Grammar and civility

[Disaffected.citizen]

This thread went off-topic so, as it got back on track, I thought I'd start a new one to continue the off-topic as on-topic!

There is no scientific research involved here, just a casual observation that may or may not have foundation. The biggest problem I face here is to convey succinctly such observation, when amongst a group of correspondents I believe to be "above the curve" in so many areas.

Anyway, my thoughts are that it is rare to see a post (including non-native speakers) where the standard of English isn't in a league of its own compared to Fakebook, other fora, and whatever other social media is currently en-vogue. As with any social environment, everyone adapts (without necessarily changing their fundamental character); here, such evolution seems to result in a desire to avoid falling to the lowest common denominator. The civility of the Skirt Cafe brings out the best in us and I thank everyone here for making it so.

[partlyscot]

My thoughts as well. SkirtCafe is fairly lucid and useful most of the time. Thanks from me too.

There is one forum I frequent, that I sometimes have to leave for a while. Some posts combine poor grammar, atrocious spelling, word confusion, text speak, and outright absence of logic, to such a degree that I flat out can't make sense of the post. A certain percentage I put down to trolls, but some make me wonder how the posters function in this modern world. The worst I see on SkirtCafe, are the occasional loose/lose switches. I mutter a growl under my breath and carry on. On the other hand, some of the sub-reddits have an excess of smart asses. While I do appreciate a good pun thread, they occasionally obscure what could otherwise be a useful discussion on important topics.

[moonshadow]

Allow me to say, I've been visiting various forums for many years, and skirtcafe has got to be one of the most reasonable, approachable, and well rounded boards I've participated in. Sure every once in a while, there is a little squabble, however within a page or two of post I'm reminded that this is indeed "Skirt Cafe, Skirts and Kilts for Men", this may be somewhat sexist to say, but it seems men have a keen ability to remain somewhat civil. I post here often now sometimes not just because of skirts being our common denominator, but because it is indeed a fun and interesting board to read where we can engage in some very thought provoking discussion.

I will also shout out to the S.C. moderators, who I also feel do an excellent job balancing these boards out. I have been to some boards over the years that are so strict and over-moderated that the boards are practically useless.

I can genuinely say it is my pleasure to participate here.

Now for some fun.... can you speak LOLCAT?

The paragraph I posted above translated into LOLCAT...

ALLOW ME 2 SAY, I HAS BEEN VISITIN VARIOUS FORUMS 4 LOTZ DA YEERS, AN SKIRTCAFE HAS GOT 2 BE WAN OV TEH MOST REASONABLE, APPROACHABLE, AN WELL ROUNDD BOARDZ I HAS PARTICIPATD IN. SURE EVRY ONCE IN WHILE, THAR IZ LIL SQUABBLE, HOWEVR WITHIN PAEG OR 2 OV POST IM REMINDD DAT DIS AR TEH INDED "SKIRT CAFE, SKIRTS AN KILTS 4 DOODZ", DIS CUD BE SOMEWHAT SEKSIST 2 SAY, BUT IT SEEMS DOODZ HAS KEEN ABILITY 2 REMAIN SOMEWHAT CIVIL. I POST HER OFTEN NAO SOMETIMEZ NOT JUS CUZ OV SKIRTS BEAN R COMMON DENOMINATOR, BUT CUZ IT INDED FUN AN INTERESTIN BORD 2 READ WER WE CAN ENGAGE IN SUM VRY THOT PROVOKIN DISCUSHUN.

Translate your own message here: http://speaklolcat.com/

[r.m.anderson]

Allow me to say, I've been visiting various forums for many years, and skirtcafe has got to be one of the most reasonable, approachable, and well rounded boards I've participated in. Sure every once in a while, there is a little squabble, however within a page or two of post I'm reminded that this is indeed "Skirt Cafe, Skirts and Kilts for Men", this may be somewhat sexist to say, but it seems men have a keen ability to remain somewhat civil. I post here often now sometimes not just because of skirts being our common denominator, but because it is indeed a fun and interesting board to read where we can engage in some very thought provoking discussion.

I will also shout out to the S.C. moderators, who I also feel do an excellent job balancing these boards out. I have been to some boards over the years that are so strict and over-moderated that the boards are practically useless.

I can genuinely say it is my pleasure to participate here.

Now for some fun.... can you speak LOLCAT?

The paragraph I posted above translated into LOLCAT...

ALLOW ME 2 SAY, I HAS BEEN VISITIN VARIOUS FORUMS 4 LOTZ DA YEERS, AN SKIRTCAFE HAS GOT 2 BE WAN OV TEH MOST REASONABLE, APPROACHABLE, AN WELL ROUNDD BOARDZ I HAS PARTICIPATD IN. SURE EVRY ONCE IN WHILE, THAR IZ LIL SQUABBLE, HOWEVR WITHIN PAEG OR 2 OV POST IM REMINDD DAT DIS AR TEH INDED "SKIRT CAFE, SKIRTS AN KILTS 4 DOODZ", DIS CUD BE SOMEWHAT SEKSIST 2 SAY, BUT IT SEEMS DOODZ HAS KEEN ABILITY 2 REMAIN SOMEWHAT CIVIL. I POST HER OFTEN NAO SOMETIMEZ NOT JUS CUZ OV SKIRTS BEAN R COMMON DENOMINATOR, BUT CUZ IT INDED FUN AN INTERESTIN BORD 2 READ WER WE CAN ENGAGE IN SUM VRY THOT PROVOKIN DISCUSHUN.

Translate your own message here: http://speaklolcat.com/

Reads like someone just arrived on a caravan from Babel ! lol !
And all that capitalization looks like that someone rode in on a double hump camel (Bactrian) LOL !

To each his own and the devil for all of us !
May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows you are dead !

[crfriend]

ALLOW ME 2 SAY, I HAS BEEN VISITIN VARIOUS FORUMS 4 LOTZ DA YEERS, AN SKIRTCAFE HAS GOT 2 BE WAN OV TEH MOST REASONABLE, APPROACHABLE, AN WELL ROUNDD BOARDZ I HAS PARTICIPATD IN. [...]

Well, I can make one or two observations about "LOLCAT" and that's that (a) they use nothing but good old-fashioned Teletype Corporation ASR-33s, (b) they tend to SHOUT a lot, or (c), both of the above.

Floating around here someplace is a running copy of the GNU "talkfilter" (I think it's called that) suite where you can take input text and transcode it into other (phony) dialects or languages. The results are sometimes hilarious. My favourite one of the bunch is "kraut" which I've used a few times in the past (not here) with excruciatingly funny results. It may be time to power up a few more computers...

[Later edit, after powering up a few more computers]
It took a bit, but I finally found an old version of the "talkfilter" suite. Here's Moonshadow's quote passed through the "valspeak" filter:

Allow me to say, like, wow, I've been visitin' various forums for many years, fer shure, and skirtcafe has got to be one of thuh most reasonable, like, wow, approachable, mostly, and well rounded boards I've participated in. Sure every once in a while, like, wow, there is a little squabble, mostly, however within a page or two of post I'm reminded that this is indeed "Skirt Cafe, like, wow, Skirts and Kilts for Men", man, this may be somewhat sexist to say, like, but it seems men have a keen ability to remain somewhat civil. I post here often now sometimes not just because of skirts bein' our common denominator, man, but because it is indeed a fun and cool board to read where we can engage in some super thought provokin' discussion.

"Kraut" didn't turn out as funny as I thought it might, but "redneck" did an astounding job. "Fudd" was pretty good, too.

I love my toys.

As far as the overall quality of discourse here goes you have nobody to thank but yourselves. Without such a level of civil discourse I suspect I would have run (screaming, possibly) for the hills years ago.

[Orange Apple]

My first visit here and my first post . . . Interesting place, this.

I'm still absorbing years of posting history, but I have to agree that the level of writing is much higher than I've been conditioned to expect by visits to other forums. It's refreshing. Not to mention being informative.

Can I come to any conclusions about a correlation between intelligent conversation and men who wear skirts? Of course I can, but they may not be valid . . .

[Sinned]

Many, many years ago we used to convert some of our text submissions into Unix shell script among others, VMS also comes to mind. In odd team meetings, when I was feeling particularly perverse, I had my team members present their reports in rhyme or pseudo-German or some other format. A quite famous shell script example is the carol Santa Claus is coming to town, attributed to Bell Labs in the mid-1980's I think:

better !pout !cry
better watchout
lpr why
santa claus < north pole >town

cat /etc/passwd >list
ncheck list
ncheck list
cat list | grep naughty >nogiftlist
cat list | grep nice >giftlist
santa claus < north pole >town

who | grep sleeping
who | grep awake
who | egrep 'bad|good'
for (goodness sake) {
be good
}

Incidentally, and I don't know if Carl and the others who have used Unix shell script before, but I still use some of the Unix commands in nor mal speech although others probably don't know what I am talking about. For instance I don't say that I am searching for something - I tend to say that I am grepping for it from the Unix grep. Force of habit I guess. How I miss the fortune application, a different saying, mostly funny every time I logged in.

Here's the original for those not familiar with shell script:

You'd better watch out, you'd better not cry;
You'd better not pout, I'm telling you why;
Santa Claus is coming to town.

He's checking his list, checking it twice;
Going to find out who's been naughty and nice.
Santa Claus is coming to town.

He knows who is sleeping, he knows who is awake.
He knows who has been bad or good;
So be good for goodness sake.

[moonshadow]

Can I come to any conclusions about a correlation between intelligent conversation and men who wear skirts?

Of course! I come to the conclusion that men who wear skirts are very intelligent. Smart enough to know that there is no logical reason to deny ourselves with the comfort, style, and freedom to wear what we please!

Welcome to the board!

[straightfairy]

My first visit here and my first post . . . Interesting place, this.

[Sinned]

Welcome to our site, pick up a latte and sit back and tell us a little of your history in the Introduction section. We hope that you will dive in and contribute to the discussions as the interest you get will be directly in proportion to your activity.

Intelligence may not be the only measure of those on this site - we have the ability to think outside of the narrow box of societal conformity to realise that skirts and other traditionally female garmenture are no longer denied us. I have come to the conclusion that there are those on the site who are very erudite in particular subjects and the contents of some posts have gone far beyond what I am currently capable of absorbing. You will also find that some of us use the depth of language and grammar available to us whilst tolerating the occasional failures we all make, me in particular - and even Carl who I hold up as one who is one of our most capable, lol.

[moonshadow]

Yes.... Carl is like the Dumbledore of skirtcafe!

[Fred in Skirts]

My first visit here and my first post . . . Interesting place, this.

Hi Orange Apple,

Glad to have you join this group of illustrious men who dare to wear skirts. Tell us something about yourself. How long have you been wearing skirts, where are you located, why you like skirts. We are a nosy bunch aren't we

Fred

[Elisabetta]

I'm Jenn aka Moonshadows better half. Welcome to the Cafe

[Orange Apple]

Hi Orange Apple,

Glad to have you join this group of illustrious men who dare to wear skirts. Tell us something about yourself. How long have you been wearing skirts, where are you located, why you like skirts. We are a nosy bunch aren't we

Fred

I'll write an introduction in the Introduction forum soon. Wouldn't want to get this thread off topic . . .

Thanks, everyone, for the welcome.

[moonshadow]

I'm Jenn aka Moonshadows better half. Welcome to the Cafe

How can you be my better half when I am two and three quarters?