We've all seen them plaguing our internet with their terrible grammar and abominable spelling. SEN has its fair share of people who can't type, especially in the UMS Help section. I want to know what makes them do the things that they do, since I could never actually type the way they type. In fact, even attempting to type the way they type is so much harder than typing correctly. Mistakes often happen, but I usually see them as I make them and use the backspace key frequently.

My current theories to this phenomenon are all just speculation on my part. I honestly don't know. What would really be nice is if we could get an ex-bad typer or even a current bad typer to explain why they can't/won't type correctly.

I think it a lot of it has to do with age. Much of our user base here at SEN is under the age of 18, though those who actually stay are generally 16+. Typing seems to improve with maturity. Could it be that young people just don't care that people can't understand them? Here's a sample text from my 11 year old cousin:
As you can see, he can't spell worth a crap, and has some mild learning disabilities (he's a typical problem child). The only words he misspelled are fairly difficult words, and he does a pretty good job getting the message across. At this age, he REALLY can't write very well, which is understandable. I consider him one of the youngest I'll ever see online, and yet, there are worse people online. What else could there be?

How about instant messaging? I believe this is a huge factor. I never got into the whole IM deal, in fact, I've never actually used one other than a few times. In my case, I was 9 when Diablo came out, and that was enough for my chatting needs. However, Starcraft two years later was the reason I learned how to type, due to the need to type quickly. I ended up shortening words quite often, since it made it all that much faster to type them. About two years later, I actually started to have to write papers in school, and I quit typing like that. Since I wasn't typing poorly all the time through IM, I don't think that method stuck with me.

Finally, there is the foreign language factor. Obviously non-native English speakers are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to proper English. There's plenty of that here, and in most cases, is forgivable. I know my complex Spanish sentences have terrible grammar.

For clarity, here's my questions/requests:
Why do you think people who can't type can't type?
If you can't type, why can't you type? If you don't know, use my three factors as guides.

Well, I have a friend who types horribly. He can never type a single sentence without typos or misspellings. He says that it is because he types too fast, which is probably it, though it may be ESL since he came from the Philippines I believe. The main reason why people probably type bad is what you stated, that most of the people are generally young and shorten words to type faster. I used to type bad and shorten my words because I was generally lazy and young. Also, I think it may be because that since most people don't use proper spelling or punctuation on the internet like in IMing or games in general, it influences others to do the same so that they conform with their friends.

You're just asking for something like this.
Why are you so ugly? Because everyone I know is prettier than you.

Sorry, but you can't say, "I've never actually used one other than a few times" If you have actually used IM. Not trying to be negative... that part just got to me.

I've never truly typed incorrectly. However, in IMs or on Battle.Net, I might just say:

"Lol, screw the period"
"Lol, forget the apostraphe"

And other minor grammatical errors.

Two things:

1. Some people are just learning the language (I know a few who are Chinese and are attempting English on this network).

2. I don't really see this as a serious discussion; but, you did present all the necissary material and I know what would happen if this went to Null >.>. So, I guess it will stay.

Young people who play lots of games that require typing fast. I used to type very badly, but joined forums and made a dedication to improve my grammatical skills.

There are a few reasons. Mostly, it's just that they don't want to take the time to use good spelling/grammer/punctuation. Second, most bad typers don't like looking over their posts for errors, because that defeats the point of using crappy spelling/grammer/punctuation to save time. I think the "coolness factor" is also involved: When playing my brother at SC, he always says "dont use capitals it takes 2 long and makes u look weird"... Basically, because most people on Bnet/multiplayer/IM use bad spelling/grammer/punctuation, the other people think that that's what's expected there and follow along.

When I first
Started Playing Sc Online...
I use to type like so ^
So that the reader would not lose attention to what I was typing. I'm pretty sure you've all seen the commercial of the old lady text messaging and using abbreviations like "lol" and other made up nonsense. The young generation using the internet has tried to make their typing faster by abrreviating. For instance, I always use "ur" instead of you are. I save a lot of time. So from this, I assume that those who mistype are in actuallity trying to save time by typing nonsense.

I'm not going to mention any names, but there are some people here on SEN that just type what comes to mind, and then do not bother to re-read what they just typed Cough*twitch.*
So I'll blame that on them also.

Abbreviating like that takes so much more effort than otherwise. I'd have to think about each word before typing it. In a world without tone where your text is the only thing that defines you, I can't read "im 2 good 4 ur tactikz" without inferring that the author is an absolute moron. I can tolerate grammatical butchering from those that are English foreign, but in order to use something like 'ur' you have to understand the correct usage first. Whether the person actually is a moron or not, talking like that says something about you.

Heh. I remember having an argument with Chuiu back when he was a global moderator and I was rather new. I shortened stuff - I didn't put in numbers or anything like that, but I had the occasional 'ur', I think. Well, I'm pretty sure I did. Maybe I didn't. He called me stupid, I got pissed, yada yada. {Insert something that I personally think wasn't offensive but moderators thought otherwise}

Anyway, some people just want to speed things up. Those that make it ridiculous think its cool 2 b li3k d15. That's all I think of it, really.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Dec 3 2008, 11:10 pm by Centreri.

I am a non native English speaker. And in my opinion, that isn't an excuse for bad quality typing . It is an excuse for lack of vocabulary, but please, not for improper grammar. When someone corrects them, they should try not to type the same mistake again. I type quickly and I miss-type many words, but I try my best to detect them before posting. Should I find a word that I miss-typed, I backspace and re-type it. That is most definitely not the source of this problem.

As to your question, I think it comes with maturity. People eventually start caring about what others think about them, and once they do, they realize that by typing in such an improper manner nobody takes them seriously, or people will take them as idiots, which is actually fair.

I didn't know rockz knew how to speak Spanish ;O
And, why, I'm in Serious Discussion? I think I'm going to start visiting this part of the forums with quite more frequency.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 3 2008, 11:12 pm by Phobos. Reason: Irony.

The respect thing might play a part of it. I'm not a native English speaker myself (two point five languages under my belt ), but I've been learning for ~11 years so I like to think I speak better then most native speakers. Someone who lives in another country, however, doesn't have any necessity to speak English and probably has bad grammar and vocabulary (My French grammar && vocabulary are horrid), so they often just do the best they could. I know if I were to go on some French forums, it'd be a fiasco with all of 'em asking 'Is he a retard' or something like that. You can usually tell who those people are, though. The rest, I think, fit under my categories of trying to speed it up and trying to be cool.

If you are interested in a language and you actually know a bit of it, you can learn the rest. I never went to English classes, and, here I am.

(“If you know a bit of it” points to the fact that you can’t learn Japanese out of scratch that easily without proper education or some kind of system).

I also like how millions all around the world types "Your" instead of "You're" and "You're" instead of "Your".

This can be misinterpreted.
People who can't type != People who suck at grammar/spelling.
I can't type, my hand position for keyboard is horrible. My hands never stay in the same place and just move to the letter on my keyboard.

But, since this is more about actually speaking the language on the internet, I think either:
1) They're lazy or
2) They're not good at English

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Dec 4 2008, 12:37 am by l)ark_ssj9kevin.

I highly doubt that those who type like this in the internet write the same way in real life, most specifically school.

Centreri is right about native speakers joining a French forum, or in this case, SEN. We can't label native spearkers as retarded or dumb if they are only learning the language. I'm native to English also, I obviously learned at school, but when it came to the internet, I didn't want to act like a teacher and pound on those that aren't doing things right... like run on sentences
As you see, the internet is full of faceless people who can act in any form. Thus, the pedifilers on MySpace and the fake girls on starcraft. (I met a gay person once on b.net that tried to hook up with guys by impersonating a girl.) Anyways, I'm going off topic now.

Bucket's reply to 'plz' is awesome and appropriate:

I don't think about typing. My fingers do the work for me, I just watch the game as I play it.
I can type 3 senteces while looking away talking to someone, My fingers fix mistakes for me, I don't worry about anything.
But that's me, I agree with maturity. Most people don't realize how stupid they look until about 11 or 12 years of age