Attention anyone who communicates in writing!
The entire point of communication is to be understood by the people with whom you are communicating.
Teh hole point of cummunication is 2b understood by teh ppl your talking to.
You may not like it, but I’d bet that you understood the second sentence as well as the first, laden though it was with spelling mistakes and incorrect grammar. If you understood what I was saying, then my grammar was sufficient to the task.
The extent of your vocabulary doesn’t matter. The more $.50 words you use, the fewer people who will understand you. If you use jargon, people who are outside of the area to which that jargon applies will not understand you.
All of this applies to any form of written communication, be it email, internet postings, submitted papers for publication, etc. It doesn’t matter what your purpose in writing is, the ultimate issue at hand is whether or not your audience is going to understand what the hell you’re trying to say.
The entire point of communication is to be understood by the people with whom you are communicating.
Teh hole point of cummunication is 2b understood by teh ppl your talking to.
For the most part, we fall somewhere in between correct grammar and internet-speak, perhaps leaning to one side or the other. "They" say that the optimum reading level for which to write is 8th grade. What that means is that when you write for a general audience, you should be writing in such a way that anyone with at least an 8th grade education can quickly and easily comprehend your point. While this may seem "dumbed-down", you have to consider that the vast majority of Americans do not read on a regular basis. They are literate, but not literary. The 8th grade reading level assumes that *most* people will be able to easily understand you.
Even more than not being understood, a big problem with writing at a high-level is alienation. If you are trying to make yourself seem smarter by using obscure or uncommon words, one of two things are likely to happen. Either your audience will look up the unknown word (if the meaning cannot be garnered from the context) or their eyes will glaze over and they won’t take in what you’re attempting to convey. There is a limit, however, to the extent to which people will go to understand the words you choose.
The problem comes in when people perceive you as using too many high-level words or phrases. In the attempt to be seen as intelligent, people who are actually intelligent will begin to suspect that it’s merely a ruse and you’re using those words in order to seem something you’re not. People who are less intelligent (perhaps than you actually are) will perceive you as pretentious and looking down on them. Either way, this causes you to become alienated from your audience and, regardless of the validity of the points you’re making, you become irrelevant to the situation at hand.
The entire point of communication is to be understood by the people with whom you are communicating.
Teh hole point of cummunication is 2b understood by teh ppl your talking to.
Grammar nazis on the internet, then, are actually hurting the cause of writing by picking apart incorrect grammar when it already was sufficient to the task of being understood by the target audience. If the information being conveyed is readily understood, then your work is complete. If the information being conveyed is well-structured, grammatically correct and filled with high-level vocabulary and it is not easily understood, or it is easily misunderstood, then you have failed in your attempt to contribute to the greater discussion.
Get it? When it comes to basic communication, it is less important to be correct than it is to be understood.
The problem with l33t-sp33k is that it is hard for many people to understand and/or decipher. It should be considered a niche dialect of English and not fitting for general communication. The problem with aLtErNaTiNg CaPs or ALL CAPS is that it is difficult to read, and therefore to understand. It’s not cute, it’s not clever, it’s a lot of work to go to for people to not understand you. The problem with poor grammar and bad spelling is that it causes some people to be compelled to prove themselves smarter than you. That said, unless it is really atrocious, it doesn’t actually cause or facilitate a lack of comprehension.
Again, if you understand what I am saying to you, then my grammar is sufficient to the task. That is the only thing that matters. If you’ve decided to write in such a way that people will have difficulty understanding what you have to say, then you might as well say nothing at all.
At the very least, others will wish that you had.