Any of you guys think you could do better in Dutch? No? Then STFU.

I have high respect for anyone who can speak more than one language - which includes most europeans, and I find American's grasp of English to be limited at best.

Stuart C.:

"Any of you guys think you could do better in Dutch? No? Then STFU."

Very good point, Stuart. I'm impressed with Sander's writing skills. The fact that he is not a native English speaker amazes me even more for his grammar and writing style is beyond that of most native English speakers. Sander, Vitaliy, and myself all try our best to convey our thoughts in writing and none of us are native English speakers! (I bet most of you didn’t know that until just now.) I believe that Sander was raised speaking Dutch, Vitaliy grew up speaking Russian, and I first spoke Spanish. When you look at things that way it doesn't really look to bad now, does it?

Move along Boda dude or whatever your name was. There are more important things out there.

LOL, good comment although I think many would want to disagree after that last comment you added....don't forget their 'english' is officially different from english 'english' .....and I've seen much worse; trust me on that.

Sanders article did not have any problems, it communicated everything he wanted to perfectly except to some who would much rather analyse punctuation. Tony Blair's speaches has ten times as many mid-sentence pauses as Sander's column. Complaints of there ebing too many punctutation marks by a few hyperirritable people who can't get on with life is just just plain sickening.

As far as I can see, the entire discussion is just a waste of time.

As far as I'm concerned, I could care less if your an english major, pulitzer prize winner or even a teacher of the english language.

I joined the site because it's a techie site, not to get pointers or corrections on english grammar.

HWA is a GEEK site, so please enough with the BS.

Happy Holidays to those HWA members who celebrate Christmas and New Years!

Stuart, cheap shot but no offense taken. ( and I find American's grasp of English to be limited at best.)

Regards,
Jay

LOL

I can't believe there are so many replies over this topic! LOL

Believe it, this guy has taken a our Geek forum and turned it into an english grammar debate.

I did not start this thread. I'm just contributing to it just as ya'll are.

Sanders, I did not miss the point. I've never said that your article/review/etc was bad. In fact, the content was good. You may be the one missing the point here. The point is that although the content is the most important, the presentation is also very important.

Even though Mr. Richard Williams would like us all to believe there's absolutely no rules to writing the english language, he's wrong. There's many set guidelines and standards whether you wish to follow them or not.

For instance: the semicolon. Independent clauses are series of words that could stand alone as complete sentences. When you have two otherwise complete sentences that you want to connect to form one long sentence, use a semicolon between them. In this case, "Point taken" and "I'll be more careful with the commas" are two independent clauses. While a comma can also serve to seperate independent clauses in many cases, the semicolon is not incorrect and it's a refreshing way to avoid over-comma use. If for some reason you have trouble reading when there's a semicolon in place, I'd suggest you grab a pair of glasses or something - especially if you're able to read through Sandar's post and find absolutely nothing wrong with it.

Unfortunately, Mr. Williams is also the unknowing victim of the Internet over-comma fever. There's so much poor use of the english language on the Internet that I understand how one can become confused as to how to write clear and understandable sentences (after all, he didn't say "u" instead of "you" and he DID use a period so it must be great.) It's not rocket surgery and while there's some grey areas it doesn't take much to stick to the "norm." You've come up with your own rules and hey, that's fine. Perhaps it's a good guide to live by but for a news website don't you think the authors should write in a more clear and concise manner?

I love punctuation just as much as the next guy and when it's not abused it's very effective! But when you, overuse, and think this, is okay, then I just don't understand, how you can claim, to speak on this topic, at all. Do an experiment and remove most of the commas in your next post/article/whatever. I bet it reads a lot better from that alone.

I am not saying that I am perfect, I'm WAY far from it. I make lots of grammatical errors all the time, I spell things wrong sometimes and I even use too many commas on occation. But I don't write articles for a news magazing website - and if I did, I'd make sure I wrote more clearly.

I don't normally get into these types of threads and I do apologize for taking away from the original purpose of the article, which is how DRM can be a very, very bad thing when mis-managed or too strict. I will warn that you'll get one of these threads on every single article if you continue writing the way you did on this one.

I think I'm done.

"Perhaps it's a good guide to live by but for a news website don't you think the authors should write in a more clear and concise manner?"

Missed a comma - "but" should have a comma before it 100% of the time when it's being used as a conjunction.
No, I never miss these

And I don't think I suffer from anything. What's wrong with the comma? I think it's a fab piece of equip.
You, obviously, are "Red, white and blue."
But then whose standard are you going on? Oxford says: "Red, white, and blue." If you want to talk about standards, how can you go against Oxford?
And is there anything wrong with "Red, white, and blue"? I like my clauses and conjunctions clearly marked out (unless I decide not to), so I'm about probably way over 50% for Oxford commas(red, white, and blue).
What's wrong with this?
And if you're talking about "Point taken; I'll be more careful with the commas, allright?", then that IS where a comma should go. That's a silly semicolon. What are you trying to say? A semicolon is a subtle hint to the reader that two clauses have SOME link. The use of the comma, "Point taken, I'll be..." does exactly what the semicolon does without looking clunky. A semicolon is a discrete bridge over a river. Putting a semicolon there, in my opinion, is like building a huge trade bridge over a small stream - it makes your text look silly, and patronises the reader into thinking they need to be told there's that type of link.
There's no -NEED- For a semicolon. Semicolons are special. A few months ago, I argued (mostly with myself) that semicolons should be used like commas. I realised I was wrong: semicolons are a gift from god to writers - hard to use, but they can break up longer, more complicated bits of writing into nice bite-size chunks. A semicolon is special: you wouldn't set your elite to do a mere boy's work, which is why I feel that that semicolons like that are silly, and I dislike seeing it used, except by certain authors who build part of the pace of their writing on semicolons like that (in which case, I respect the useage, if I like the author).

I mean, I could criticise YOUR (Joseph Jamieson's) writing for the lack of commas - with no commas before "and" AT ALL, reading your posts sometimes sounds like you're blabering on with no spaces or space to breath: "andIthinkthisandIthinkthatandyoushoulddothis".

And let me just comment on a few precise points via quote, as we're going to extremes here

"But when you, overuse, and think this, is okay, then I just don't understand, how you can claim, to speak on this topic, at all."

Most of those commas are illegal - the original author, nor me used any illegal commas. If you spot any, please, point them out (comma used after "please" to force you to pause and to create emphasis).

"But I don't write articles for a news magazing website - and if I did, I'd make sure I wrote more clearly."

Then please explain what "more clearly" is. In my opinion, that would be oxford rules - which you're arguing against

Again, English is up to the one. There's no grey "area", it's almost a grey language!
There's dozens of points in punctuation and grammar where it's up to the writer to decide what to use; depending on his context, and simply how he feels.
I don't think there's anything wrong with the style of writing, the style of writing used in the original article (apart from the blaytant-errors) or my style of writing. As I've commented on before, I think the "best" user of English simply knows what rules he is breaking/bending or following, and knows exactly why he is doing this; also, an open mind never hurts with an issue like this

And if you want to complain at every article, please take up writing articles yourself; OR, try advising, NOT ordering; and even that, I consider, can be extremely rude, and it annoys me when I see a friend make a blaytant-error, but I just think it'd annoy them point it out ^^;;
Heh, especially in that paragraph, I'd like to re-work the punctuation, but I'm not bothered - it's just a forum post, after all. If you can't understand what I'm trying to say (reading slowly if needed), then I'm more worried about your reading skills than my writing skills

s**t my eyes hurt from reading so much in this discussion.

I have a good suggestion, let me see if I can get my grammar straight on this one.

Maybe we should, have a discussion on the "Proper use of a condom" or how about " who is getting laid on HWA and who isn't"?

LOL, sorry guys I have to put some humor into this seemingly boring discussion.

Sander, can we have a spell check feature added?

Sorry, I had to edit my post for corrections. I forgot to add a few commas here and there!

When a sentence is punctuated (properly, or not), you can read it, close your eyes, and hear the person speaking

Some of my punctuation was not "necessary", but is representative of how I speak

Get it?

Edit: The purpose of communication is to convey a thought, if less than perfect English achieves that end better, so be it

IMHO

OCGW

PEACE

Mr. Williams, I see now that the old saying is true. You cannot win an arguement with an ignorant man.

Have fun polluting the internet with your incoherent posts. I gave up reading yours about halfway through. If that's how you talk in real life I'm sure glad I don't know you there.

If you wish me to read any additional posts: Try forming a complete thought before throwing it down on the web form. Keep in mind that you're *not* talking, you're writing, and I don't care how you talk I just want to be able to follow what you're trying to say.

When you talk, with lots of commas, and never break out of a sentence, and use words like "Oxford", all the time, to make you sound more legit, when it has no bearing on this thread, it makes you look stupid.

The "Oxford Comma" (otherwise known as the "serial comma" or the "Harvard comma") deals with using the comma in lists. For example, "Eggs, bread, and milk." While most editors prefer the normal "Eggs, bread and mik" way of writing. Oxford also likes to use punctuation outside of the quotes when the punctuation does not directly come from within the quote - but we don't need to get into that. Either way, you've harped on one of the uses of the comma that is correct, whereas the over-use and abuse of the comma was actually under scrutiny. This is the sure sign of someone who knows he's got no arguement.

You can't arbitrarily make up how you wish to make use of the written english language. Oxford can do it because they are Oxford. You doing it just makes you look like a moron. I dare you to tell an English professor that you can write however you please and it's always correct.

I'd call you ignorant - it's clear you don't understand what I'm trying to say. Logic says(my logic. Which of course it'd say that, logically), if you did, you'd see I'm right.

And thank you for telling me all that stuff I already knew
Also nice to note you've gone to comma-extreme again with that sentance. Well done, man!
And, yes, I guess I do ramble on too much when talking about anything. Gee, thanks for taking the effort to read my posts and vagully try to understand them, as I have done yours.

And also, you seem to think someone owns English. No-one owns English - I own English, you own English, everyone in this topic owns English. Oxford doesn't own English, nor does some English professor. I'd tell him whatever I like - however, if he's grading my essays, or I'm trying to get work published (that'll be the day), then I'd be fairly more open to the discussion of changing any elements in my writing styles to accommodate others. Although, if it was just a discussion, I'd gladly tell an English professor that it's my belief that my style of punctuation and grammar is both nether right nor wrong, and it carries its own disadvantages and advantages, as does every other writing style on the planet. There's rules and there's bending rules. Like most else, things often come down to knowing how much you can bend rules around before they come back round you and kick you in the back of the head.

Joseph, et al,

As I'm no longer going to be bothered with discussing my grasp of the English language with you, I'll post a final comment for you to think about. In my opinion different people can look at the same thing, and come away with much different impressions. Indeed, quite often, people's impressions of an article are more often a reflection of themselves rather than the points raised in the article.

If my, possibly incorrect, use of English grammar is what motivated you to post then obviously I have not succeeded in directing your attention towards the point I was trying to make. Clearly you must have been paying more attention to the word use and grammar when you read this article than pay attention to what the author is trying to get across.

I honestly think you should lighten up, as per the discussion between you and others in this thread it is clear that there are different opinions about the quality of writing of this article. It ranges from "excellent" to "amateurish" and that serves as an example of that per reader the mileage varies. It is however an opinion and everybody is entitled to have their own.

I just think that, in your case, it would be wise to walk away from this one. Your posts here are no better worded than the article, nor does your train of thought lead anywhere but raise the question whether you should be submitting articles yourself if you think that your grasp of the English language and grammar is so much better than all of the other people posting in this thread. Unless you do, and we can scrutinize your writing as much as you have ours, you basically are, and I'll put it bluntly, talking out of your ass.

At the end of the day we're talking about a column, which in this case expresses a personal experience with DRM. It is written in much the same way as I would relate the story to friends and family so I do not use any big words or complicated grammar. If you do not think that is appropriate maybe you should ask yourself how else you would have liked me to communicate this story. So in the end the question is whether the article is badly written, or whether it just is from your perspective, in which case the problem really is you and not my writing.

Bravo Sander, the "content" of your message, out weighs any argument w/ the accuracy of your grammar, & diction

English law is written in English, and different law professors will disagree on the interpetation of the law

Let's not focus on the peas, & ignore the steak

Time to move on to more pressing matters

In my most humble of opinions

OCGrandWizard

Merry Cristmas, & Have a Happy New Year

Truthfully, the reason I got involved in this thread in the first place is because I like a good debate. Secondary to that is the fact that you over-use commas, and it's something I've noticed quite a bit lately. Obviously I'm not the only one that feels this way. If you've chosen to ignore the fact that I have stated (on more then one occation) that I have read the article, that I said it wasn't bad, etc, then it's not my problem. I know this is a pretty insignificant arguement, but I never post half-assed. I apologize if that threatens you.

So, obviously you can write more clearly, as your last post represents. Any arguement that you speak two languages and that you struggle with English goes right out the door there. And now you're trying to say that my writing is *worse* then yours - that's friggin hilarious man. Keep it up!

I get a laugh about how seriously some people take this kind of stuff. There's room for plenty of other threads on your post, and I'm sure if there were something more on-topic to discuss it would be there. I see no reason not to let a thread like this go on it's own.

I really don't care about your article, nor your site, nor will I probably ever visit here again. The only reason I was lured here is because of Slashdot. So, have fun with your fanboy "bravo" posts, I'm sure it'll help reduce your embarassment in this matter.

Feel free to delete my account. Only reason I created one was because I couldn't post without doing so.

Wow. That is all I have to say.

To: Joseph Jamieson

"So, have fun with your fanboy "bravo" posts, I'm sure it'll help reduce your embarassment in this matter."

What embarassement??

From your post I can tell that you are not experienced @ writing (1) coherrent paragraph

Edit: Ha Ha, after rereading this last morons gobledegook I realize that he is confussing my posts, & Sander's posts

You have to read the name @ the top of the post before you make any comment d**b*as

It is now clear to us all here @ HWA, that you are not content to merely put your own foot down your throat, but are not happy unless you are standing on your own tonsils with both hooves

OCGrand Wizard

Merry Christmas HWA

Hmm you know Sander didnt use too many commas in the first place.....sounds perfectly fine to me...

ever heard of 3dgameman.com and his videos? now thats under use of any kind of punctuation it sounds like he never ever pauses for breath, and then takes a breath halfway through a phrase....

look Sander's article doesnt have too many commas some guys here are just srguing for the heck of it cuz they can't discuss about computers instead....

Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss

Some of you guys might find it amusing. Others, by the sound of it, might use it as your mantra for all-time.

Wow...so many posts over a comma, incredible......Honestly