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Readability Of Posts

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Smudger

master brummie
Hi all.

I don`t wish to be a nit-picker (yes i do). It would be helpful when reading messages if the poster could slip in the occasional comma, full stop, apostrophe etc, so numb-nuts like me can grasp what they`re writing about, & please don`t type too quickly as i`m a slow reader. Thank you for your patience & understanding.



After an intense high speed chase, an officer finally gets the lawbreaker to pull over. "You know," says the cop, "I was originally pulling you over to tell you your taillight is out. Why the hell did you take off like that?" "Last week my wife ran off with a cop," the man said, "and I was afraid you were trying to give her back."
 
Do bear in mind that there are a lot of people who make very valuable contributions to this forum have either visual, learning or other disability’s, that can affect the way they put their thoughts and ideas into writing.
 
Do bear in mind that there are a lot of people who make very valuable contributions to this forum have either visual, learning or other disability’s, that can affect the way they put their thoughts and ideas into writing.

excellent post mort...one worth remembering..i have never been one for punctuation etc..had no complaints so far...

lyn
 
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Oh no! the Grammar police are here again. My grammar ain't good but I try. Absolutely agree wiv Morturn.
 
Hi all.

I don`t wish to be a nit-picker (yes i do). It would be helpful when reading messages if the poster could slip in the occasional comma, full stop, apostrophe etc, so numb-nuts like me can grasp what they`re writing about, & please don`t type too quickly as i`m a slow reader. Thank you for your patience & understanding.
On forums I just read the messages not the punctuation and grammar.
My young grandkids are doing 'Sats' tests and I had a go at 12 questions in something called called Sats Stage 2. I got 10 out of 12 .... I was ok with maths questions etc but failed on english questions asking about 'subjunctive clauses' and 'progressive past tense' ... I thought those english questions were a bit difficult for primary school kids.

By the way Smudger a bit of friendly nit picking from me ... :)

I type don't

You typed dont `t

oldmohawk (passed English GCE 60 years ago and forgotten most of it) ...:cool:
 
Do bear in mind that there are a lot of people who make very valuable contributions to this forum have either visual, learning or other disability’s, that can affect the way they put their thoughts and ideas into writing.
It seems i`ve put my foot in it again, for which i apologise. I`m slightly dyslexic myself & find i have to read some post`s a couple of time to make sense of them. It`s just that commas etc make it a tad easier to read.
 
It seems i`ve put my foot in it again, for which i apologise. I`m slightly dyslexic myself & find i have to read some post`s a couple of time to make sense of them. It`s just that commas etc make it a tad easier to read.
No problems ... Smudger
One interesting thing, that character you use in i`ve, I had to search my keyboard to find it.
Eventually found it top left, I had never used it before on a computer.
I use the one just above the right 'SHIFT' key.
 
Hi Smudger, no problem or need to apologise, we all doing things with the best intentions in mind, so it is worth the discussion; we are all friends here after all.

If there is a problem with readability of post, there are a few things we can do to help:

I think increasing the font size has been most helpful, thanks Warren. There are some reader friendlier fonts around too, like Verdana and Sans.

We can also put a few extra paragraph breaks in, I tend to use one between each sentence.
 
A little well known tip ...
If you want to continue using the forum's default style, you can make the text etc larger (more readable) on a forum page by

Holding the CTRL key down and tapping the + key .... it enlarges the contents of the page for each tap.

to return to small text

Hold the CTRL key down and tap the - key ... it reduces the page contents ...

I usually run the BHF on my laptop at 125% but 150% looks very readable.

Your computer should remember the setting for whichever websites you set the above controls.
 
A useful discussion. Think we can get too hung up on grammar. We want people to feel comfortable enough to contribute to the Forum. So keeping expectations about use of grammar to the essentials makes sense. And if anyone struggles, we're all big enough and old enough to respect that.

Some good tips coming out here. One other that came up in the Xenforo discussion thread yesterday was changing your screen display to 'Accessability'.

To do it : Click on the 'Default style' button at the very bottom of the page (left side) and choose the 'Accessibility' option. The format gives some people an easier to read style. Viv.
 
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The grammar (and spelling) don't worry me too much but I agree that some posts can be difficult to read and understand as the sentences seem to merge. Spaces and new lines can sometimes help the sense. It is easy to understand what you have typed as you know the information - the person reading it doesn't always and needs to make sense of what has been typed.
Janice
 
A little well known tip ...
If you want to continue using the forum's default style, you can make the text etc larger (more readable) on a forum page by

Holding the CTRL key down and tapping the + key .... it enlarges the contents of the page for each tap.

to return to small text

Hold the CTRL key down and tap the - key ... it reduces the page contents ...

I usually run the BHF on my laptop at 125% but 150% looks very readable.

Your computer should remember the setting for whichever websites you set the above controls.
oldMohawk,

That`s a good tip. At the moment i`m using the "accessability" style on the forum which i find a great help ( Thanks warren )

I`m using spellchecker with my Firefox browser but for some reason it`s not correcting my mistakes, so i`m having to copy &

paste my message into a free spell checker which does ok. Once again i apologise about my grammar comments. It was not my

intention to put anyone down.
 
now that you have explained your reasons for the post smudger there is no need to apologise..both yourself and others who struggle may get some useful tips..

lyn
 
I think that most of the "grammar" mistakes are down to people who use mobile phones, they tend to use Text speak ( like lol, pmsl etc.
Experts recon that as little as 25 years from now we would not be able to understand what is being said.
 
If anyone is interested in a well written ,and light-hearted look at grammar, then a paper back called "Eats , Shoots and Leaves" written by Lynne Truss ( ISBN 978-0-00-732906-9) is well worth a read.

I see I am listed as a New Member "davidk" but I am "anvil man" pre new provider !!!!!
 
I can still see anvil man on the forum ... put anvil man in the 'Posted by Member' in the search box and it accepts it. See the pic below of some of anvil man's posts when I searched.

Why not log out of your 'new name' and then log in with your old name by entering anvil man in the log-in and your old password and you should be on the forum with your old name.

note the space between anvil and man.
Screenshot (30).jpg
 
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RE font size, this will depend on monitor size, if you have a small lap top you will need a larger font size than some one with a desk top with a 20" plus monitor (like me). 2 months ago I had cataracts removed from my right eye, because of this I was able to reduce my font size, on June 7th the are removing them from my left eye, so maybe a further reduction in font size. When I left school in 1944 my English was poor, apart from spelling, but I made up for it in maths and Art. I appear to be rambling so will shut up. Eric
 
I've always thought that the grammar and punctuation on this site was reasonable in the main, but what would I know never having achieved any academic credentials in my life. I have seen this subject discussed on several forums, and many different points of view have been proffered. No forum I frequent has ever made a ruling other than as long as a post is within the rules of the forum and that it is comprehensible then that is all that's required.

My opinion is, that we can't discount or remove someone's valuable opinion just because they were not lucky enough to receive a decent education for reasons we can't know and are in essence none of our business. I've known people who could hardly read or write but who had a vast store of local historical knowledge, would we debar them for the lack of a few capital letters or commas?
 
is iz ov the opinion dat nobody haz ny right 2 dictate ow anyone speakz or talks init, written or spoke

Cus if u iz bovvered wif ow people talk den u gots 2 much time on your hands init bruv.

thou hath also fogotten me thinks, the way thy talks is modern in comparison to thine olde way of spekenth, thou would be construed to be quite uncouth to our forefathers .

language evolves as does the written word it's neither lazy or a lack of education it's evolution and our lexicon changes.
 
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Agree Warren. With the use of mobile phones more and more abbreviations are used in everyday language (and possibly will find their way into the Oxford English Dictionary- eventually !!!). Personally I think the important thing is that language 'communicates' - so if particular words evolve into general use and are understood, let's go with the flow.

I think even the use of the word "phone/fone"today has become almost meaningless. And you might as well forget the word "telephone" completely as its more commonly referred to as "mobile". Viv.
 
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