Hah! The Grammar Police Get More Dates - Printable Version

+- The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board)
+-- Forum: C-House! (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-4.html)
+--- Forum: The CardBoard (https://thecardboard.org/board/forum-5.html)
+--- Thread: Hah! The Grammar Police Get More Dates (/thread-10064.html)

---

Hah! The Grammar Police Get More Dates - oldalum - 10-02-2015

Now tell me something I don't already no.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/whats-really-hot-on-dating-sites-proper-grammar-1443746849

---

Re: Hah! The Grammar Police Get More Dates - BostonCard - 10-02-2015

Yeah, I heard a segment about this on my morning commute and was going to post.

A little bit for everyone...

Quote:Dating site Match asked more than 5,000 singles in the U.S. what criteria they used most in assessing dates. Beyond personal hygiene—which 96% of women valued most, as compared with 91% of men—singles said they judged a date foremost by the person’s grammar. The survey found 88% of women and 75% of men said they cared about grammar most, putting it ahead of a person’s confidence and teeth.

So, anyone going to the meet up, make sure to fix your personal hygiene.

Then again

Quote:“Grammar snobbery is one of the last permissible prejudices,” says John McWhorter, a linguistics professor at Columbia University. “The energy that used to go into open classism and racism now goes into disparaging people’s grammar.”

I tend to agree with the idea that good grammar reflects effort on the part of the writer.  Mistakes are allowable (lord knows, I've made plenty).  But if someone doesn't make the effort to write clearly, why should I make the effort to read them?

BC

---

Re: Hah! The Grammar Police Get More Dates - stupac2 - 10-02-2015

(10-02-2015, 10:56 AM)Boston Card link Wrote:

Quote:“Grammar snobbery is one of the last permissible prejudices,” says John McWhorter, a linguistics professor at Columbia University. “The energy that used to go into open classism and racism now goes into disparaging people’s grammar.”

I tend to agree with the idea that good grammar reflects effort on the part of the writer.  Mistakes are allowable (lord knows, I've made plenty).  But if someone doesn't make the effort to write clearly, why should I make the effort to read them?

I think he's making a slightly different point, which is that people use grammar snobbery as a way to look down on people who, once upon a time, they'd use outright racism (or classism) to look down on. I think this is why the whole "Obama is clean and articulate" thing becomes a gaffe.

---

Re: Hah! The Grammar Police Get More Dates - washingtonismoney - 10-02-2015

To expand on stupac's point, something like African-American Vernacular -- to put it in linguists' terms -- is actually highly grammatical. But it has its own grammar, distinct from upper middle class white people grammar. To say that upper middle class white people grammar is somehow a marker of intelligence or what-have-you seems strange.

Now, if someone isn't writing by the rules of any grammar, that's bad and deserves opprobrium.

---

Re: Hah! The Grammar Police Get More Dates - BostonCard - 10-02-2015

To be clear, I wasn't referencing the quote directly in my comment beneath it, it was referring to another portion of the article, which I did not reproduce.  Specifically, I was referring to this:

Quote:One reason people judge grammar and spelling snafus so harshly is that they can reflect the level of effort, or lack thereof, that folks put into their bio. “People use quality of writing as an indication of work ethic,” says Max Lytvyn, co-founder of automated-proofreading company Grammarly.

BC

---

Re: Hah! The Grammar Police Get More Dates - FarmBoy - 10-02-2015

Quote:Hah! The Grammar Police Get More Dates

Alternative reading of the article: Hah! People who are stuck up about grammar have to resort to dating web sites to get dates

It's a fine distinction between finding good grammar an attractive quality and wanting to date "the grammar police". Actually, the line is probably rather thick. I doubt a prospective would respond positively to a date request from someone who took time in their response to your profile to note that they had misspelled "antidisestablishmentarianism". 

It's an interesting idea that grammar snobbery amounts to class-ism and elitism that's acceptable. I'm sure we all start projecting an image of someone based on what they write on-line.

---

Re: Hah! The Grammar Police Get More Dates - fullmetal - 10-02-2015

I would guess the majority of grammar-observing singles do not have to resort to online dating sites...not that there's anything wrong with online sites.  It's a complex situation :p

---

Re: Hah! The Grammar Police Get More Dates - washingtonismoney - 10-02-2015

"Resort" seems like such a strange verb, and definitely out of step with the times. I would guess...60, 70% of under-30s these days have used the internet to find dates? There's really no stigma these days.

---

Re: Hah! The Grammar Police Get More Dates - FarmBoy - 10-02-2015

In case it weren't clear, that crack about "resorting" was tongue in cheek.

---

Re: Hah! The Grammar Police Get More Dates - Rally - 10-02-2015

(10-02-2015, 12:18 PM)washingtonismoney link Wrote:"Resort" seems like such a strange verb, and definitely out of step with the times. I would guess...60, 70% of under-30s these days have used the internet to find dates? There's really no stigma these days.

I have a good friend, and a brother, who each met their now wives on Internet dating sites..  Just saying.

---

Re: Hah! The Grammar Police Get More Dates - 82lsju - 10-02-2015

(10-02-2015, 12:51 PM)ferrari link Wrote:I have a good friend, and a brother, who each met their now wives on Internet dating sites..  Just saying.

how was their grammar?  were they for or against two spaces after a period?

---

Re: Hah! The Grammar Police Get More Dates - CornFed - 10-02-2015

I'm a little surprised by the hostility toward the grammarians around here.  I suspect it is related to repressed unrealized sexual fantasies about your second grade English teachers.  It's just a theory.  But like any good theory, it explains a lot of phenomena.

---

Re: Hah! The Grammar Police Get More Dates - Rally - 10-02-2015

(10-02-2015, 01:05 PM)CornFed link Wrote:I'm a little surprised by the hostility toward the grammarians around here.  I suspect it is related to repressed unrealized sexual fantasies about your second grade English teachers.  It's just a theory.  But like any good theory, it explains a lot of phenomena.

That's the most ridiculous theory ever proposed, CornFed, and you know it.  Everyone knows it was the THIRD grade teacher.  Geesh!

---

Re: Hah! The Grammar Police Get More Dates - yvonne - 10-02-2015

(10-02-2015, 12:53 PM)82lsju link Wrote:[quote author=ferrari link=topic=13009.msg132098#msg132098 date=1443815462]

I have a good friend, and a brother, who each met their now wives on Internet dating sites..  Just saying.

how was their grammar?  were they for or against two spaces after a period?

[/quote]

That's style, not grammar.

---

Re: Hah! The Grammar Police Get More Dates - 82lsju - 10-02-2015

(10-02-2015, 01:38 PM)Yvonne link Wrote:[quote author=82lsju link=topic=13009.msg132100#msg132100 date=1443815599]
[quote author=ferrari link=topic=13009.msg132098#msg132098 date=1443815462]

I have a good friend, and a brother, who each met their now wives on Internet dating sites..  Just saying.

how was their grammar?  were they for or against two spaces after a period?

That's style, not grammar.
[/quote]

yes it is, I view them as a pair meant to be together like ice cream and pie.......

---

Re: Hah! The Grammar Police Get More Dates - Rally - 10-02-2015

(10-02-2015, 01:57 PM)82lsju link Wrote:[quote author=Yvonne link=topic=13009.msg132110#msg132110 date=1443818317]
[quote author=82lsju link=topic=13009.msg132100#msg132100 date=1443815599]
[quote author=ferrari link=topic=13009.msg132098#msg132098 date=1443815462]

I have a good friend, and a brother, who each met their now wives on Internet dating sites..  Just saying.

how was their grammar?  were they for or against two spaces after a period?

That's style, not grammar.
[/quote]

yes it is, I view them as a pair meant to be together like ice cream and pie.......
[/quote]

The usual expression is "pie and ice cream."  Working on my Grammer Police application.  14 essays to go.

---

Re: Hah! The Grammar Police Get More Dates - BostonCard - 10-02-2015

Well, if we are "going there", one space is preferred.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2011/01/space_invaders.html

And here is the Chicago Manual of Style blurb on spacing after periods:

http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/OneSpaceorTwo.html?old=OneSpaceorTwo03.html

For what it is worth, by habit I usually put two spaces after a period, but that is only a (bad) habit.

BC

---

Re: Hah! The Grammar Police Get More Dates - stupac2 - 10-02-2015

One nice thing about HTML is that by default it won't ever put more than one space, no matter how many you put in. I'm not sure if this board works that way, but most boards I'm on the only way to tell if someone is a nefarious double-spacer is to quote them.

I've always wondered if the people who double space notice that nothing they write online actually has two spaces.

---

Re: Hah! The Grammar Police Get More Dates - CornFed - 10-02-2015

(10-02-2015, 01:36 PM)ferrari link Wrote:[quote author=CornFed link=topic=13009.msg132105#msg132105 date=1443816324]
I'm a little surprised by the hostility toward the grammarians around here.  I suspect it is related to repressed unrealized sexual fantasies about your second grade English teachers.  It's just a theory.  But like any good theory, it explains a lot of phenomena.

That's the most ridiculous theory ever proposed, CornFed, and you know it.  Everyone knows it was the THIRD grade teacher.  Geesh!
[/quote]

My theory has a corollary, I guess. My grade school teachers were all hideous looking (but most were angels in their hearts), so hardly fodder for prepubescent fantasies. Presumably the lack of distraction left me slightly less impaired to learn the lessons.

That, and I had an English teacher for a mom.  I'm surprised that I didn't become one of the grammar "haters".  I got more correction than a sane person can withstand.  (That probably explains a lot)

---

Re: Hah! The Grammar Police Get More Dates - Leftcoast - 10-02-2015

In the late 70s I was taught to double-space after every period in a "typing class" using hideously old (even in the day) manual typewriters where you had to listen for the end of line bell and  throw the carriage manually after every typed line.  This was a beginning class but the young lady in front of me could type at 120 wpm on a manual typewriter while I was struggling to hit 50.  I still get nightmares of taking timed typing tests where the ping/whir of her carriage goes off three times on her typewriter for every one of mine.  (Not that I was competitive or anything ....)

To this day that double bounce on the space bar is hard-wired into me and, yes, I'm slightly annoyed when HTML edits me to one space.  #@$%^& proto-fascist software engineers.

Do they even teach "keyboarding" in high school these days?  My kids type daily but really don't understand old school rules like home keys and all the other typing forms we learned.  On the other hand they are always shocked that I type faster than they do and don't look up for numbers.  (Although I never, ever hit 120 wpm.)

EDIT:  Yup, the Cardboard PTB aren't proto-fascists - My beautiful double-spaced periods show up in the paragraphs above.

---