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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: Are you a Trade Chat grammar narc?
by Robin Torres 
Dec 13th 2008 at 8:00AM
Trade Chat, as you know, includes a lot of things besides Trade chatter: Guild recruitment, LFG, general help, gold spam and, of course, every topic under the sun. It also includes a lot of typos and grammar errors. Some of them are pretty benign, but others are so bad it's hard to decipher the meaning. And then there are the pet peeves.
You're a literate bunch. Do you correct people in Trade Chat? If not, do you mind or care when people do? And doesn't it take longer to type "ne1" than it does to type "anyone"? I know it does for me.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 8)
Vandar Dec 13th 2008 9:37AM
What is driving me nuts right now is all the people in trade spelling "the" as "teh".....I guess it must be cool to be an uneducated moron and show off your lack of spelling and grammar skills.
Kev-dogg Dec 13th 2008 10:57AM
"Teh" is probably more commonly a simple typo. I know alot of the time I intend to spell "the", get ahead of myself and get the "e" in there before the "h". Although I try to use correct spelling and grammar, sometimes I just can't be bothered to hit the backspace key to correct the error.
I think my biggest irritant is simple punctuation. How hard is it to put a comma or a period in your sentence to make it coherent? If you don't use proper punctuation becaues its too hard to press one button, why even bother with the space bar? You press that more than anything, and it serves the same basic purpose; to separate letters to form words, just as a comma or period or semi-colon are used to separate thoughts that people can understand.
GammaPoweredSuperApe Dec 13th 2008 10:09AM
Wait... the trade channel is for trade? Since when?
I only go there to read the latest news about Anal Death Coil....
Ael Dec 14th 2008 9:05AM
This is pretty much the norm on my server. (Thunderhorn, EU)
There's some excuses for bad grammar, spelling and so on: Dyslexia, English being people's second or third language (Especially here in europe), and so on. There is, however, a huge gap between people with these sort of issues and those who simply can't bother to try. Trying to teach people by correcting them on trade is pretty much like trying to stop a locust swarm by using a flyswatter.
What bugs me more about trade chat, however, is the continuous stream of jokes (and that's stretching the term a lot), insults and general idiocy, and that has me reporting people for spam right and left at times. "Anal ", Dirge-spam or other memes that pops up from time often makes /2 pretty much unusable.
I've actually toyed with the idea of making an addon that keeps count of the number of people I've reported for spam over time. Which brings me to a few related questions: For how long will someone you've reported for spam remain ignored? And are there any limitations to how long this list can be? And most importantly: Can being reported for spam actually have consequences for normal players?
superstone Dec 13th 2008 9:43AM
Not really. I am if I'm bored, but other than that it'll irritate me, but not enough to make me go out of my way for it.
I worked with a girl this summer who actually frigging SAID "Oh Em Gee!", and with a straight face. I never wanted to slap someone so hard.
Amaxe Dec 13th 2008 9:44AM
I've used inscriptionist, though I know Scribe is correct... mainly because I figure people will know Inscriptionist-->Inscription when they might not make the connection with Scribe.
I prefer to write out sentences (though I tend to clip unnecessary words), except when things need to be responded to quickly.
I use some common shortened forms because they are recognized easily. WTB is more noticeable than Want to Buy. LFG grabs the eye more than Looking for group. If some guy gives me a buff or a heal in he field, I'll use "TY" since they may be out of range before I finish typing "thank you."
WTF of course is less coarse than typing out what it stands for
However for the people who use L33+ speak, I have no patience for. I see no advantage to typing that way and view the users of it as immature
Flint Dec 13th 2008 9:45AM
I cringe whenever I see one of most evil grammatical errors (your/you're, their/there/they're, etc) but I never correct - there's simply too much of them :(.
TaSMaNiaC Dec 15th 2008 7:33AM
"too many"
havitech Dec 13th 2008 9:49AM
I stay out of Trade, except when I'm looking for a crafter. If General or Local Defense are getting bad, whoever is filling the channel with nonsense gets a spot on my ignore list; it's rarely more than a couple of people, and I like to think that it helps me avoid them when I pug instances.
Anne Dec 13th 2008 9:53AM
I am never thrilled when Trade chat disolves into profanity or name-calling. If you're going to bicker, take it to a private chat - we don't need to hear your views on your opponent's mother and heritage.
Same goes for General chat in a region. Last night, someone was describing his displeasure with the outcome of a PvE encounter, and every other word was F***. Oy!!!
Lesley G Dec 13th 2008 9:57AM
I understand that in guild, party, or general chat, people might be talking while they are also trying to fight, and I forgive the language of "typonese".
However, if it is something obviously copy/pasted or through a macro (like a call for a group, a sales pitch, or a guild advertisement) and it has typos in it I will tell them, because there is no excuse for that.
Nordley Dec 13th 2008 10:05AM
I made our servers most hated list because of my elitist outlook on grammar in trade.
Maybe they should have (or should currently) payed attention in English class.
My two most comon corrections are:
"alot"
and the wrong form for "Your / you're"
My opinion is that if you're going to take the time to insult somebody in trade, at least spell the words (or use the correct form of them) correctly.
GrammarMonkey Dec 13th 2008 11:04AM
@Nordley said:
"My opinion is that if you're going to take the time to insult somebody in trade, at least spell the words (or use the correct form of them) correctly."
Pot, kettle, black.....
See: "payed", "comon"
Taizzaa Dec 13th 2008 10:16AM
Rouge vs rogue - makes me crazy. I usually can't be bothered to comment on other errors. I have to add that I think my spelling and grammar skills are good, but my typing is awful. In combat nothing comes out right. My 11 year old can type better than I can, and is also an accurate speller and decent at grammar. Don't blame the kids for the awful mistakes, I suspect the worst offenders are older teens and adults who couldn't be bothered to learn this stuff in school. And like an earlier poster said, I tend to think if a player has major problems with such basic skills they might not be the most skilled player around.
Omestes Dec 13th 2008 3:43PM
I don't understand it. If cellphones were our sole usage of writing skills, then I could understand the collapse of grammar and spelling. But these kids also use the Web, which is mostly a textual medium.
In most of the blogs/forums I've come across typing in neo-1337, 4chan-ese, or cellphone language is unacceptable. Most of the actual authors of blogs are literate (I'm guessing half of them are out of work English majors), so these kids interact with the actual language daily.
As all of my English teachers used to tell me; "The best way to improve your writing, is to read. A lot." With the internet being all text, you would expect these kids to all be little Hemingways.
I think the problem boils down to the plague of modern existence, apathy, ignorance, and general laziness. Someday I hope these kids learn the lesson that in a textual world, grammar and syntax are a good sign of credibility. Someone who can't spell "anyone" (ne1) probably has nothing to say of interest, since they can't be bothered to learn a simple rule of communications. They probably also have a very lazy thought process, since they think that shaving off the whole .00001 second difference between the two words matter.
Carda Dec 13th 2008 10:17AM
What is this "trade chat" of which you speak?
Oh wait, is that the bug that makes me type in /leave 2 after every patch? I wondered what that glitch was called. Thanks for clearing that up for me.
gakon5 Dec 13th 2008 10:16AM
During the zomvie invasion I corrected someone in Trade Chat for saying the disease crates and cockroaches were "implaced" around the cities.
While "emplacement" and "emplace" are both words, "implace" isn't actually a word. When I said that his response was "who cares?"
And really there's no way to answer that...
More funny than not properly using punctuation, spelling, and grammar on the internet, at least to me, is using big or unfamiliar words in the wrong context.
So I can be a bit annoying when it comes to grammar, but I really don't see what the big obstacle is when it comes to something easy like capitalization. Especially on a forum, where you're not furiously typing out your answers to things (unless you're going for "first!").
LittleJim Feb 8th 2009 2:06PM
Im dyslexic so really find it hard to know if I have spelt something wrong or right, let alone other people in trade chat.
it still annoys me when people use text speak though.
Hoggersbud Dec 13th 2008 10:22AM
Well, it's entirely dependent on the error, what the person is saying, and what I'm doing. If somebody is clearly going to post the same thing over and over again, such as guild recruitment spam, I may be more likely to correct them. Who wants somebody advertising their guild poorly?
I have no problem with the occasional typo though, whether it be a case of your, or rouge, or anything like that, but if I see it being repeatedly mis-used, then I might gently correct the other person.
However, there's no reason to be hostile about it, as hostility won't likely do anything except get the other person angry and likely to ignore you.
And the people who object to "pst me" are just being idiots.
Dulock Dec 13th 2008 10:27AM
idk my bff Jill. I think of that commercial every time someone writes like that and it always gives me a chuckle. For the most part though I just ignore it.