Voodoodog

[niltrias]

I don't even know why they let you into IT-Administration when your comprehension of technical and reverse engineering is so little, and not to speak of obvious english abillities. In fact, I don't believe you actually do.

I find Voodoodog to be an annoying little prat as well dude, but seriously, your english there is pretty poor... You got all the spelling right, but fluent english speakers refer to comprehension as being high or low, good or poor, but rarely big or little... We also don't often change from third person past tense to second person present tense like that.

Eh? Since when can you not change from third person past to second person present?

As a matter of fact I am sure they will approve very highly of my journey here, for which I obtained the King's permission, in order to meet the President of the United States and to arrange with him for all that mapping out of our military plans and for all those intimate meetings of the high officers of the armed services in both countries which are indispensable for the successful prosecution of the war. -- Winston Churchill

Here we have one of the greatest writers and speakers of English starting in first person present, moving to third person future, to first person past, and then....well, I think the point is made. Tense agreement is not needed in independent clauses of complex sentences, and is generally misunderstood anyway.
Also, the other mistake at first glance looks like more of a mistake than it actually is. For one thing, "little" is often used with "comprehension" as an attributive adjective, but generally not as a predicative adjective, as it was used here. This is not technically a violation of any rule, it's actually just the failure to abide by a collocation, which is poor but common and not, strictly speaking, incorrect English.

Although, all that said, if your point is that too much is made of Voodoodog's grammar, I agree with you in the main.

Edit -- woot! I found something that looks like an apostrophe!

[theTrav]

We also don't often change from third person past tense to second person present tense like that.

Eh? Since when can you not change from third person past to second person present?

Since never, it's just not common, and the way in which the OP changed did not flow well and had the feeling of skitzophrenic word hammering.

fluent english speakers refer to comprehension as being high or low, good or poor, but rarely big or little...

This is not technically a violation of any rule, it's actually just the failure to abide by a collocation, which is poor but common and not, strictly speaking, incorrect English.

Which is also exactly what I said... Your post smacks of aggressively concurring, I almost took it as an argument.
I simply find that ESL speakers typically don't distinguish between words used to measure quality and words used to measure quality.

Although, all that said, if your point is that too much is made of Voodoodog's grammar, I agree with you in the main.

Oh, no, I think Voodoodog's grammar is horrible and he deserves to be made painfully aware of it until he works to better himself. Reading his posts is like stabbing myself in the eyes, which is why i try to avoid doing so. I was simply pointing out that Atheuz was a bit of a leper in a glass house throwing stones into the wind... Or something

[niltrias]

I find Voodoodog to be an annoying little prat as well dude, but seriously, your english there is pretty poor...

That is the part I disagree with. The English in the previous post was descriptively perfect, and prescriptively arguable. I would not describe it as "pretty poor English" but rather as conversational English or sloppily written formal English. I suppose it comes down to the basic question of whether forum posts, and by extension text messages and their like, should adhere to the laxer conversational and descriptive rules or the stricter prescriptive written English rules. I am definitely of the opinion that in modern times, informal written English should only be expected to follow the guidelines of descriptive, conversational grammar, and going beyond that verges on pedantry.

Slight change of topic: I think maybe the reason I don't feel bothered by Voodoodogs posts at all (from a grammar/spelling perspective) is that I have to deal with worse every day at work, so I'm inured to it. Actually, I'm going to edit a couple examples of truly, truly bad English from my job into this in a sec...I need to change accounts.

[theTrav]

I would not describe it as "pretty poor English" but rather as conversational English or sloppily written formal English.

How many times in conversation have you heard a well spoken english speaker talk about how you have a small comprehension?
How many times have you heard someone say "I'm surprised they rated you as an IT admin, and in fact I don't believe you do."

It's not just informal, it's using the wrong words. He meant to say "I'm surprised they rated you as an IT Admin, and I don't reckon you are one".

I suppose it comes down to the basic question of whether forum posts, and by extension text messages and their like, should adhere to the laxer conversational and descriptive rules or the stricter prescriptive written English rules. I am definitely of the opinion that in modern times, informal written English should only be expected to follow the guidelines of descriptive, conversational grammar, and going beyond that verges on pedantry.

What about forum posts that are bashing other people's grasp of the language?

Slight change of topic: I think maybe the reason I don't feel bothered by Voodoodogs posts at all (from a grammar/spelling perspective) is that I have to deal with worse every day at work, so I'm inured to it.

Violin teachers might be inured to the tortured scrapings that novices coax from the instrument, but that doesn't make me cringe any less.

[niltrias]

Im not going to respond with quotes...these postings are getting too long anyway.
First example...not often. But I have heard "He has very little comprehension of the ........ (fill in blank here)"
Second example...not seeing the tie-in. You are displaying improper auxiliary verb matching in your example, which is not what he did. A better comparison to his sentence would be "I am surprised they made you go to school, as sick as you are." Here we keep the structure of a casuative verb in the past in the main clause, with a copular in the present in the subordinate clause, which is identical to his structure. Both are correct.

When a person uses relaxed conversational English phrasing to bash a poster who not only ignores the niceties of English, but poos on them, I would say the criticism is fair.

Last, you are probably right-on with the violin teacher analogy. I was just wondering why I minded those posts so little when others felt they were so painful to read. But after sentences like these, (culled from TODAY's work only, not a top 10 list by any means.) Voodoodog's posts seem...unsurprising.

Please temper with the amount and input the customer who puts on his heel.

On a front groin, is is length from the belt higher rank to groin. [guri]

It is a content that the following and customers transmitted.

There is a possiblity of system failure, too, when it is some and it is disconnected even if several days are passed by any chance.
-Nil's work

They do spell correctly tho. Heh.

[theTrav]

Please temper with the amount and input the customer who puts on his heel.

On a front groin, is is length from the belt higher rank to groin. [guri]

It is a content that the following and customers transmitted.

There is a possiblity of system failure, too, when it is some and it is disconnected even if several days are passed by any chance.
-Nil's work

They do spell correctly tho. Heh.

Lol, off shorers, god bless their cotton picking little hearts

[BoltVanderhuge]

Internet fight!

ITT: we call out a guy on his grasp of the English language rather then the fact he's a complete tit.

[theTrav]

Internet fight!

ITT: we call out a guy on his grasp of the English language rather then the fact he's a complete tit.

Emphasis mine. That's a very good point you raise BV let's not forget what a complete tit he is.

[niltrias]

How many times have you heard someone say "I'm surprised they rated you as an IT admin, and in fact I don't believe you do."
It's not just informal, it's using the wrong words. He meant to say "I'm surprised they rated you as an IT Admin, and I don't reckon you are one".

Aha! I just completely understood where you are coming from on a couple of points. I was only looking at the two points you mentioned, not the following sentence where he says

In fact, I don't believe you actually do.

Ok, this is a clear fail. Here, as in your example, the previous verb does not match the latter. As you pointed out above, it should have been

In fact, I don't believe you actually are

(italics for emphasis)

That is most certainly not symptomatic of everyday English conversation. Interestingly enough, I noticed a native Swedish speaker making the same mistake here http://www.havenandhearth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1582&p=17886#p17886.
So this makes me wonder if it might be symptomatic of a Swedish, or at least North Germanic, speaker...

[jorb]

So this makes me wonder if it might be symptomatic of a Swedish, or at least North Germanic, speaker...

If I'm your best example then I think you're pulling too high gears on that one. I believe it's (far) more likely that I simply misread the post I was responding to as "I look forward to this", in which case "so do I", would of course have been quite correct. I would never have made that mistake in a spoken conversation, for example.