You can't have too many apostrophe's

Paul,
An assured method of tempering your obsession is to deal with the illiterate on a large scale. The significance of correct grammar versus poor grammar is substantially diminished. The fact that people can convey concepts and ideas effectively is the most important part of our language. To discover the enormously large number of Americans denied the basic ability to read and write is shocking. Whatever the cause, they are in a left in a limbo without at least two-thirds of the ability to communicate. Spoken English has no real punctuation, only affectations, pauses and gestures for expression. Our efforts to duplicate those with punctuation underline the imprecise nature of our language. If you can grasp the concept conveyed then the language has performed its task.

Sure. Do away with apostrophes. THEROMANSEVENMANAGEDTODOWITHOUTSPACESBETWEENWORDSANDHADONLYCAPITALLETTERS

Hi Rodman99999,

You do understand the meaning of "might", right? :)

As for the effect of grammar on comprehension, your insinuation that it makes *no* difference is clearly quite naive. I didn't imply that it makes text impossible to understand, or even require some kind of "great effort", but it does make the brain work harder, and that's a simple fact.

Let me put it in audio terms: an analogy would be the way phase errors in reproduced music cause the brain to burn more calories untangling the audio into something it recognizes, leading to (potential) long-term fatigue.

Hope this has cleared things up for you a bit.

Commcat,

Once again, I didn't complain about lack of punctuation.

I spoke about incorrect punctuation and grammar, which takes more effort than none at all.

Heck, if you don't understand basic grammar rules, there's no need to be greatly offended if somebody points it out. Make a small effort to rectify it and you probably will. Or, just decide you don't care and shrug it off.

Paul,

All in good fun for sure. =8^)

You did make reference to the 5th grade english exam so I would think typos would count and missed words.

I did start a thread once with the word stopping in the headline but I wrote stoping. I would have failed the 5th grade exam that day.

Growing up being a "Hippie" in the 60's didn't help my studies as it was not "in" to apply one's self to all that brain stuff. We were using our minds for other more exciting things. I since have chosen a specific field to excel in as far as knowledge and insight goes and it is very rewarding to me.

My wife, being a book editor, has a lot of mercy on me for my lack of spelling skills. She can spot spelling errors on vans and trucks going down the road as they pass us. Billboards, books and mags. are also a sight to see when see finds errors. She did read my last post and she feels I am to crud in my writing. When members write such threads like this one I ask her to skim through all the threads and posts of such member to find "logs" but she refuses to do so. Great wife she is.

This thread by Paul is not as high minded as some I have read.