Ah, flaming; the bane of early newsgroup reading. I used to spend a lot of time reading computer newsgroups and to me it seemed to happen a lot. Seems like all it took was one misspelling, one misplaced innuendo, one statement misunderstood and Lord help us, it was Flame On! Some people did it just to try and show off their abundant trivial knowledge of a subject, while others did it just to be a jackwagon (my new curse word from the Geico commercial). And, while the last paragraph of the section "The example of antagonism" explains a lot of it, some of it can also be written off to maturity. People who flamed did so because they could get away with it, something they might not do in real life. It was like they had an alter ego.
The fact that most web pages are in English to me makes sense, since English is the world standard language, meaning it's the official language of several countries plus it is the most widely spoken international language. However, the web presents an excellent place to expand and archive any language that can be displayed with Unicode. Books go out of print, yet on the web, information is almost always (well, some web sites do go away) available. A web site dedicated to documenting a language would almost certainly be archived if not absorbed into another if needed and would not go away. The language could live on indefinitely. I’ve obviously seen websites in different languages, but not speaking any other language, they are more of a curiosity than anything else.
One thing the web has lead to, in my opinion, is tons of grammatical and spelling mistakes. It used to be that you could pick up a newspaper, read it cover to cover and never find a spelling mistake. It would be an embarrassment to the publisher if you did. Now a days, there is such a rush to get the story out as quickly as possible that hardly a day goes by that, if you look hard enough, you'll find either a spelling mistake or a blatant grammatical error on any number of respected news sites.
Oh yes, Daniel. I definitely agree with your Blog on the usage of flaming. You stated that people do it, because they can. I agree! It is not graded, or for a purpose, people don't care how their english comes out.
ReplyDeleteWebsites are set up for any and everybody, and its has no boundaries. So, people can be themselves and let their hair down and type with typos and hypos..Smile.
I'm just saying I believe we should be the best we can be at all times. No matter where we are.
It is hard for some to realize the difference of a quality source and a bad source to get the information for a paper or fact seeking assignment. Because the boundaries are so wide and the grammar so loose the examples for researchers/teenagers is pretty poor. I think teaching them to go beyond the wikapedia search and using official information will help students spot the good from the "bad." I agree with you on the idea of if we look closer the mistakes are all over. I used to have my English students (when I taught) edit newspaper clippings.
ReplyDeleteThis kind of reminds me of a recent article i read entitled "‘Tree octopus’ is latest evidence the internet is making kids dumb"...it's a really interesting/depressing article. It's basically talking about how kids believe everything that's written on the internet....its a great read heres the link
ReplyDeletehttp://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110202/ts_yblog_thelookout/tree-octopus-is-latest-evidence-the-internet-is-making-kids-dumb-says-group
I can totally understand when you stated about articles grammar is over looked. Now days things are done so rapidly and in a timely matter that it does not matter if it's right or wrong. This is why we need to take it back when technology was not here when all we had was books, because everything that is done on the internet is not true. Take the time to research.
ReplyDeleteDaniel, I confess. I am one of those newspaper readers that looks for misspellings. I know exactly what you speak of. I know not why it entertains me so. But as for the "hey, since I found one, let me start something with the author to try to prove my spelling is better" bullhockey, no I agree it is the lack of maturity that spins those jackwagons off their rockers.
ReplyDelete