"School me" is slang. Just like "hot rod", "gow job", or "wicked pissah", none of which can be considered proper English when used as a phrase. I think people tend to be more tolerant of slang that existed during their childhood. Personally, I don't mind "school me"--as long as it isn't spelled with a ****ing 'K'--probably because I first heard the phrase when I was young and hip. Or at least young. "My bad", on the other hand, gives me seizures. Like, I'm so totally sure. Gag me with a septic tank. Oh. My. Gawd!
Good post. The thing that bothers me most about "school me" is that like previously mentioned its so ****ing lazy. I don't have very many topics on the board mostly due in part to huge amount of posts previously made on any question I've had so far. The "school" posters need to be "schooled" in searching.
What a great post! I'm with you on this one, Jay! My pet peeve...people who don't know the difference between "sell" and "sale". As in "If you like my car, I'll sale it to you". Arggg!
Poor grammar is learned at home....along with bad manners, and horrible spelling. Unfortunately, we live in a society with two parents working, and no one except MTV doing the teaching. I was fortunate to have a mother that was tough on us about the use of the english language.....and I am tough on my kids. I hope my sons are the same with their kids when the time arrives. The US is going downhill in the world, and with a workforce that is constantly "gettin dummer", we are in big trouble.
Mine, too, LongGone! Elements rocks! Uh oh -- I hope I can use "rocks" as a verb. ;-) Right on, C9!!! Posts are a lot easier to read if just a little extra time is put into them to make them neat and clear. And I do tend to skip over the ones that have lots of misspellings (sp?) or grammatical (sp?) errors. And we can't forget "you're" vs. "your." One big problem is I'm more likely to doubt the content of the information if the packaging is messy. That's just human nature. Of course, it's getting harder and harder to spell, since our word processors spoil us and we read misspelled words too often on web postings.
Call a Mustang II a Deuce, hell, I do it...but what kills me the most is when people just can't bring themselves to embrace prepositional phrases...in writing...and now even in SPEECH! "Needs rebuilt". NO! it "needs TO BE rebuilt"!!!! "Needs painted". AAAARRGGHH! it "needs TO BE painted"!!! If that dreadfull little prepositional phrase really intimidates you THAT much, then at least default to an "ing" for crying out loud! "Needs REBUILDING" "Needs PAINTING" Otherwise, you end up reading cl***ified ads like: "1976 duce Mustang 2, boss 302 v8 with two barel, auto trans, shift kit, posi rear. Very fast, needs painted. Best offer over $2000." (Because, as anyone who reads cl***ifieds knows...ALL 302 Fords are Bosses, every 289 is a HI-PO, all small block Chevys are Vette Motors, and every 455 Pontiac is a Super Duty...never knew there were so many two barrel Boss 302s built in the mid 70s, and where are all these Vettes with no engines in them???) And don't even get me started on the "best offer over X amount" one...that always kills me! Musta been the pre-E bay version of a reserve!!!
I don't get it, isn't part of being a commiunity of rodders to help each other out? Why would you get upset becouse someone has a question? Typing it out and asking for help IS searching. I once ran across a cat (oops a man I'm sorry) that had a really sweet (well built) Cuda (Barracuda). He had a Hemi (not EVEN going to try to spell hemispherical) in it and I asked if I could see it. He sighed and said if he had a dollar for everybody he had to show it to, he would be rich. I couldn't believe I met a rodder (car enthusiast) that didn't lke showing off his ride (vehicle) Same deal here, I can't believe people find it a bother to teach others that WANT to know. Ok I'll shut up now and not even get into the spelling, grammer thing. Enough to say this has been the most boring 30 mins of my life.
But Terry, did YOU learn anything by spending thirty minutes reading this thread? Obviously, YOU need the spelling lesson as bad as the rest...your "becouse" is correctly spelled 'because'. R-
Which brings us to another interesting option at your disposal. If you have a word processor with a spell checker you can write your posts there, spell check them, and never have an English problem again! It's way cool. Works every time. "Shias mi ladle dues coop, ewe down no wear cheese bin " - Thaw Beech Buoys
..............although Jay has many good points (your instead of you're is one of MY pet peeves) who really gives a ****? This is an AUTOMOTIVE information board! I can, if pressed, do a better job with my spelling and grammer. Usually when I write something in Word, the grammer check goes nuts. (questions a lot of my writing) I just skip over it. I write the way I speak. I WANT it that way. I have a high school education AND worked in a factory in the inner-city for 10 years. I read a lot and I guess MY writing style is just a blend of my many influences? I am not on the HAMB to impress anyone with MY writing skills. I'm just here to have fun, relax, make friends and to enjoy and learn about "traditional rods & kustoms" (sorry of the "K" bothers anyone). I also try to keep in mind that there are people here from all over the world as well as people with varying degrees of education. I would hate to see anyone become reluctant to post because they were afraid of offending someone with their lack of skills. Besides..................instead of worrying about "proper" English..........you better start brushing up on your Spanish! Just MY humble addition.................. (<<<<< oh yea, those little lines of dots are just one of MY "things." Hope it doesn't piss anyone off.........)
That is exactly right! School obviously has something to do with it, but I completely agree with your statement Hatch (as much as it kills me to do so! ). My biggest pet peaves... We was - "we was gonna go...." Them are - "Them are good...." ain't - " I ain't got none, and I ain't gonna get none neither" I work in a pharmacy, and I can't tell you HOW many times I've heard GENERIC pronounced "negetic", "genetic", "negeric", "geric"...... Those make my skin slither.
We was gonna hafta thank ya Cherry Blossom...them are good examples you just gived us, and I ain't never gonna use 'em around you...lest I need beaten!
Yo dogg, tahnks fo skoolin' me on teh grammerz! I was the same type of student, C9. I never paid much attention in English cl*** [I learned how to sleep comfortably while sitting at a desk], but still managed to pull good grades and score high on tests, particularly when it came to spelling/vocab. This seemed to piss off a lot of the teachers, which I enjoyed doing. I do, however, regret that I didn't pay more attention when they were teaching the nuts and bolts mechanics of composition [nouns, pronouns and all that good ****]. Because of this my writing is a grammatical trainwreck, having only gone down hill in the years since high school. What skills I have are due to the fact that I read a great deal. I just try my best to make the things I write intelligible, and to improve it in whatever ways I can. If that ain't enough for some people, that's just too ****in' bad, I guess. I agree with the sentiment behind the post, and hope that people can take it to heart without being offended. That said, this is a hot rod [a slang term in and of itself] forum, not a literary forum, and it is comprised of members from varying educational backgrounds. As long as people put out enough effort to get their point across, it shouldn't matter all that much whether or not their commas are in the right places. Don't get me wrong, I respect the English language and its proper usage, and have my peeves [mixing up 'your' and 'you're' for example], but if someone has something useful to say I'm more than willing to look past some spelling and grammar errors. The nature of the internet message board has almost required some abbreviation to come into play. This forum is the online equivelent to a garage bull session, so colloquialisms are to be expected and, since people have a limited amount of time to spend on their replies [not all of us can type a million words a minute], so are abbreviations and errors. If it's between posting an abridged, misspelled or colloquial/slang infused reply and posting nothing at all, I'll take the former. The only thing I find unnacceptable are the flagrant, lazy types; I just don't have the time to read a long-*** paragraph written with no punctuation whatsoever. Someone also mentioned something about older slang being more accepted than new slang, which I think is true, especially a**** the older set. I'm young damn it, I want some slang of my own!
Whew!.... (damn,i hope i got that right). just pulling your leg,for i am the king of the on-running sentence!
I don't think that Jay's being overly persnickety. He's not just recommending proper grammer; he's also recommending more useful (and legible) ways to post stuff here. Personally, I hate posts with subject lines that are unecessarily vague. "What's it worth?" tops the list. It also bugs me when someone wants some help, and puts "TECH" in the subject line, as if they're the one offering the help. If I spent some time, I could probably come up with a few more examples. They all make me feel a lot less inclined to respond. Oh, one more point: I really appreciate it when someone, after asking a question, posts a follow-up to let us know how things turned out. --Matt
Good post C9, especially with quite a few newbees here. I was never very good at English composition but always did well with spelling. When you find I have a miss-typed word, 97% of the time its usually a lazy typo issue. What really annoys me is the use of the word "like" in everyday language. Being from the Mideast, I think this contributed to the slang used in California. What comes to my mind with the use of this word, is the language used by the so-called "Valley girls" "I am so like" drives me nuts........ This word has extended the boundaries of California through the media and attached itself to every sentence used by Middle America. It usage sounds ignorant to me. The media has also taken spelling to a new low by attaching every word that contains an "s" and replaced it with a "Z" in my opinion, derived from the innercity Rap Culture. This inner-city style of clothing, music, language and spelling turns me off. The styles of dark colored clothing, hoods or hats covering the ears and long trench type coats are used in the innercity to hide or be indistiguishable from the law or other gangs. And 90% of the music is either lewd, angry or violent in nature. Like the California Public School systems ideas of teaching "Ebonics" Why would a school system stoop to these ideologies??? Boy, I'm sure this will start a flurry of views. PJ
I love the new HAMB "see before you open" feature. I hate opening a vague post only to read what amounts to somebodys e-mail.
I just have to add that some of the most well spoken people I know in person come off as some of the biggest idiots when they e-mail me. It's mostly a technology gap. My grandfather knows more about proper english (circa 1955) than I thought could fit into a human brain, but I think he puts it best when describing his typing skills: (stolen from one of his emails (all caps)) hehe... I can't fault the guy, he's retired, and I don't expect him to have to make the effort. I love him just how he is, and he still has important things to say, so I will never rag on him. The HAMB's language mutilators are much more forgivable than the **** you see on ricer forums, or the VW forums I sometimes peruse for information. The Brick Board (Volvo BBS) is also excellent about keeping the dumb*** speak to a minimum. Typically if someone posts something I can't understand there, their name is Sven, and they usually have more technical info than any American! Either way, you can pretty much tell when someone is a dumb***, and when someone knows their ****. The trick is to make sure and listen to the smart guy, regardless of his typing skills.
Awesome..... I'm stealing this thank you very much. No offense to the grammar police but a lot of us read forums to be entertained. Sure you can be entertaining with proper grammar but where's the fun in that? Now as far as "1337" or "d00d" speak goes.......I can't stand it and won't read it.
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