Grammar Police

[expat]

Well, this is for Doug and Paul. How many of these did you know about or even learn in school. I have seen a couple, but no idea where or when to use them :-?

Matt

[Fozzer]

Hello Matt... ...

Excellent find.
The ones I am familiar with, from my handwriting/calligraphy past:
Because.
Caret.
Pilcrow.

Exclamation Comma, and Question Comma, make a lot of sense when used in a sentence!

I avoid Asterism and Interrobang, because the description here uses the word; "Awesome" in the text... ... ...!

Wonderful, when writing with good, old-fashioned, pen and ink, on paper.

Happy days!

Paul... ...!

[Hagar]

Interesting. Like you, I've seen some of them used in books but until now I didn't know their names or what they mean. No, we were never taught them at school.

I found a complete list of punctuation marks here ---> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuation

[expat]

Interesting. Like you, I've seen some of them used in books but until now I didn't know their names or what they mean. No, we were never taught them at school.

I found a complete list of punctuation marks here ---> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuation

Good find Doug. It is a shame 90% are not on a keyboard, well unless you left shift right CTRL, pinky finger the ALT GR, index the table and then type in a four figure code

[Flying Trucker]

Goodly morning all...

Like you three I also have seen some of these punctuation marks but have never used them.

Shorthand and Latin along with the use of the Slide Rule was compulsory here in Canada in the five year high school course but I do not think they have a five year high school course now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorthand

I think a lot of us military aviators used a form of Shorthand to fill in the Remarks Section in our Log Books.

As for Latin...never used it...

The Slide Rule...now that was useful...

I do not think most students today know what a Slide Rule is or are they able to sit down and write not type a paragraph after finishing school.

I agree with you there Matt, the keyboards could be changed.

I would also like to see something that would show immediately when someone is typing something out and misspell a word, that it shows up immediately for correction prior to the typist typing on.

A Grammar Usage would also be nice.

I also think the above two would be very educational for our students rather than just doing a Spell Check at the end of the typed work.

However it is nice to see that is changing here with Reading, Writing, Arithmetic and compulsory Physical Education reinstalled in the schools at all levels.

Now if I might continue with an off topic opinion.

Many of us feel that Morse Code should still be compulsory learning for aviators who hold all classes of pilot's licences, not just the military.
That includes the Recreational Licence and Ultralights also.

[patchz]

I was familiar with the Caret, Section Sign, Pilcrow, and Snark, the latter of which is why I use so often.

But I love the Because Sign, Exclamation and Question Commas. Now I just need to find them on my Character Map.

Alas,

[machineman9]

I'm familiar with the caret (usually used in mathematics to denote indices). Similarly, the 'because' sign (and its upturned rival, 'more over') are used in physics to short-hand explain a theory or equation.

The section sign should be familiar to anyone who plays The Sims, as the Simoleon is their national currency, using that symbol.

I've also given a few interrobangs in my time, usually not in the same sentence as an ampersand though.

[Hagar]

I would also like to see something that would show immediately when someone is typing something out and misspell a word, that it shows up immediately for correction prior to the typist typing on.

The Firefox browser has a spell checker which does exactly that. (I installed the British English dictionary for it.) Words not in the dictionary are underlined in red. Right-click on an underlined word for a list of suggestions for the correct spelling. My spelling has always been pretty good but I find it very useful as my typing is hopeless.

A Grammar Usage would also be nice.

Word processing software like Microsoft Office includes a grammar check feature. It corrects things I don't want corrected so I always disable it.

These things are all very well but I don't like machines trying to interpret what I mean. In the end there's no substitute for learning to do it properly yourself. Unfortunately in the computer age that is rapidly becoming a lost art.

[Steve M]

For Doug (Flying Trucker), or anyone interested.


http://tinyspell.numerit.com/

[Hagar]

Spell checkers can be useful but they obviously cannot detect correctly spelled words used in the wrong context. This is becoming very common. For example;

its & it's
their, there & they're
to & too
your & you're

[Flying Trucker]

Thanks Doug and Steve...much appreciated...

[Steve M]

Spell checkers can be useful but they obviously cannot detect correctly spelled words used in the wrong context. This is becoming very common. For example;

its & it's
their, there & they're
to & too
your & you're

I agree, not much software available now, can understand context.

[Webb]

I use caret a lot.  In CSS programming it's a shortcut for "begins with".

And section.  "To indicate sections in a text, mostly by lawyers, who are too good for regular punctuation marks." We're pretentious.

[ViperPilot]

Hello!

I guess I was lucky for paying attention during English class! 

In this day and age, as more and more people seem to type like they text no wonder things like proper sentence structure, punctuation and proper word usage is slowly becoming a lost art! What gets me are people who don't seem to care that they really don't write and spell very well!

Personally... if someone like that worked for me, and they handed me a letter needing my review and it was written terribly, I would hand it back to them chock full of corrections. In a professional situation like that there's no excuse for something like that.

Just my 2

[H]

The most common use of these, during my younger days of short story writing, was the carat mark; even with a typewriter (do a search, if you wish) available, I usually hand wrote a draft; erasing and inserting being a problem, especially if using pen, I'd correct omissions and insert above with a carat mark below.

Spell checkers can be useful but they obviously cannot detect correctly spelled words used in the wrong context. This is becoming very common. For example;

its & it's*
their, there* & they're
to & too
your* & you're*

Conversely (you may have been referring to this with your other remark), they will also target names spelled different than a similar word or references to words of a foreign language.
*I believe those of the U.S. closer to the southern hills differentiate these with tis, thar, yer/yur and yor, respectively...

8-)