. )

But exactly for that reason and on this forum it is a reason to be a little more careful with your language.

I’m not asking for perfect English - can’t deliver myself, and a lot of English people neither
But people actually write to try to tell other people what they mean, convince them and make sense.

The spell checker can be asked to correct other languages as well - look at it as some kind of macro

@Snipp-razorgore

wyd, kys, bae, lit, woke etc.

I had to look up all of them

I’m not making fun of anybody. I’m trying to say that if people can learn the routine to bring down a raid boss, they should be able to learn a few grammatical rules as well. I do not shoot at the places where you can see people’s native language popping through. I aim at those texts where you write and the press Reply without reading through the post without looking to see if you left out any essential words.
It’s all about understanding, and recently I have read too many posts from - at least according to themselves - intelligent, even smart people, where I had to read through the post more than once to begin to understand what was meant. That was the reason behind my post.

If we all try a little harder, we’ll bring down that boss together

[Wingilot-hydraxian-waterlords]

This is Hyperbole on an alt - some crazy error won’t let me comment.

No, I’m not a native speaker. I agree and do not agree.

I don’t know enough of any of the other languages (and no Albanian at all ) to write and say more than a few words in them, so German, which I know from school and travels (my 4th language actually) has to suffice - approximately the same situation as most forum users, would you agree? Furthermore my spellchecker does strangely not not work in German - broken macro, anyone?

Ich frage NICHT nach fehlerfreies English, Ich schlage vor dass die Leute, die hier am Forum irgendetwas screibt, sich darum bemüth verständlich und einigermassen Umgangssprache-frei zu schreiben.

Und, Nein. ich bin auch nicht deutschsprachig.

Es geht überhaupt nict darum, ohne Schreibfehler oder so was zu schreiben, aber darum dass mann an Andere denken, und sich bemüht, klar und so verständlich wie es nur geht zu schreiben.

Bitte berichtigen oder bewerten

And so as to not be banned from the forum, an English translation - courtesy of Google translate, as I was too lazy to do so myself: I do NOT ask for error-free English, I suggest that the people who write something here on the forum strive to be understandable and to some extent free of colloquial language.
And no. I am also not German speaking.
It’s not about writing without spelling mistakes or anything, but about thinking of others and trying to write clearly and as comprehensibly as possible.
Please correct or rate

@Retherz-mograine

small spelling mistakes barely affect the reading speed of the reader, if at all, you can search for typoglycemia. efficiency of writing is also important rather than spending twice as long writing half as much with twice as much text.

Thanks for typoglycemia Never heard that before, but I knew of, and was perfectly able to reat that “Cambridge” text.
And you’re right. Typos and small mistahes are actually not as great a hindrance as people deliberately writing clipped and unfinised sentences witout full stops or commas or anything.
Your text here is a great example of this. Even if you use no capiatl letters whatsoever, it’s readabe and even easy to understant at sight.
The then/than There/their and missing 's in pssesive forms are errors that are harder to “unsee”- and even more so for non-native speakers, or maybe just for people like me reading words as pictiures and not as sounds - I don’t kow the rigth words for these two ways of decoding a written text in English, but I hope you understand where I’m heading.
(PS I let this un-corrected, so you can see how many errors I make without spell checker turned on).

[Jon-gandling]

It’s a gaming forum, and while the incorrect usage of their/there/they’re can irk me on occasion, I’m not going to flip my lid when someone writes “uwotm8 lol”

[Nicolay-zandalar-tribe]

My oh my, you have a very high opinion of yourself, don’t you?
I rarely find an appropriate time to use this, but your last post in this thread I literally “tl;dr”, for the first time in years. You blabber on SO MUCH I could not make myself read that tripe past 3rd paragraph or so. Your writing style and tone made me physically uncomfortable. Congratulations I guess.
Edit: And that includes all the terrible posts on this forum you mentioned in the OP. You take the figurative prize of a post I could not stand.

[Anonymouse-chamber-of-aspects]

@Hyperbole-hydraxian-waterlords

I have for some time been wondering about the language skills - or rather the lack of skills shown by writers in the forum.
It seems that the better a gamer, at least in their own opinion, the worse writing skills.

Now to a short lesson, put in a language, I hope is better suited for you:
So far you have been mashing two buttons: “Write” and “Reply”. It is time to learn the proper rotation:

Write your text; => right click somewhere => select spell check [now all adds are outlined in red and you know red is dead] => eliminate these adds. Leave it on for alert of pats.

Did you check your group?
Just like no group is good to go without a Tank, a healer and a DPS (or more), no sentence is ready to leave without at least a verb and noun.

The Boss: Read the question again. Did you answer it?
If yes, press “reply”.

To refine your combat skills: Hold down “Shift” while pressing the first letter in each sentence, a name, or the ‘I’ if you mean yourself.

Potions: Just as a Healer out of Mana does not grasp any old potion, you’ve got to select the right word. Just because ‘There’, ‘Their’ and ‘They’re’ sounds almost the same, I tell you they are not.
The same goes for ‘then’ and ‘than’
Look here for a graphical explanation: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/misspelling

Further links:
My namesake Hyperbole and a Half have some great pages on the use of capital letters and apostrophes, and what an alot really is: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html

Sorry to rain on your parade, but your English is very far from perfect. Your grammar is often catastrophic and your choice of words also quite often poor.

[Hyperbole-hydraxian-waterlords]

Thank you. Yes I know that I’m not perfect. English is not my first language.
But you did understand what I wrote and tried to tell you? Then I did my best, and it worked.
English is a very hard language to learn for foreigners. Often when I say or write something, English people laugh (kindly) at me and say: “Yes, yes, I understand what you mean, but you cannot say it like this.” Bugger.

ETA: I hope all of you reading this thread look up Hyperbole and a Half’s take on apostrophes, capital letters and not least the alot. Your life will never be the same again

And Rain on your parade - funny pictures in my head and a new expression learned

More edit: I learned one more lesson today. Trying to be funny in a language not your own makes you come over as haughty or on a high horse. I’m truly sorry, I did not mean to make fun of anybody. I just wanted us to think a bit more over how we write here so that it will be easier for other - non-native speakers most of all - to understand.

[Nicolay-zandalar-tribe]

It was very clear you were trying to be funny. It’s just you came across as a university teacher who tries to be “funny” with her students on a less-than-important second rate course. The teacher thinks she is a shining beacon of paedagogy and understands the youth so well! The students just groan in mental anguish and wait for the bell.

[Hyperbole-hydraxian-waterlords]

Yes. I am very thankful for English. Belonging to an even smaller minority language-wise I’m happy to not have to learn yet another language to play WoW or write here
I suppose that you’re not English either (my guess is French), and I appreciate the work you did to speak in “common” to me.
To prevent further inter-language misunderstandings: This is meant kindly joking, but serious. NOT Haughty or bitter or anything negative.

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@Nicolay:
Uh oh what misery a language barrier can cause.