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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 5 of 8)
Meira Dec 13th 2008 10:29AM
I'm a "grammar police" too and the funny thing is that english is not my first language, and it's not even on the same language lineage of my first (portuguese is a latin language and english a germanic one), and I correct a LOT of englishmen and germans who should know better english than me.
My personal peeves of language typos are "inscriptionist", "heler", "wat?" and *your* intead of *you're*. Ok, and the fatal one, "rouge". I have another peeves, like "Anzol Nerub" (anzol is a fishing lure in portuguese, which makes me laugh a little) or "An Kiraj" in the old days, but those are not linguistic typos, so I forgive them a little.
Arcaria Dec 13th 2008 10:33AM
Let me axe you guys a question...
Dulock Dec 13th 2008 11:05AM
I laughed out loud on that one. Please note that i did not abbreviate due to the nature of this blog.
West Dec 13th 2008 3:40PM
Off-topic: Leela says to Bender in Raging Bender:
"You can't quit every time you get an axe in the back or a drill through your face. Now quit scratching your axe hole and get out there."
Clete Dec 13th 2008 10:38AM
I'm actually a stickler for good grammar. I rarely use typing shorthand because I think it can kill clear communication. However, assuming someone does not get the difference between its and it's, your and you're, or is calling a scribe an inscripto or what have you--saying anything about it is generally not taken well. The response is not going to be "Thank you for correcting me, I won't make a similar error again." People are too defensive in general and trade chat for that. The assumption is usually that you're just being a jerk, not trying to help. The response you'll get is something like: "Your gay."
I'm not going to waste my time with a snappy, "My gay what?" I prefer to just find what I'm after in trade, say thank you, and /leave.
Juliah Dec 13th 2008 10:37AM
I'm a technical writer, so I left Trade, Guild Recruitment, and General the moment I logged in my first character. It reduces my stress to avoid interacting with those people as much as possible.
Meynara Dec 13th 2008 10:37AM
Most of the time I ignore the spelling errors, egregious grammar mistakes, and the nearly indecipherable series of letters and numbers that has become shorthand for the English language. It's a game, not a writing exercise after all.
However, if someone is making a lot of errors while being a jerk in trade chat, then I'll bust out the English major in me and say something.
Muse Dec 13th 2008 10:42AM
I don't correct people all that often, but I keep my own spelling as right as I can, and tend to write full complete sentences in guild chat. So this one time my hands were icy cold and I kept missing keys, making my guildies wonder if someone else was playing my character.
Milk Dec 13th 2008 10:43AM
Random Character: "lf healz eny lvl 70 or hiyer"
Me: "Somewhere an English teacher is crying."
As far as misspellings and grammatical errors, I say let them be unless the person is being a douche and spamming trade or if it's something like my quote above. Whether they spell correct, abbreviate everything, or don't/misuse punctuation you can still figure out what they are saying.
Save the elitism for your etymology forums. I'm not going to correct someone for saying your vs. you're, alot vs. a lot, rouge vs. rogue, or any other common misspellings.
P.S. Anyone else notice how everyone's comments are full sentences with proper spelling. LOL
MusedMoose Dec 13th 2008 10:54AM
I'm an aspiring writer with a degree in English, so while I definitely know my grammar, I also know that very few people actually talk or write with perfectly correct grammar. I'm definitely including myself on this list. *grin* I long-ago gave up on trying to correct peoples' spelling or grammar on the internet, it only gets you mocked and really doesn't help anyone. I've seen people get made fun of for about five minutes straight for correcting someone's use of the language in Trade chat.
On the plus side, I now speak Typo fluently. It's like a second language to me.
Keyra Dec 13th 2008 10:57AM
It used to bother me tremendously, but not so much these days. The primary reason is that I understand that there are people whose first language is not English, that there are a lot of people accustomed to text messaging and are therefore continuing on another medium, etc.
What does bother me, however, is when I find something of this nature hard-wired into the game itself. There aren't many, but those that are there are a bit of a pet peeve.
An example: "Me not that kind of orc!" WHAP! "I can do that!" And then what do we have displayed on the screen? "1 peon awoken."
ARGH...it's AWAKENED!
Growl, snarl, huff, puff...
Keiki Dec 13th 2008 10:58AM
I switch on my grammar-nazi hat when I see people flaming one another for pages on end, using text-mesaging of l33t speak. My chief complaint is that they have a full QWERTY keyboard in front of them. They should learn to use it.
GrammarMonkey Dec 13th 2008 10:59AM
@JuicedCardinal
Never pronounce the leading 'h'?
So are you a "uman" or a "human"?
Brittonhall Dec 13th 2008 11:07AM
As far as Inscription goes, my guild has decided to reject the term scribe in favor of a more enjoyable "inscriptionizationeer." While it may be difficult to type, it is really really fun to say.
Steve Dec 13th 2008 11:09AM
I mostly think it's funny to watch. My all time favorite response to poor grammar in the Trade Channel (I can't claim it...I only witnessed it) was:
crits Grammar for 14K. English dies.
Kia Dec 13th 2008 11:47AM
Reminds me of one of my own,
"Did you guys hear that?"
"What?"
"It was the English language. -Dying-."
Chris Wilkerson Dec 13th 2008 11:12AM
I like to correct people who are annoying. Other than I won't correct someone's mispeelings. I usually [when correcting them] also make intentional type-ohs. This usually gets trade all fired up because the other grammar nazi's who don't care but want to defend the guy I'm correcting chime in and call me an idiot. It usually gets lots of attention :)
P.S. I'm a troll
Tenchan Dec 13th 2008 11:12AM
I don't correct obvious typos, that'd be silly. Everyone typos. I do it a lot in game myself, because I'm horrible at typing while doing something else. Only if someone repeats the exact same typo over and over I assume they don't know better and inform them of the mistake.
I also don't correct people who use netspeak... I simply don't respect them. It's a game, yes, but we players are real people. If you can't bring up the respect to use proper words when talking to real people, I won't bring up respect either. Most of the time, that effectively means I won't group with them. The rest, it doesn't matter to anyone but me anyway.
hamsammich Dec 13th 2008 11:17AM
I used to correct people quite a bit, but I found that it was a losing battle. Most people cannot speak properly to begin with, and when you give them a keyboard it only gets worse.
It's amazing that there is any question that our society is in peril with regards to schools and the rise in failing grades.
Siaperas Dec 17th 2008 2:44PM
I remember trying to start a group with somebody who told me to turn my caps off because I started every sentence and name with a capital letter. Apparently, he believed that any kind of capital letter was to be read as a /yell.
The group didn't last very long as he tried to 2-man Strat UD with his 62 fury warrior while my 61 ret pally attempted to heal.