(no subject)

[camwyn]

I have grown intolerant in my old age.

Okay, no, not so much the old age part; I'm thirty-one years old, and that's not old. Not in my family, anyway, where people have a tendency to live to eighty or ninety and require multiple chronic illnesses to take them down. Compared to many other people who take part in some of my favourite leisure activities, however, I am quite old. It is here that the intolerance becomes relevant.

You see, I am a roleplaying gamer. I received my first Dungeons and Dragons box set (back when 'elf' was a character class) at the tender age of. . . oh, gosh. I think maybe eight. I never found anyone to play with, largely because neither I nor any of the boys in my classes understood the rules- and yes, I only tried with the boys. I wasn't much good at being friends with the girls at the time. The box got put away and may have been lost when my family moved to New Jersey some years later, because Lord knows I haven't seen it since. I eventually took up gaming later, when I was older and more capable of handling such things, and have since gained fluency in a number of gaming systems both tabletop and online. I've grown quite fond of play-by-online-post gaming, as it allows for both roleplay and the practise of creative writing.

And this is where the problem lies.

I've been doing this a long time, people. I've played online, text-based RPGs since my freshling year of college. I have seen original characters, ripoff characters, ripoff characters played well, and canon characters played in all kinds of settings. (I am guilty of ripoff characters on at least two counts; I've played werewolves based on Skinner from X-Files and Penn Jilette of Penn and Teller. I like to think Lewis Tanner and Dave Grishin turned out well, but I think everyone believes that about their own characters.) I've been exposed to the good, the bad, and the ugly- and I’m no longer much willing to wade through the ugly to get to the good.

Your game medium is TEXT, people. That means the WRITTEN LANGUAGE. In the games where I play, it specifically means the written ENGLISH language. Languages have RULES. Learn them. Follow them. Love them, or at least tolerate them, or at least for the love of BUDDHA play by them. The format of your game is more than just 'livejournal' or 'play-by-post'. It includes the language in which you write your part. If you cannot manage decent grammar and a fair grasp of spelling. . . well. I've put up with a lot of bad grammar and mangled sentences over the years. I have not built up a tolerance to it- rather the opposite, in fact. I've developed an allergy. Someone who consistently and repeatedly bangs perfectly serviceable sentences against each other, stitching them together with badly placed commas to yield an Adam von Frankenstein of a run-on every time, is not going to get read with a tolerant eye. I may grit my teeth and RP with them if they insist on attempting to interact with my characters, but I won't like it- and I won't try to. I will, in fact, go out of my way to avoid such RPers wherever possible.

Yes, this may be cruel to new gamers who need encouragement to improve their skills, but I am not entirely sure I care. If the gamers in question are past the age of, say, twelve, then they ought to be capable of decent written grammar. I will make allowances for people whose grammar errors are consistent with English as a second language- I've seen those patterns often enough to recognize them. They're trying, or I assume they are. People who cannot figure out the most basic rules for the use of commas, periods, and their ilk are not trying. I don't see why I should have to try.

Your character may be brilliant. Your concept may be brilliant. They may, in fact, be the single most fascinating person imaginable to my own character- original, canon, or anywhere in between. But if you cannot produce at least a basic semblance of real grammar, I am not going to attempt interaction. I'm not talking about fancy stuff that has to be diagrammed on three quarters of the blackboard, or esoteric placement of the semicolon. I'm talking basic punctuation, basic capitalization, and basic sentence structure. If it hurts to read, I'm not gonna make any effort to get to know your character, and if they try to interact with my characters, I will find a reason to get my character the hell away from yours.

Short version: if samples of your RP would not pass grammatical muster with a fifth grade teacher, I probably don't want to have to deal with you.

Thank you.

Comments

[paradisacorbasi.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

I could've written this. It's one of the reasons [along with the fragile egos and cliquery] that I don't MUSH anymore.

[camwyn]

The whole thing sort of came home for me this week when someone who plays at one of the same games I do said, "My character thinks So-and-so is fascinating." I couldn't believe this was possible, largely because the player of So-and-so makes those Frankenstein sentences (at least in my estimation). They also tend to drop faintly metagamey/OOC information in their narration- "'Oh,' Aargha said, wanting to hang her head but not doing it because she didn't want Jubal to think her any less of a Reaver for failing to eat all of her prey," by way of example. I can deal with that, but when it's combined with mangled sentences and horrible capitalization... not gonna happen. Your character is not fascinating to me or my character if I can't read what you wrote without wincing.

[quintus.livejournal.com]

Your character is not fascinating to me or my character if I can't read what you wrote without wincing.

Oh, I so agree. It's the same with forum posts, I don't CARE if the ideas in your post are excellent if it's written in the same style as "Feersum Enjin" by Iain Banks. ARGH!

The horror!

Feersum Enjiin

[kelathefinn.livejournal.com]

Well, Iain Banks is an incredibly gifted writer, so when *he* does this, he has a reason - and as a linguist (person who studies how languages work, rather than person who speaks a number of languages, although linguists usually are also multilingual) I found that reason compelling, and I also enjoyed the way he was writing.
The way a language is written, as well as the 'grammar' of that language, is a totally arbitrary system agreed upon by speakers of that language and used for conveying information in written format. what you and camwyn are upset about is that the information is not being conveyed in the way you think it should be, so that you have difficulty in finding the relevant information - the writer is making you work too hard. As camwyn said, as you get older, you not only have less tolerance, you have less *time* to decipher things. Indeed, people who want to be read and accepted by a given speech community, be it medical journals or online gaming, have to accept the *rules* of that community in order to be accepted and read.

Re: Feersum Enjiin

[quintus.livejournal.com]

Well, in my case what is really irritating me is the implied laziness on the part of the person doing the writing (with the caveat that there are those with genuine conditions that can hamper good use of written language and the addition caveat of course that there are also some very good grammar and spelling checking programs out there).

Good, actually no, passable grammar and spelling is an act of politeness to ones intended audience in my view, much as one expects basic standards of personal hygeine in those one has to spend periods of time in close proximity with.

My own writing is not perfect, but then I also have a bad haircut and I don't manicure, however... I don't smell :-)

Re: Feersum Enjiin

[kelathefinn.livejournal.com]

Ah. The person who is 'doing the writing' - now, is that Ian Banks, an exceptionally good writer indeed, or the character who is keeping the journal that is written in that queer spelling? IIRC, most of the passages in the book are written in standard British English. The passages written in 'dialect' are to clearly separate out the boy who speaks/writes in that dialect. The point is that the boy has never had a formal education of any kind, and that he has taught himself. The other point is that Banks is making a comment on the need to reform English spelling. We could have quite a discussion on this, but this really isn't the place to do it. If you are interested, several people have written academic papers on Ian Banks' use of language in this book.

And, it is *much* more difficult to make up your own spelling rules and abide by them, than to use standard English spelling.

p.s. Give Banks another chance. Try 'Crow Road' or 'The Wasp Factory', both of which use standard English.

Re: Feersum Enjiin

[quintus.livejournal.com]

I've been unclear, for which I apologize. I don't have a problem with Bank's book at all, indeed I love it. What I was doing was citing that style of writing as an example of the sort of text that drives me to distraction when someone is using it on the net/in a MU/etc The protagonist in the book has no formal education through no fault of their own, the berk/berkette subjecting me to an abysmally spelt desc/pose almost certainly lacks that excuse (allowances made to an extent for those for whom English is not a primary language, but then again, they're on an English language MU* so the onus is on them, not me).

"There hare is like silk and caskades down there shulders" would be a example taken to extremes, were "bad descs" type fora not packed with examples that are far, far worse.

[cheezdanish.livejournal.com]

God, SO much word. SO much.

[erisiansaint]

AMEN, SISTAH! Sing it!

[ebony14.livejournal.com]

As I once said, "It doesn't matter if you hold two Ph.D.s and have a genius-level intellect. If you can't write a coherent sentence, I'm going to think you're a gibbering moron."

You should cross-post this to bad_rpers_suck.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

Language is a tool. It is not good to use tools poorly, because you don't get much out of them that way. You could cause some damage, whether to yourself, the object you were working on, or innocent bystanders. This would be bad.

Love your tools--treat them well--learn how to handle them properly.

It doesn't matter whether we're talking about a laser welder or the English language.

A small dissenting viewpoint

[argonautilus.livejournal.com]

I understand your pain. As someone who has had to grade freshman english papers, I know the horrors of which you speak. It's agonizing at times. You get irritated at someone who can't even seem to understand what a homonym is, let alone know they are using one. However, I've found that people learn with time. They become more fluent in their writing ability. This happens largely from practice and good examples. If we freeze these people out then they will have little opportunity to get better. I see much the same process in LARPing. The rewards are worth waiting for.

Re: A small dissenting viewpoint

[camwyn]

*sigh* I know, which is why I feel a bit wretched about being a horrible elitist bitch. On the other hand, I've been playing at some games for a year and more now. Some of these characters are played by people whose demonstrated writing ability hasn't changed one whit since I first saw them cross the game's threshold. Lately, the number of players in the game has gone up sharply, and a significant number of those players have demonstrated a surprising ability to mangle the English language to the point of pain.

I know they need practice and examples and all of those good things, but Daeron and Feanor, I've been bloody overloaded with this stuff. I haven't got the patience for these people any more. Someone else is going to have to teach them- just not me.

Re: A small dissenting viewpoint

[lasa.livejournal.com]

I've had the same frustrations and the same bit of guilt - but when I rp, it's my little bit of entertainment time for /me/. Yeah, it's selfish perhaps, but I'm not there to be an English teacher, or to deal with stuff I don't enjoy - be it bad grammar or bad rp style.

[blackswanevent.livejournal.com]

My mom taught me something very valuable about writing, particularly creative writing. She drilled it into me from Day One that one has to know all of the rules before being able to break them.

Which meant that I spent a very tortured Freshman year with my dear friend sitting behind me going over my english papers and saying, "That doesn't GO there, reguardless of what writer/actor/director said that."

But I second the assent of all of these people (especially as someone with grammar issues herself at times.)

[camwyn]

I have no objection to someone breaking the rules in a competent fashion- well, no, that's not true. I have tried several times to read both James Joyce (Ulysses, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) and William Faulkner (I think it was A Light in August), and they both hurt too much to finish. But, yeah. If you're going to mangle something, do so deliberately. Carelessness- and failure to attempt improvement upon that carelessness- makes the baby Daeron wish he'd never invented those damned runes in the first place.

[rimestock.livejournal.com]

... I love you.

*hugs*

[agoodshinkickin.livejournal.com]

I almost didn't play Milliways for fear of wasting everyone's time with my lack luster grammar skillz.

My Better English Grammar in 30 Minutes a Day book has been left untouched for the better part of a year, though in that time frame I've worked my way through both Woe is I and Eats, Shoots & Leaves (both are awesome if anyone has an interest in funny grammar books).

And while I know all about the Oxford Comma as well as the difference between who's and whose, I don't know that I'll ever feel comfortable using a semi-colon. It's much the same way I feel that I'll never be able to drive stick, even though I know how to "in theory".

At any rate, my reason for posting is two-fold:

The first is to encourage you not to give up on us grammar retards, or at least on the ones who are trying. I know that my personal writing is leaps and bounds better now than it was before I started gaming online, and really I chalk that up to gaming with folks like you.

The second is to point out that you're not alone, even among the retarded. I know grammar is bad when I can recognize that it's bad. I mean, if the mistake is so bold and bizzare that I notice it, then it's just barely English to begin with. There's a hair dresser down street from my apartment with the name "Magic Cut's", and every time I pass the place it takes all my will power not to climb the building and abscond with the errant apostrophe.

I am the terror that flaps in the night...

[camwyn]

Heh. I'll admit- I got a marriage proposal once because I used a semicolon correctly in a room desc on a World of Darkness MUSH. It was the first in a long line of marriage proposals I've received from women. Pity I'm straight...

Anyway. I can deal with the ones who're trying. I'm cool with that. It's just that there are some people I wish I could grab by the shoulders, shake like they were a can of paint and I was a Red Devil mixer, and scream at about it.

[agoodshinkickin.livejournal.com]

You know, some of us might like that.
I'm just sayin'...

[camwyn]

To switch the metaphor into a mode that Mikey would appreciate:

The character is your body.
The RP is your appearance.
The grammar is your pants.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PEOPLE, PUT ON YOUR PANTS.





(yes, yes, yes, skirts, whatever, not very gender inclusive, but pants sounds funnier.)

[innerbrat]

I don't really think that'd work as a persuasive device on Mikey, you know.

[camwyn]

"appreciate" != "comply with"

[innerbrat]

This is of course unshakeable logic.

And you're right, BTW: 'pants' is funnier.

(also, I'd like to apologise for my comma abuse. However, I think I make up for it with my close and loving relationship with the semi colon.)

[camwyn]

No worries on the comma abuse front. I've noticed that most Brits I know have different comma patterns from most Americans I know- or rather, different comma pattern, singular, since most of the Brits I know through their writing seem to use commas roughly the same way. I tend to chalk it up to idiosyncrasy if it's within close striking range of correct-as-I-was-taught.

Driving stick

[kelathefinn.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't know how to drive automatic and held up everyone on the Seattle to (whatever was the name of the huge offshore island) ferry because I couldn't figure out how to release the gears...but. Here is how to use a semi-colon versus a full colon: the colon separates related main clauses (sentences) that each contain a self-contained main idea, or when the following main clause(s) (sentence(s)) are a list of explanations of something introduced by the first clause. A semi-colon is used when the following main clause(s) (sentence(s)) cannot be understood without the first, introductory main clause. I prefer 'main clause' because in my view a 'sentence' only exists in writing, not in speech; you only have to listen to someone speaking to understand that. (Note use of semi-colon in previous sentence.) Hope that helps.

[vivian-shaw.livejournal.com]

I said it before and I'll say it again: the world needs more people like you.

[mattador.livejournal.com]

Word.