Why writing style and grammar matters in posts

[Nominal Animal]

This is a technical forum where people interact with each other.  Some members speak English natively, but many do not.  I would like to take a minute of your time to explain in detail why writing style and grammar matters, and why you should spend the effort to do the best you can.

I am personally not a native English speaker at all, my own native language being Finnish, so I too have problems with specific facets of English (gendered pronouns, homophones that are not homographs, social subtext); plus my biggest fault is being overly verbose.  I write walls of text.  Sorry.

• Communication is give and take.
  
  For others to show you courtesy, you need to show courtesy to them first.  This means that posts that look like they were carefully constructed, are more likely to get carefully considered responses.  If they look like they were thrown out without any interest in followups, they will be ignored.
   
• Standard structure and grammar helps those not reading/writing/speaking English as their native language understand.
  
  Many of the members participating here read and write a lot of technical English, so it can be surprising that colloquialisms throw them off.  For example, in spoken English "to" and "too" sound so similar that native speakers naturally read them similar; not so for non-native readers.  Similarly, in written English "then"/"than", "which"/"witch", etc. homophones are not homographs, and mistaking them can severely confuse non-native readers, because to them, you're mixing completely unrelated words.  Thus, not caring about your writing style and grammar implies you do not care about non-native English speakers or their responses.
   
• We discuss technical things here, so precision and clarity is highly appreciated.
  
  Nobody likes doing someone elses work for them, or trying to pull the necessary details needed to help with the problem from a vapid asker who does not have the time to help themselves, much less reciprocate.  Precision and clarity is the first step in reciprocating, showing that the asker spent enough effort in asking the question to make it worth answering, plus it makes it much easier for those interested in helping –– both native and non-native English speakers –– to help.

This does not mean that as readers, we should consider the lack of concise, clear style and perfect grammar an indication of anything.  Again, non-native English speakers make odd errors, and many technical people have dyslexia and other issues.  Fortunately, we don't need perfect communication to communicate efficiently and in mutually beneficial ways; we only need to do our best.

That means that it is okay to use online translators and large language models (GPT and similar) to help construct your posts.  You should ensure the translation or output matches your intent, though.  And, because of spammers exploiting them to present themselves as actual users, it is recommended you do not simply copy-paste the machine output into your post, but for example replace the least technical parts with your own words, even if poor English.  That way, you show you're spending the effort to interact with others.  If you make a typo or grammar error, you can edit your post and fix it.  If the misunderstanding is larger, acknowledge it and move on.

This forum is indexed by web search engines, and many readers come here because they found posts using terms related to some problem they are trying to solve.  Thus, it is not just your own immediate needs, but also future-you's needs, that admitting an error, and summarizing the solution you decided to go with in a post serves.  If we all do so, we don't need to re-ask questions already discussed, and can simply search for the relevant threads, read them, and learn everything we need.  Without admissions of error/misunderstanding and follow-up posts describing whether the solution worked, we all lose; so even if socially a bit awkward, in a technical discussion they are worth their gold.

Opinions are not interesting, because they cannot really be compared against each other, and they tend to change anyway as time progresses.  However, the reasoning and experience behind the opinions can be evaluated and adapted, so they are quite valuable.  Thus, instead of just posting your current opinion, it is better to describe why you have the opinion currently.  Also, while it is difficult to accept two opposing opinions at the same time, it is easy and natural to consider one acceptable in some specific situation, and the opposite in a different situation.

Because terms and abbreviations vary across the world, it is important to define the terms and abbreviations you use, to ensure your post is understood the way you intended.  For example, CIA does not always refer to an intelligence agency.  It may refer to a MOS 6526 or MOS 8520 Complex Interface Adapter IC (as used with the 6502 microprocessor), "Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability" (concept triplet in information security), CAN in automation, or a number of other things including four different international airports.  It also means that arguments like what a term exactly means (its definition) are useless, because it is just a matter of convention, and we can agree to one definition in one thread, and a different one in another thread; the important thing is that we all understand the posts the same way.

All of the above could be summarized as simply "because the important thing here is that the content of the post is understood the way the poster intended, and we are not telepaths".  Our interactions with each other are limited by the way we communicate.  By striving for minimal error rate, we strive for most mutually beneficial interactions, and maximal long-term gain for everyone.  We can tolerate error from those whose results are limited, but an increasing number of those who could but do not feel they need to spend the effort, can easily bring down the quality to where it is no longer mutually beneficial to interact.  Consider littering: it is much more difficult to be the first who litters at a clean place, than add to existing litter.  Small gestures matter.

Finally, because this is a forum with written text only, it is important to remember that others do not react to your person, they only react to your output.  And, we can affect our output without any change in our person.  Thus, by controlling your output, you can control how others react to you.  While this comes back to point 1. above, it also means that you should not take things personally: nobody knows you, they can only read what you have written.  So, if others' reaction to your output feels wrong or annoys you, consider whether there is some small change in your output that could change that.  It is easy but unrealistic to demand everyone else change; but even a small change in ones output can drastically change how others react to your posts.

Once again, I apologize for the wall of text.  The more important and/or many-sided I think the issue is, the more verbose I get.  It is a fault of mine I'm working on.  (My secret hope is that this will spur on a discussion as to what are the important key points, and that eventually someone summarizes them in a two-paragraph sticky post, useful for everyone.  But don't tell anyone yet; we'll have to just see if that happens.)

[tggzzz]

Those three numbered points should definitely be read and understood and actioned by a small number of the posters on this forum. (No names, no witch hunt)

I try to follow Postel's Robustness Principle/Law: "be conservative in what you send, be liberal in what you accept" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle

If I am asking other people to help me, it would be extremely rude (and self-defeating!) if I couldn't be bothered to help them to help me.  That's the first half of Postel's Law.

[IanB]

Supposing someone struggles to compose well structured and grammatically correct sentences (in any language), does that mean they might also struggle to compose well structured and electrically correct circuits, or might struggle to see where existing circuits might have problems? (Or for that matter, have similar difficulties with code and software?)

In all cases, logic, order and perception matter.

[Mechatrommer]

Supposing someone struggles to compose well structured and grammatically correct sentences (in any language), does that mean they might also struggle to compose will well structured and electrically correct circuits, or might struggle to see where existing circuits might have problems? (Or for that matter, have similar difficulties with code and software?)

In all cases, logic, order and perception matter.

i dont think so. logic in circuit or math or SW code is quite different from logic in language... logic in circuit or math (most technical, science or engineering fields) we only have very few, or maybe only one way to get it correct (objective and... provable too) but language is quite subjective imho (too many cultures, languages and words ordering and innovations and intentions). i always treat or think language as a very common mean since stone age in "communication" and there are many ways of conveying it.. but utmost important is the message is decoded by the receiver correctly even if the sender has to find an uncomfortable way of encoding the message in the first place... the trick is to minimize "noises" as much as possible. in context of recent events, noises can be:

1) short forms or broken grammars incomprehensible to the receivers.
2) simply non english, i saw one thread with even incomprehensible characters (german? russia?)

there are more that can be said philosophically and it will be endless imho. i wont type too long into communication theory, you people can and should think for yourself, reading intro in communication theory may helps if you can think holistically too. ymmv.

[tggzzz]

Supposing someone struggles to compose well structured and grammatically correct sentences (in any language), does that mean they might also struggle to compose well structured and electrically correct circuits, or might struggle to see where existing circuits might have problems? (Or for that matter, have similar difficulties with code and software?)

Possibly, maybe probably, but not necessarily. It will depend on the underlying cause.

If dementia, stroke, illness, etc, then that is the way to bet. But there can be some forms of, ahem, neurodivergence which manifest themselves as capability in one domain but not another.

And, of course, we've all seen people that function well in most respects, but who should be kept well away from keyboards and soldering irons.

Summary: it is suggestive, but other evidence is needed.The

I will not comment on whether I feel there is such evidence.

[John Coloccia]

How about we treat people like humans and everyone just do their best to have good conversations?

[tggzzz]

How about we treat people like humans and everyone just do their best to have good conversations?

Yes.

It, of course, requires all involved to think of the other participants, and to help them not hinder them.

It becomes difficult when participants repeatedly hinder rather than help.

[John Coloccia]

How about we treat people like humans and everyone just do their best to have good conversations?

Yes.

It, of course, requires all involved to think of the other participants, and to help them not hinder them.

It becomes difficult when participants repeatedly hinder rather than help.

FWIW, there is almost always too much EGO in conversations online. Sometimes from the asker, often from the replier.

Even when there's not, it's difficult to convey tone of conversation, especially when English isn't the native language. And even when it is and I grew up in New York, and others grew up in London, or Toronto, or Sydney or Sweden, etc...

But it's always up to the guy replying to take things in a good way...or a bad way....and escalate or not. Why ever escalate and be negative over something as silly as grammar, or a beginner question...in the BEGINNERS forum, right?

[EEVblog]

Thanks. Set to Sticky.

[Smokey]

Agreed.  Communication is super important....
Lets start with all agreeing on how to pronounce "Bode"... 

...
Once again, I apologize for the wall of text.  The more important and/or many-sided I think the issue is, the more verbose I get.  It is a fault of mine I'm working on....

chatGPT is really good at summarizing text.  If you are serious, you can ask chatgpt to distill some long text while retaining the important information. 

[IanB]

Lets start with all agreeing on how to pronounce "Bode"... 

We could always write it down, and thus avoid pronouncing it 

But in case it helps, it is a Dutch name, so: https://en.bab.la/pronunciation/dutch/bode

[floobydust]

How about we treat people like humans and everyone just do their best to have good conversations?

Yes.

It, of course, requires all involved to think of the other participants, and to help them not hinder them.

It becomes difficult when participants repeatedly hinder rather than help.

FWIW, there is almost always too much EGO in conversations online. Sometimes from the asker, often from the replier.

Even when there's not, it's difficult to convey tone of conversation, especially when English isn't the native language. And even when it is and I grew up in New York, and others grew up in London, or Toronto, or Sydney or Sweden, etc...

But it's always up to the guy replying to take things in a good way...or a bad way....and escalate or not. Why ever escalate and be negative over something as silly as grammar, or a beginner question...in the BEGINNERS forum, right?

Other electronics forums will lock a thread if the OP is deemed to unable to work on the project, if it's beyond their ability to stay safe.
Just had an example of a beginner thread, essential details missing, and a safety hazard exists.
Be nice about it? I say no, after several hundred posts you should know better to include a pic, make/model number, some bits of a schematic, a voltage measurement.
Instead of pissing off people trying to answer a vague, volatile thread.

We would deny them the lesson to communicate better, by being all so accommodating and nicey nice.

[bdunham7]

i dont think so. logic in circuit or math or SW code is quite different from logic in language... logic in circuit or math (most technical, science or engineering fields) we only have very few, or maybe only one way to get it correct (objective and... provable too) but language is quite subjective imho (too many cultures, languages and words ordering and innovations and intentions).

Language barriers are one thing, but assuming the issues are not being lost in translation I have found that people that struggle to express an idea often don't have a very firm grasp on it in the first place.  The true issues really aren't grammatical, they're the missing crucial bits of information that the poster doesn't provide and sometimes even becomes annoyed about when someone asks for them.  I sometimes get in that hair-on-fire knob-twiddling too-much-junk-on-the-bench mode and make mistakes, overlook obvious things and forget to write down measurements.  But before I post for help or discussion I do my best to organize my thoughts and results.  Sometimes just doing that solves the issue and no post is needed. 

[bdunham7]

Lets start with all agreeing on how to pronounce "Bode"... 

That's easy.  It rhymes with "Rohde". 

[Nominal Animal]

I believe restructuring ones thoughts by putting it in clear understandable written language is a very important tool we can and need to use.

In software development, this is called rubber duck debugging.

In similar vein, putting the effort into structure and grammar (and explaining any abbreviations and rarer technical terms) is not just treating others as you'd like to be treated; it also shows the asker has spent the effort to solve the problem themselves, by ensuring their own understanding is deep enough to explain the problem in as clear writing style and good grammar as they can muster.

Thus, it does not matter if the asker has dyslexia or similar limitations.  The effort in itself is key, because it affects everyone, including the asker themselves.

If we also consider the added benefits of others reading the topic later, and building new understanding and knowledge on top, and sharing that in their own questions and answers, we all win, a lot, in the long term.  I love seeing those I've helped exceed my own capabilities, because it means I've helped create a world with better and more interesting people, things, and opportunities than I myself could create.  My practical experience alone tells me the effort needed is easily, definitely, worth the results.

[HobGoblyn]

I am personally not a native English speaker at all, my own native language being Finnish, so I too have problems with specific facets of English (gendered pronouns, homophones that are not homographs, social subtext); plus my biggest fault is being overly verbose.  I write walls of text.  Sorry.

I am a native English speaker and I still struggle to make short posts.

Mind you, in my defence, at infant school in the late 60s my school decided to experiment on my year (both my older sisters escaped this) by trying to teach me using something called ITA.  Whenever I come across someone who was also taught this way, they too spent their entire life trying to readjust and their spelling is awful.

When MS word started underlining misspelled words, it was the greatest day of my life.

Attached is a pic of how I was taught to read and write, then I would go hone, my mum would get a normal kids book out and was worried sick that I had some sort of problem as I couldn’t read it, I didn’t, I was just taught a really crap way.

Here’s an example of the bad way I was taught.

[HobGoblyn]

Supposing someone struggles to compose well structured and grammatically correct sentences (in any language), does that mean they might also struggle to compose will well structured and electrically correct circuits, or might struggle to see where existing circuits might have problems? (Or for that matter, have similar difficulties with code and software?)

Maybe for some, but not for all, see my previous example about how I was taught.

I’m fairly good at maths but am useless with written English, over the years I have learnt the difference between things like ‘there’,  ‘their’ and ‘they’re’, but while there’s certain long words that I use a lot hence have learnt how to spell them, my general spelling is awful.


My posts might look OK to many, but often I will spend 30 mins doing a simple reply (lots of editing and making sure it’s easy for others to read before posting, whereas most people probably spend only two or three mins doing the same sort of reply.

Sure there are some unfortunate people who struggle with everything, but being bad at English (or any other subject really) doesn’t mean someone’s going to be useless at other things.

One thing that really frustrated me at secondary school (high school) was getting moaned at in almost every other subject because my written English was so bad. I knew how bad my English was, I was only one up from the special needs group for my English lessons, it ended up being really disheartening and demotivating.  Didn’t matter whether say in geography or history I had answered every question correctly with all the necessary info written down, I was going to get moaned at for my spelling etc anyway, so it got to the point where I thought "why bother trying, I’m getting the same crap whether I try or not”.   

That is why when a post is perfectly readable, one quick read through it’s totally obvious what the poster is asking, then instead of helping, people complain about the grammar/spelling etc, I worry they may be putting a poster off ever posting again,

I don’t mind if someone struggles to write and it has grammatical errors as long as it’s easy the get the gist of what they are saying ( even in this sentence, I typed ‘jist’ it got underlined in red, I googled it and realised it should be ‘gist’)

What I really don’t like is something like a mile long single paragraph. I appreciate some people don’t know when and where to properly use punctuation, but surely someone writing one huge paragraph, they must realise it’s completely unreadable?

One other thing I find unreadable is someone typing in all caps.

Not talking about writing with a pen, many people with certain reading disabilities find writing caps is much easier for them to do (all letters the same height etc).

I’ve read that some people prefer to type in all caps as their eyesight isn’t great, and it’s much easier for them to proof read what they’ve typed if it’s all caps.

To my way of thinking, if you can’t read your own post back unless it’s all in caps, how are you reading everybody else’s posts? Surely if you’re using whatever to read the other posts,  then you can use the same software etc to read your own post? 

There probably more to typing caps than I’m aware of and I’m sorry if I come across as  being unfair and/or judgmental towards  people who need to do this, but I do find those posts the hardest to read and usually skip them.

[golden_labels]

Regarding dyslexic people, non-native speakers, and similar cases: readers can tell, if you make genuine mistakes beyond your reasonable control or if you simply don’t give a fuck.

From my perspective, coincidently a dyslectic person, decent style is critical for efficient reading. Humans don’t consume text by reading it letter by letter. Even in alphabetic scripts the brain processes entire symbols. With increased reading skills this moves towards entire clusters of words, along with their context. If a post is written poorly, it’s like having to walk with somebody tripping you every other step. On a trail with guides painted in deceiving colors.

[shabaz]

I find Grammarly very helpful, at least on a desktop. It is free (there is a paid version, but that is only about 15% better than the free option) and installable in desktop web browsers.

I don't agree with every change suggested by Grammarly, so sometimes, I'll override it. It doesn't get everything right (and sometimes, its suggestions feel harder to understand for readers, and I'll ignore them in that case). It is a handy tool for a quick check; if there is too much underscored in red or blue, then at least that's a sign for me to reconsider my output, even if I don't accept all the specific changes that the tool suggests.

The attached screenshot shows the view I see as I type in a Grammarly-enabled browser.

There's also a similar free app called Microsoft Editor that can be installed in browsers, but personally, I think Grammarly does a better job more often.

[IanB]

Mind you, in my defence, at infant school in the late 60s my school decided to experiment on my year (both my older sisters escaped this) by trying to teach me using something called ITA.  Whenever I come across someone who was also taught this way, they too spent their entire life trying to readjust and their spelling is awful.

Yes, I am of an age where I encountered this. However, I inevitably viewed it as "baby English", and since I did not want to be considered a baby I did my best to ignore it and concentrated on reading books written in real English instead. Fortunately, the bookshelves were stacked with books written in real English, so it was not hard to learn the right way. There were inevitably many written words I didn't know how to pronounce when first encountered, or pronounced wrongly, but as soon as I heard people say them I learned to say them correctly. I remember for quite a while I used to pronounce rendezvous as "rend-ezze-vuss" in my head, and it was a revelation to learn the correct pronunciation.

[Mechatrommer]

experiment on my year (both my older sisters escaped this) by trying to teach me using something called ITA
Here’s an example of the bad way I was taught.

its called phonetics.. this system is embedded in our native language to english dictionary (correct english spelling and bracketed next to it is its phonetics spelling) and has helped me tremendously as non native english speaker on how to pronounce english word correctly even until now especially on words that i've not encountered. since english spelling is FUBAR (no insult intended) its near to impossible trying to readjust the whole nation's dictionary into phonetics system spelling, unlike our language. remember did i say language is just a relative and subjective matter, including spelling? i dont mind if the whole english dictionary need to be rearranged into phonetics system, in fact i will be more than happy. but i dont think majority of native english/westerners writers are going to like it... ymmv..



ps: imho its possible to spell english in phonetics way just using normal alphabets, our language has developed such thing, each letter and vowel has its own specific pronounciation... such as cat we can respell as ket in our phonetics system, like = laik.. you = yu, me = mi, love = lav etc etc although normal alphabet cant possible cover all human phonetics, such as e can be pronuonced two ways... the most troublesome for me to pronounce is englishmen's "deep R" you people dont pronounce R like we do... its difficult for us to pronouce deep R and i bet you people also have problem pronouncing R like we do... its tongue matter, ymmv

[tggzzz]

Mind you, in my defence, at infant school in the late 60s my school decided to experiment on my year (both my older sisters escaped this) by trying to teach me using something called ITA.

One of my earliest memories is asking my father to teach me to read. He did. We got a few pages into the second "Janet and John" book, and decided to move onto interesting stuff. Consequently I could read well before starting school at 5. School was boring.

A couple of years later I saw the ITA, thought it was a bloody stupid idea for two reasons. Obviously you have to learn to read twice. Plus you can't continue to learn by reading all the interesting things you find around you.

Summary: I have a lot of sympathy.

EDIT: attribution corrected.

[tggzzz]

My posts might look OK to many, but often I will spend 30 mins doing a simple reply (lots of editing and making sure it’s easy for others to read before posting, whereas most people probably spend only two or three mins doing the same sort of reply.

You missed the closing bracket I noticed that the third time I read it, so it clearly wasn't that important!

More importantly, thinking of the reader first is very important in several ways. It is clear you do that, and your posts are a pleasure to read.

The lack of such consideration and editing is why I rarely bother to watch "yooooobooob vids".

That is why when a post is perfectly readable, one quick read through it’s totally obvious what the poster is asking, then instead of helping, people complain about the grammar/spelling etc, I worry they may be putting a poster off ever posting again,
...
What I really don’t like is something like a mile long single paragraph. I appreciate some people don’t know when and where to properly use punctuation, but surely someone writing one huge paragraph, they must realise it’s completely unreadable?

One other thing I find unreadable is someone typing in all caps.
...
There probably more to typing caps than I’m aware of and I’m sorry if I come across as  being unfair and/or judgmental towards  people who need to do this, but I do find those posts the hardest to read and usually skip them.

All very sane.

The OP was prompted to make his post by member p.larner a.k.a. m3vuv The OP, correctly, did not refer to him directly, but it was obvious what prompted his post.

p.larner was a serial offender in several respects (i.e. not just spelling and grammar), both here and on other forums. He was one of the very few on my "ignore" list. He has now been banned because he couldn't behave himself.

Here's a couple of examples of his many many many first posts (which often didn't have second posts!) ...
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/will-this-work-423071/msg5434079/#msg5434079
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/723-psu-mod/msg5402465/#msg5402465
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/rf-microwave/getting-a-cheap-aliepress-radio-to-work/msg5394983/#msg5394983
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/issue-when-printing-a-pdf/msg5386421/#msg5386421

Entertainingly, when multiple people responded to him in the same style, he became annoyed...
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/off-topic/msg5444132/#msg5444132

Overall, people recognise that we all make mistakes - and they are very tolerant of people who do that and try to improve.

[tggzzz]

its called phonetics.. this system is embedded in our native language to english dictionary (correct english spelling and bracketed next to it is its phonetics spelling) and has helped me tremendously as non native english speaker on how to pronounce english word correctly even until now especially on words that i've not encountered. since english spelling is FUBAR (no insult intended) its near to impossible trying to readjust the whole nation's dictionary into phonetics system spelling, unlike our language. remember did i say language is just a relative and subjective matter, including spelling? i dont mind if the whole english dictionary need to be rearranged into phonetics system, in fact i will be more than happy. but i dont think majority of native english/westerners writers are going to like it... ymmv..

ps: imho its possible to spell english in phonetics way just using normal alphabets, our language has developed such thing, each letter and vowel has its own specific pronounciation... such as cat we can respell as ket in our phonetics system, like = laik.. you = yu, me = mi, love = lav etc etc although normal alphabet cant possible cover all human phonetics, such as e can be pronuonced two ways... the most troublesome for me to pronounce is englishmen's "deep R" you people dont pronounce R like we do... its difficult for us to pronouce deep R and i bet you people also have problem pronouncing R like we do... its tongue matter, ymmv

I would guess that the phonetic translation of English is dependent on the other language.

As for English being easy, have fun with...

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
   I will teach you in my verse
   Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
   Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;
   Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
   Just compare heart, hear and heard,
   Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter how it's written).
   Made has not the sound of bade,
   Say-said, pay-paid, laid but plaid.
...

Full version at http://ncf.idallen.com/english.html or https://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/perverse-language/msg607129/#msg607129

[IanB]

Made has not the sound of bade

Oh.

[Mechatrommer]

My posts might look OK to many, but often I will spend 30 mins doing a simple reply (lots of editing and making sure it’s easy for others to read before posting, whereas most people probably spend only two or three mins doing the same sort of reply.

You missed the closing bracket I noticed that the third time I read it, so it clearly wasn't that important!

Mind you, in my defence, at infant school in the late 60s my school decided to experiment on my year (both my older sisters escaped this) by trying to teach me using something called ITA.

One of my earliest memories is asking my father to teach me to read. He did. We got a few pages into the second "Janet and John" book, and decided to move onto interesting stuff. Consequently I could read well before starting school at 5. School was boring.

A couple of years later I saw the ITA, thought it was a bloody stupid idea for two reasons. Obviously you have to learn to read twice. Plus you can't continue to learn by reading all the interesting things you find around you.

Summary: I have a lot of sympathy.

and you quoted wrongly. you put your words into HobGoblyn's mouth and HobGoblyn's words into Nominal Animal's. be carefull with opening and closing quote's tag (missing opening or closing bracket is not as bad) this can be seen as irresponsible act. preview your post before posting. cheers ymmv.

[Mechatrommer]

...I will keep you, Susy, busy,...

thats called poet and its poetry. there's an art in drawing canvas, there's an art in developing rigol GUI, and there's an art in using words (linguistics), poets, analogical skill or idioms are few of them imho... you seem to have the linguistics artistic talent... i dont usually unleash that talent unless to girls or to my wife before we marry, because they can be affected the most. normally i just tend to use shortest sentence possible to convey (mostly technical) message such as "Suzy can you give me a massage? because my head is dizzy" thats it. no need unnecessary redundant use or extra words. from some point of view i do see redundant words as similar to nonsensical hieroglyphs, just a waste of space and time ymmv cheers.

[tggzzz]

...
and you quoted wrongly. you put your words into HobGoblyn's mouth and HobGoblyn's words into Nominal Animal's. be carefull with opening and closing quote's tag (missing opening or closing bracket is not as bad) this can be seen as irresponsible act. preview your post before posting. cheers ymmv.

The second one was careless; corrected. Not sure why you included the first one, but it isn't worth discussing.

[Mechatrommer]

Not sure why you included the first one, but it isn't worth discussing.

i'm not interested in missing bracket either (although in some cases it can raise confusion as to where the sentence stop or continue), the relevance is that, we need to check our post more carefully. so your advice/reminder in that post is relevant to him, to you and me and other readers. cheers.

[xvr]

A small offtopic, may be.

There are a lot of not native English speakers (including me, of course), but sometimes we can see here some sentences which hardly understandable. Only a few wish to decipher these writing.
It seems that it writes not in English at all.

Like this -

No one had had the slightest desire to learn the language of the boghogs for the simple reason that these creatures communicated by biting each other very hard on the thigh.

But much worse when someone starts to write in all cap. Come across the title "HELP!!!!" and think - it’s a matter of life and death. Next open topic and read "AM NEWBIE. HOW TO CONNECT BULB TO BATTERY???"

Another quote -

He got as far as, “Where shall I put -” when there was a sudden violent flurry and he collapsed heavily against the door, trying to beat off a small and mangy creature that had leapt snarling out of the wet night and buried its teeth in his thigh, even through the thick layers of leather padding he wore there. There was a brief, ugly confusion of jabbering and thrashing. The man shouted frantically and pointed. Arthur grabbed a hefty stick that stood next to the door expressly for this purpose and beat at the boghog with it.
...
“What do you think it was trying to say?” asked Arthur in a small voice.
“Ah, nothing much,” said the man “Just its way of trying to be friendly. This is just our way of being friendly back,” he added, gripping the stick.

My message: Write right - Be Human, not boghot!

PS. Quotes from book "Mostly Harmless" by Douglas Adams (Book 5 of trilogy "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy")

[sparkydog]

english spelling is FUBAR (no insult intended)

Oh, I think you had every intention of insulting the English language. 😉 Don't worry, most native speakers agree with you.

ps: imho its possible to spell english in phonetics way just using normal alphabets

I... respectively disagree, at least if you aren't going to use a whole lot of multi-glyph clusters to represent vowel sounds. English uses approximately 13 unique monophthongs. If by "normal alphabets" you mean ASCII, that gives you six "obvious" glyphs unless you make upper- and lower-case glyphs distinct. Personally, I don't recommend it.

I actually developed my own system for writing English phonetically. For monophthongs, I use 'a', 'ä', 'å', 'e', 'ë', 'i', 'y', 'ÿ', 'o', 'û', 'u' and 'ü'. Diphthongs are 'ai', 'au', 'oi' and 'üi'; dipthongs with 'ÿ' usually omit it, i.e. fear is "fir" not "fiÿr". (But see exception, below.) TBH, 'ÿ' and 'û' could probably be combined without loss of readability.

I'd spell "mi" and "laik" the same as you, but the second-person pronoun is "ju", and a feline is a "kät". IMHO your vowel choices... aren't very intuitive. I base mine on ecclesiastical Latin pronunciations (with possibly a bit of Spanish influence), and (at least if you can muddle your way through pronouncing Latin/Spanish) it's surprisingly easy to read even if you've never seen it before:

    Mai kät lüvz mi, liaks mai dåg, änd hets ju. Äkshûli, shi hets ëvriwün büt mi änd mai dåg.

    Diryst kricÿr yn krieshûn
    Stüd'jyŋ Yŋġlysh pronünsjeshûn,
       Ai wyl tic ju yn mai vÿrs
       Saundz laik korps, kor, hors änd wÿrs

    Ai wyl kip ju, Suzi, byzi,
    Mek joÿr hëd wyth hit ġro dyzi;
       Tir yn ai, jor drës jûl ter;
       Kwir, fer siÿr, hir mai prer.

  Pliz dont sir thü siÿr.

(Note "stüd'jyŋ" (two syllables) in the second line rather than "stüdiyŋ" (three syllables), and similarly "pronünsjeshûn" (four syllables) rather than "pronünsieshûn" (five syllables). The latter is still a horrid force-fit to the meter. Still, it's interesting how phonetic spelling can be used to change the spelling of words depended on how they're meant to be spoken. It's also useful for "writing" accents.)

Writing is another matter, of course, but with only a very little practice, I find I'm able to read this system almost as fast as "normal" English.

[IanB]

A major issue with trying to write English phonetically is that pronunciation is not constant or consistent. Not only does it change regionally, and over time (accents change with each generation), but also by placement within a phrase (weak forms and strong forms).

Even something as simple as the short "a" in cat varies dramatically in sound depending on where you hear it spoken.

Phonetics can be really complicated.

[Nominal Animal]

I feel I really need to emphasize that it is important to try to express yourself as clearly as possible; how well you succeed in that is not very important at all.

The reason is twofold.

One is that the attempt itself will organize your thoughts on the matter; see my earlier mention about rubber duck debugging to find out exactly why.  That is, just by making the effort of expressing yourself to others clearly, you end up organizing your thoughts.  So, it is worth the effort to the asker to do this, even if they get zero responses.

The other is that the effort does show up.  I personally have to re-read my own posts afterwards to make sure I expressed what I intended, and often end up having to modify the post for grammar and individual words.  (Be careful to not change the meaning of the post, especially after someone has responded, because the history of the discussion is itself important and useful.  Adding a note, or using overstrike, to show that some part is wrong/incorrect/needs clarification, is perfectly okay.)

So, even if you have trouble expressing yourself, just take your time and spend the effort you wish others would spend when responding to you (or if you prefer helping others, the effort you wish others would spend when asking questions).  If anyone has difficulties understanding the question or answer, they should ask for clarification; perhaps via "do you mean you have ...." explaining how they understood it, to make it easier to clarify.  (A post stating "I don't understand you." is not very useful, because the not-understood person has no idea how to adjust their output to make it more understandable.)


Some of the posts above related to phonetics (the "standard" is international phonetic alphabet, or IPA, although various languages have their own; for example Chinese Pinyin) show how complicated it is to express a spoken English word in writing.

Consider, therefore, how complicated it can be to express a technical idea or problem, exactly!

Even if you have it crystal clearly in your mind, conveying it to others is not so simple.  It takes effort.

For arithmetic, algebra, calculus, and formal logic we have mathematical notation; MathJax seems widely used on the web as of 2024, and works here too.  (See e.g. this thread.)  For programming, we have a number of programming languages and even "pseudocode", not implementing any specific programming language but being similar to many.  For electronics circuits, we have schematic diagrams with more or less standard set of electronic symbols.

It is quite common that the actual "showstopper" to understanding or solving some problem is not where the asker believes it to be, but one or more steps "deeper" into the question.  In mathematics, we typically avoid that by examining entire equations, possibly generalized by replacing and combining numerical constants with named constants.  In programming, where the entire source is often too large to show, one is expected to distill the problem into a minimal, complete, verifiable example (MCVE), that is short enough to convey, but still exhibits the same problem.  Similarly, when the problem concerns an electrical circuit, it is important to include everything relevant to the problem, while omitting the unrelated details.

Obviously, it takes time and effort to learn to do any of those well.  My own point here is that as long as you put in and show the effort –– including a followup post when you decide on your solution path, and recording your conclusions for others reading the thread later on ––, and are willing to learn, it suffices.  But, at the same time, the effort is necessary, as otherwise the signal-to-noise ratio of discussion can drop to the level of shouting in a crowded mall, which is no fun at all when technical discussions are involved.

[tggzzz]

I feel I really need to emphasize that it is important to try to express yourself as clearly as possible; how well you succeed in that is not very important at all.

The reason is twofold.
...

Yes, in all respects. Another useful post.

Dave made this thread sticky notably soon after you started it.  That has turned out to be a prescient choice.

[sparkydog]

A major issue with trying to write English phonetically is that pronunciation is not constant or consistent.

True, and if you're going to do it seriously, you'd reflect those differences. Hopefully by using different spellings within a consistent system. (I did mention "written accents" as a specific use case.)

Of course, spelling already has regional differences, so I'm hardly convinced this is fatal to the idea.

[T]he "standard" [for writing phonetics] is international phonetic alphabet, or IPA.

The problem with IPA is a) the glyphs are unfamiliar (and not very uniform!), b) some are case dependent or don't have upper- and lower-case variants, and c) they are very difficult to type. (Personally, I think IPA looks like a mix of Latin and very-non-Latin scripts.) The system I designed can be typed on any system that supports a compose key, and possibly some existing Latin-like international keyboards. Additionally, every glyph used has both upper- and lower-case variants. Compare this:

    Dɪɹɪst kɹiːt͡ʃɚ ɪn kɹiːˈʲeɪʃɘn
    Stʌdjɪŋ ɪŋɡlɪʃ pɹənʌnsiˈeɪʃən,
       Aɪ wɪɫ tiːt͡ʃ juː ɪn maɪ vɝs
       Saʊnz laɪ̯k koɹps, koɹ, hoɹs ænd wɝs

    Sɔɹd ænd swɔɹd, ɹəteɪn ænd bɹɪtən
    (Maɪnd ðiː lætəɹ haʊ ɪts ɹɪtən).
       Meɪd hæz nɑt ðiː saʊnd ʌv beɪd,
       Seɪ-sɛd, peɪ-peɪd, leɪd bʌt plæd.

...with my earlier example.

On the subject, there's also Shavian, with its own set of glyphs, but even worse; it's completely foreign to existing English speakers, and the glyphs aren't even in Unicode (AFAIK). There's also English Phonemic Representation (enPR) which is closer to my system (and lacks several of the mentioned problems with IPA), though I would argue that 'ə' and 'û' don't need to be distinguished. Otherwise, aside from the vowel glyph assignments differing, it's very similar to my system except that nearly every vowel uses a non-ASCII glyph ('ou' is the only exception).

For completeness, here's the fourth stanza in my system:

    Sord änd sword, riten änd Brytyn
    (Maind thü lätyr hau yts rytyn).
       Med häz nat thü saund üf bed,
       Se-sëd, pe-ped, led büt pläd.

(Incidentally, I don't get the last line; "made" and "bade" do rhyme. At least how I've ever heard "bade" pronounced...)

[tggzzz]

(Incidentally, I don't get the last line; "made" and "bade" do rhyme. At least how I've ever heard "bade" pronounced...)

It can be either, as per "bade, past tense of bid, is traditionally pronounced /bad/, rhyming with bad, but /beɪd/, rhyming with spade, is also heard."
https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780199661350.001.0001/acref-9780199661350-e-443

The good thing about standard accents/pronounciations is that there are so many to choose from

[IanB]

(Incidentally, I don't get the last line; "made" and "bade" do rhyme. At least how I've ever heard "bade" pronounced...)

Historically, they didn't rhyme. But this is a case where new generations pronounce a word differently, and eventually they most likely will rhyme.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/learner-english/bade

[Mechatrommer]

ps: imho its possible to spell english in phonetics way just using normal alphabets

I... respectively disagree, at least if you aren't going to use a whole lot of multi-glyph clusters to represent vowel sounds. English uses approximately 13 unique monophthongs. If by "normal alphabets" you mean ASCII, that gives you six "obvious" glyphs unless you make upper- and lower-case glyphs distinct. Personally, I don't recommend it.

I actually developed my own system for writing English phonetically. For monophthongs, I use 'a', 'ä', 'å', 'e', 'ë', 'i', 'y', 'ÿ', 'o', 'û', 'u' and 'ü'. Diphthongs are 'ai', 'au', 'oi' and 'üi'; dipthongs with 'ÿ' usually omit it, i.e. fear is "fir" not "fiÿr". (But see exception, below.) TBH, 'ÿ' and 'û' could probably be combined without loss of readability.

extra vowel sounds can be represented with combination of two letters such as "ae", "ao", "ua" etc. i'm sure expert linguists can find a way for it, i'm not really a linguist guy myself, i just want to think whats more practical, technical or engineering thinking may affect my opinion. adding extra letters or characters such as "a" with hat or dash or double dots and those IPA thing will complicate existing 26 normal letters. keyboard layout need to be changed/added to and it can be difficult for fast handwriting or keyboard typing skill we currently have. imho ymmv.

    Dɪɹɪst kɹiːt͡ʃɚ ɪn kɹiːˈʲeɪʃɘn
    Stʌdjɪŋ ɪŋɡlɪʃ pɹənʌnsiˈeɪʃən,

looks like a FU phonetics system i cant read, i only familiar with standards back around 90's used in my dictionary, not sure what standards but it seems they are so many variants.

and then there's "ny", nya is not "nee-ya"...