kochoupink
butts lol
Here in the SPPf Debate Forum, we discuss all sorts of abuses and abusers: from the London Riots to gay marriage, from a(nti)theism to the hilariously pseudofactual cesspool that is global warming thread, strong ethical questions of "should we?" are posed, answered, discarded, and answered again, with more condescension.
In the spirit of this, our noble subforum, I present to you a discussion about the voiceless mass that is kicked around, misused, and maligned each day on this v. forum. Already you are mentally listing the candidates: homosexuals, homophobes, atheists, Christians, Muslims, Democrats, Republicans, BigLutz, Australians(?), &c.
None of these, however, are correct. They all have voices. Some of them have quite loud voices. No. Today, I, like the Lorax, speak for those who stand silent; I am kochoupink, and I speak for the apostrophes (and all other forms and marks of grammar and punctuation).
In my tenure on this forum, I've seen many attempts to defend spelling/grammar foibles (some of which are so ghastly as to alter the meaning of the original post) with some version of the following:
"Well its just an internet forum, so who care's?"
I. Care. You should, too. Would you make a thread arguing against the existence of laws? Do you claim that the world would be better in a state of nature, as we are witnessing in the London riots? If so, if you are truly a hardened anarchist who believes that people should be allowed to rape, pillage, murder at will, then I give you full permission to not care about grammar.
For the rest of us (those of us with any social conscience, or indeed, any individual conscience at all), please consider the following:
Language is a verbal expression and, indeed, symbol of our society. Language changes the way societies interact (for some discussion of this, see Noam Chomsky's views on Linguistic Determinism, or George Orwell's treaties on Newspeak). Just as societies have laws to protect their citizens, so too do languages have laws to protect their meanings. A single misplaced comma, apostrophe, or homophone can completely change the meaning of a sentence, as I have demonstrated to several of you with pictures.
A language without grammar is an invitation to deliberate misreadings, to false accusations, and to linguistic anarchy. Ignoring grammar weakens your points by weakening your language itself. If you abuse grammar, you are a criminal of thought.
Some forums have taken to monitoring grammar, and will not allow grammatical errors (typos excluded: this thread is not about typos, which are forgivable) to be posted. I have seen them, and overall I am impressed with the quality of the remaining posts. By protecting the rights of grammar, they have raised the value of their forum.
Of course, I wouldn't propose anything so radical for this bastion of civilization, but as an academic discussion, it has merit. So my question is this:
Should good grammar be protected and celebrated? Should those who use bad grammar (and spelling, which we will consider as falling under its purview) be censured in some form?
Please note, Profesco, that this is not a satire thread. I am dead serious. This argument has infinitely more merit than many being debated, and it deserves to get proper attention.
In the spirit of this, our noble subforum, I present to you a discussion about the voiceless mass that is kicked around, misused, and maligned each day on this v. forum. Already you are mentally listing the candidates: homosexuals, homophobes, atheists, Christians, Muslims, Democrats, Republicans, BigLutz, Australians(?), &c.
None of these, however, are correct. They all have voices. Some of them have quite loud voices. No. Today, I, like the Lorax, speak for those who stand silent; I am kochoupink, and I speak for the apostrophes (and all other forms and marks of grammar and punctuation).
In my tenure on this forum, I've seen many attempts to defend spelling/grammar foibles (some of which are so ghastly as to alter the meaning of the original post) with some version of the following:
"Well its just an internet forum, so who care's?"
I. Care. You should, too. Would you make a thread arguing against the existence of laws? Do you claim that the world would be better in a state of nature, as we are witnessing in the London riots? If so, if you are truly a hardened anarchist who believes that people should be allowed to rape, pillage, murder at will, then I give you full permission to not care about grammar.
For the rest of us (those of us with any social conscience, or indeed, any individual conscience at all), please consider the following:
Language is a verbal expression and, indeed, symbol of our society. Language changes the way societies interact (for some discussion of this, see Noam Chomsky's views on Linguistic Determinism, or George Orwell's treaties on Newspeak). Just as societies have laws to protect their citizens, so too do languages have laws to protect their meanings. A single misplaced comma, apostrophe, or homophone can completely change the meaning of a sentence, as I have demonstrated to several of you with pictures.
A language without grammar is an invitation to deliberate misreadings, to false accusations, and to linguistic anarchy. Ignoring grammar weakens your points by weakening your language itself. If you abuse grammar, you are a criminal of thought.
Some forums have taken to monitoring grammar, and will not allow grammatical errors (typos excluded: this thread is not about typos, which are forgivable) to be posted. I have seen them, and overall I am impressed with the quality of the remaining posts. By protecting the rights of grammar, they have raised the value of their forum.
Of course, I wouldn't propose anything so radical for this bastion of civilization, but as an academic discussion, it has merit. So my question is this:
Should good grammar be protected and celebrated? Should those who use bad grammar (and spelling, which we will consider as falling under its purview) be censured in some form?
Please note, Profesco, that this is not a satire thread. I am dead serious. This argument has infinitely more merit than many being debated, and it deserves to get proper attention.