First of all, thanks to Dave for addressing my request and fixing it.
To the haters on this thread: my request had nothing to do with messages that people send back and forth on here -- I was only suggesting that the board's name (not "forum's name" -- thanks for the clarification, xrunner!) be spelled correctly.
But there's an interesting discussion going on about writing quality -- why should we care? What if someone doesn't speak English as her first language? We're engineers, not poets, damnit! Do we really need to sound like John Updike when discussing how to double-buffer SERDES data on FPGA's?
My problem with sloppy writing has nothing to do with pretentiousness or blind adherence to rules -- I've got no problem with people who "could care less" about grammar. And, if you want to start a sentence with a contraction, that's fine by me. And irregardless that your posts contain made-up words, I'll try to parse them, infer meaning, and reply accordingly.
But when we're online, we're all writers -- and the more clearly we write, the better we'll be able to understand each other. I understand that writing well puts a slight amount of strain on your body compared to simply mashing the keys and hitting "Post" -- but I think it's well worth it.
Case in point, from this very thread:
I know proper punctuation,grammar and spelling are considered by some to be a sign of intellegence but it could also be because english is not the persons first language or pure laziness.
See what AcHmed99 did there? When I read that sentence for the first time, this is the meaning that I inferred: "I know that proper grammar is considered a sign of intelligence, but proper grammar could also be because English is not the person's first language, or because it's not the person's first pure laziness."
It follows no logical train-of-thought.
Before you say it, I know: I can step back, re-read the sentence a few times, and figure out that that AcHmed99 meant to say: "I know that proper grammar is considered to be a sign of intelligence, but for a lot of people, English is not their first language. And for many others -- myself included -- we're downright lazy."
But why not just write that way in the first place?
I don't mean to pick on AcHmed99, but that post perfectly illustrates my view: for some reason, as soon as people sit down in front of a computer, they just blurt out their stream-of-conscious thoughts, and then leave us all in the dust to try to parse the derailed-freight-train-of-thought logic. I've found that technical discussions are particularly unforgiving -- proper grammar helps remove ambiguity, which is always a good thing when talking about complex shit.
I've never corrected someone's grammar on here (I'm sorry, but requesting that the official title of a board be spelled correctly is not the same thing as correcting bad grammar on someone's post), and I totally understand -- and admire -- people who come on here who don't speak English as a first language (I couldn't imagine going on a Japanese or Polish forum and trying to make sense of anything, so major props to you non-native English speakers!).
But I think we could all be a little more clear when we communicate on here -- and I, for one, could learn some pith while I'm at it, as this post has gone far beyond the length I anticipated!