I'm beginning to wonder...


Alright, so I have read previous threads about misspellings and poor grammar in Audiogon posts, and I have even joked about it myself in one thread a long time ago. In fact, while I was poking fun at a misspelled word in the thread, I misspelled one myself and was called out for it!
What I am beginning to wonder about is what percentage of Audiogon members speak (or write) english as a first language. Almost every day, there is a classified or a post that is nearly unreadable. The strange thing is that the post will be answered by several readers with no mention of the poor writing. It is so common, that I am wondering what pecentage of regular members are living in the USA. Does anyone have an idea?
128x128roxy54
And now, how about a rousing chorus of that Mac Davis Country classic:

Oh Lord it's hard to be humble
When you're perfect in every way.
I can't wait to look in the mirror

'cos I get better looking each day
To know me is to love me

I must be a hell of a man.
O Lord it's hard to be humble
But I'm doing the best that I can.

I used to have a girlfriend
But I guess she just could'n't complete
With all of these lovestarved women
Who keep clamouring at my feet.
Well I probably find me another
But I guess they're all in awe of me

Who cares I never get lonesome
Cause I treasure my own company.

Oh Lord it's hard to be humble
When you're perfect in every way.
I can't wait to look in the mirror

'cos I get better looking each day
To know me is to love me

I must be a hell of a man.
O Lord it's hard to be humble
But I'm doing the best that I can.

I guess you can say I'm a loner

A cowboy outlaw tough and proud
Well
I could have lots of friends if I wanted
But then I wouldn't stand out from the drowd

Some folks say that I'm "egotistical
Well I don't even know what that means
I guess it has something to do with the
Way that I fill out my skintight blue jeans.

Oh Lord it's hard to be humble
When you're perfect in every way.
I can't wait to look in the mirror

'cos I get better looking each day
To know me is to love me

I must be a hell of a man.
O Lord it's hard to be humble
We are doing the best that we can.
Compose in Word, spell-check, then post to Audiogon.

Although it can sometimes be pretty comical when people over-rely on spell-check, and don't bother to proofread what they've written. Spelling and grammar checkers often will not flag an error in which the words are spelled correctly, but the wrong word is used.

A while back I had occasion to create the following test sentence. The spelling AND grammar checker in Microsoft Word 2002 did not pick up any of the six errors I introduced:

Intended sentence: "I wish to convey my compliments to the chef."

Sentence with 6 errors introduced, none of which were picked up by Word 2002's spelling and grammar checker:

"I wise to convoy me complements two the chief."

-- Al :)
Sadly, I consistantly have errors in my posts. Not only do I live in the USA, but my father was a high school English teacher who would berate us for any and all grammatical errors in both written and spoken English; so I have no excuse.

In fact, I am the guy at work who everyone comes to when they have any written correspondence to send out. I am the defacto internal grammer-nazi. But if I don't spell check, as I don't on these posts, I mess up both the spelling, and the grammer. If it's a classified I just edit, if it's a post I just look like an idiot. Well, all of us are pretty much idiots since we spend all this money on making something sound 0.000005% better. So, I just take solace in that fact.
I consider myself a good speller, but sometimes I submit a post without previewing it and find a misspelled word afterwards. Sometimes my fingers are like toes and so there are some typos as well. I think maybe other people have a tendency to do this as well. However, there are some posts where it is obvious that the person is not only a poor speller, but they also have a problem expressing themselves clearly.
the basic question is:

why is one so compulsive about the written word ?. i believe audiogon is primarily a forum for conversing about subjects of an audio nature.

there are other forums on the internet where criticisms of the sort raised in this and another thread are appropriate.