friend's it's a high time to repent from all your dead work's for salvation is nigh you more than as you think.What shall it profit you if you should gain the whole world and loss your soul.Give your life to JESUS HE is calling you for repentance,Your responce to this call will determine where you will spend your eternity.GOD LOVE"S YOU.

So, is that something I can rent from Blockbuster? Sounds hilarious.

Is this what Richard Brautigan had in mind when he talked about the Forgotten Works and inBOIL?

Oh, and let me say that it really raises my hackles when I see apostrophes (and in this case, quotation marks) thrown in any old word with an S on the end. GOD LOVE'S YOU. What the hell are you thinking when you write that? Why would you think that a verb requires an apostrophe? That is moronic.

spider. settle down. deep breath.

Let her rant - it's fun!

I am settled. I'm just tired of seeing stupid mistakes all over the internet. It makes you look like an idiot.

now thats just crazy talk when you turn out the light at night and curl up under the covers....how important is grammar? did you say you wanted to be less uptight. i understand where you're coming from sister....but jeeze, lets get in a lather about something that matters...or not. or whatever. and if your going rant...lets see one. a rant isnt a rant if its grammatically perfect. surely you dont think im moronic because i often ditch the appostrophes opting for a more efficient key stroke do you? I've trained my spell correct on Word to ignore my apostropheless contractions. Why bother anymore? We have butchered all kinds of words, to great acceptance. Why bother puting a ' in dont cant wont? The meaning isnt lost. Does that make me a moron. spider spider spider spider spider

I feel your paid Spider . Bad grammar and the misuse of literary terms has kept me up at night on more than one occasion. I think that cant, wont, and dont looks careless and it does change the meaning of the word. From the OED: cant: I. Original n. senses. 1. (probably) Edge, border, brink. Obs. c1375 ? BARBOUR St. Lucas 69, 70 Quhene he had dry~wyne wel oure e kanttis of sewynty eris & foure. c1400 Melayne 1495 Under the cante of a hille Oure Britons beldis & bydis stille. 2. A nook, corner in a building; a niche. Obs. [1481-90 Howard Househ. Bks. (1841) 400 Item, for ij. panchons at the garden gate, with kant ther above viijd.] 1603 B. JONSON Jas. I's Entert. Wks. (1838) 530/1 Irene, or Peace; she was placed aloft in a cant, her attire white, semined with stars. 1604 DEKKER King's Entert. 297 Directly under her in a Cant by her selfe, Fame stood upright. 1605 VERSTEGAN Dec. Intell. v. 150 A nooke or corner being in our ancient language called a kant or cantell. 1624 WEBSTER Mon. Honour. Wks. (1857) 369 In several cants beneath sits, first Magistracy..next Liberality. 3. a. A corner or angle of a polygon. Obs. 1611 COTGR. s.v. Pent, La figure hexagone ¨¤ six pents, hauing six Cants. 1688 R. HOLME Armoury III. xiii. ¡ì42 A Tower or Steeple of six Cants or six square..Some term it an Hexagon or Octagon Tower, that is six or eight cornered; but Master Masons generally term it six or eight Cants or Corners. 1876 GWILT Archit. Gloss., Cant, an external angle or quoin of a building. (there is more but I didn't want to trouble you with the whole thing).

And of course, there is my own spelling mistake: I feel your pain. Damn. Now I feel like an ass. oh well

wont: A. pa. pple. 1. Accustomed, used to, familiar with (a thing, practice, or condition). Obs. 2. (a) Conjugated with the verb ¡®to be¡¯, and const. inf. (with or less freq. without to): Accustomed, used; in the habit of (doing something). (b) predicated of things. b. Conjugated with the verb ¡®to have¡¯: in had wont, had been accustomed. Now rare.

Kazoo....do you (*gasp*) have access to the complete OED?? Does your school have an online subscription? Apostrophe misuse makes you look uneducated and un-literate (i.e., you *can* read, you just don't). So do basic spelling mistakes that aren't clearly typos. So do sentence fragments. At any rate, I think that if you're taking the time to express your thoughts and possibly try to persuade others in a written medium, you should take care to write as clearly and cleanly as you can. I'm lazy and don't always follow this principle myself, but I usually try to catch and correct my spelling and grammar mistakes when I notice them. My style is sloppy on the board, though, because I just write like I think. Sometimes I jump from A to E without the intermediate steps, or write things that don't follow logically unless you're in my head. Eh.

Spider, this is why you have to be in school. Both OSU and Emory have total access to the on-line OED. Yes, I have wasted time just looking up random words. At Emory we also have access to over 300 on-line journals and that includes stuff from the 18-19th centuries. I can spend all day reading old issues of everything from Atlantic Monthly to Harvard Law Review.

I work for an online research database that sells to colleges and universities (Emory has access to 7 of our products, btw, including our nice Access to Primary Sources in Women's Studies module), so I have plenty of news/medical/business/legal sources at my fingertips. No OED, though. :( I recently found this, which is pretty cool.

knowing how to use the language properly is not being "uptight" and using the language badly doesn't make you sound relaxed and cool, it makes you sound like a dumb ass. you might not BE an idiot, but you sound like one. the middle school idea that it's not cool to be smart is just stupid, but it is so persistent that many boys don't want to do well in school because they think it is unmasculine. this will result in another generation of uninformed semiliterates grunting at each other and not understanding the world around them or themselves. why is grammar important? well, it helps people understand each other. there are ridiculous arguments all over these boards that directly result from people not understanding each other's use of language. of course, some people think that's entertainment. personally, i think it's rude and inconsiderate to type or say a bunch of sloppy crap and expect other people to figure out what you meant instead of taking the time to express yourself clearly and actually saying what you mean. it's like taking a dump in someone's yard. some people just don't know better, but those who do are just rude.

hey jack. jack? i didnt say nor imply its not cool to be smart. just its just a bit much to get so bent out of shape about it. like spider said, on the boards, the "I just write like I think." is best in my mind and to get testy about online grammar is just ...well....a fools errand. we are talking about online message board grammar jack. not anything with any serious credibility. if your going to judge so harshly, shouldn't you take the time to employ it yourself? last i checked, sentences began with capital letters.

When I said, "I write like I think," I meant that I usually don't write formally on the boards. I write formally when I write emails to customers and colleagues, and then, I take care that my style is consistent, I don't use slang, I don't use ellipses unless I'm quoting, my commas are in the right places, etc. On the boards, I write informally. But informal writing does not involve throwing rules regarding apostrophes, contractions, your/you're and their/they're/there out the window. If you're very sloppy with spelling and grammar when you write, what does that say about your thinking? If you can't be bothered to proof your posts for errors and inconsistencies, what does that say about the time you put into formulating your ideas and checking *them* for inconsistencies?

A lot of people can't proofread their own work. I can't unless I read it aloud. I don't think that would go over well in some of the places I post from like the library and this coffee place. And I certainly don't scrutinize people's grammar and spelling here the way I do my student's (the ones whose grammar/spelling did indeed keep me up at night). I don't know what it is, but it seems that because I have a sense of people's "voices" here, a kind of familiarity with writing styles, I rarely notice mistakes. But when someone new posts, I do notice and like Spider, get a little annoyed.

"if your going to judge so harshly, shouldn't you take the time to employ it yourself? " as if this were a moral issue requiring that those who judge prove their worth? it's not a moral judgment, it's an issue of perception. nor is it personal. a normal educated adult perceives sloppy grammar as lazy, careless, and/or uneducated. that's not harsh. that's the common perception. i don't make the rules, but i can recognize them. at any rate, an adult of average education (and probably most teenagers, too) can perceive that my use of lower case (which is an established online grammatical form) on these boards is consistent and intentional rather than sloppy or mistaken. but again, this isn't a moral issue. everyone writes like they think. this is why sloppy writing is often indicative of sloppy thinking and readers often perceive it that way, as spider explained. however, it's also true that many people sound much less intelligent than they actually are because of poor expressive skills. perhaps that doesn't really matter. expression is a personal choice. more than once, i've been surprised to find that someone posting here (this has also hapened elsewhere with people i know only electronically) was not actually a preteen or teenager, but an adult. i'm sure you realize that adults perceive teenagers differently than they perceive other adults and that most adults would prefer not to be thought of as teenagers. this is not to say that adults look down on teenagers or think they're "better." patrick, for a guy who claims that it's silly to get testy about grammar, you certainly get fired up whenever the subject comes up! rhetorical questions: if it's silly to get testy, why do watcher's misspellings irritate you? and if the message boards are not credible and this is all just casual folks shooting the breeze for fun (i agree that it is that, by the way), why would anyone argue heatedly and repeatedly with spunky, or anyone, about definitions of words or methods of expression? why bother? why not just relax and shine it on? cheers.

"a normal educated adult" spot the missing comma. flubbed keyboarding errors don't bother me. even honest spelling mistakes *usually* don't bug me so much. what really irks me is the obvious lack of comprehension implicit in the use of a word that doesn't fit the context simply because it sounds to the writer like the intended word. it's the grammatical equivalent of singing along to a song without realizing you really don't know the lyrics.

hey man, what's wrong with ppl singin' even if you don't know the words? its afree country in case you havent herd. why you tryna sensor people, you nazi? maybe you need to grab an oly and jsut chill.

I'm hot And when I'm not I'm cold as ice See me comin' [Get out of my way] Step aside [just step aside] Or pay the price What I want I take What I don't I break And I don't want you With a flick of my knife I can change your life There's nothing you can do Cause I'm a taco shell Make my stand No man's land On my own Man in blue It's up to you The seed is sown What I want I stash What I don't I smash N' you're on my list Dead or alive Got a .45 N' I never miss Cause I'm a taco shell Every night Street light I drink my booze Some run Some fight I win they lose What I need I like What I don't I fight N' I don't like you So say bye bye While your still alive Cause your time is due Cause I'm a taco shell

nuh-UHHHH! those are so NOT the wrods i sing.

yuh-huh they are.

when you git up evry morning, your alarm clocks warming makin eight, fit three into the city theres a whisle up above it people push and people shove it and the girls who try and look pretty andif your trains on time you can get to work by 9 and start shaving got to get your pay if you ever get herroid look at me i'm self-employed i just love to work at nothing all day and i'll be... bakin carrot bisqits every day bakin carrot bisqits anyway yeh i've been bakin carrot bisqits, it's all mine bakin carrot bisqits and working overtime Work out! Yeah! so its as easy as fishin' you can be a musician and you can make sounds out the meadow you get a second-hand guitar and chances are you'll go real far if you get on with the right batch of fellas then people see ya having fun just out lyin in the sun so you tell them that you like it this way motherfuckin work that we avoid coz were all self employed yeh we love to work at nothing all day And we all... bakin carrot bisqits every day bakin carrot bisqits every way i've been bakin carrot bisqits, it's all right! bakin carrot bisqits and working overtime work out! yeh! break it down right here now! yeh! take good care of my biscits and i'm away, everyday whoo! whoo! whoo! whoo! when you git up evry morning, and your alarm clocks warming makin eight, fit three into the city theres a whistle up above it people push and people shove it all the girls who can try to look pretty and ifyour trains on time you can get to work by 9 and start shaving coz you got to get your pay if you ever get her and a roid look at me i'm self-employed i just love to work at nothing all day and now i'm bakin carrot bisqits every day bakin carrot bisqits anyway and now i bakin carrot bisqits, it's all my bakin carrot bisqits and working overtime Bakin carrot biscits Bakin carrot biscits Bakin carrot biscits Bakin carrot biscits Bakin carrot biscits

hysterical incontinence over here.

o whatmy words arent good enof 4 u? those my boyuz!!

no, dude. you totally win.

i see a bathroom riding i see trouble on the hay i see hurricanes and lihgt winds i see bad time today dont come around tonight or its bound to take your knife theres a bathroom on the right i fear hurricane ablowing i know the end is coming soon i hear rivers overflowing i hear the voice of Ray Jerrune. dont come around tonight or its bound to take your knife theres a bathroom on the right hope you have got your things together i hope your quite prepared to die it looks like we're in for nasty weather my eye is takin for a ride dont come around tonight or it's bound to take your knife theres a bathroom on the right dont come around tonight or it's bound to take your knife theres a bathroom on the right OH YEAH!

usually i like to jump up on the pool table or at least the bar there at the end for the "OH YEAH!" part or else i just bang a shotglass down in time with it. im a people person and I LUV AMERICA. 'n' trux. 'n' strippers. OH YAH.

one of the few times i'd ever sang at a karaoke place, i did "bakin carrot biscuits" in a bar in sonora, ca. totally drunk, i ended it by flipping off the audience. cause i'm so fucking punk rock and shit. they all looked at me like, "who the fuck do you think you are?" that and the lack of applause was perfectly reasonable response.

REAL FUCKIN ARTISTS ARE NEVER APPRECIATED IN THEY'RE OWN TIME. DONT LET HTE FKN COMPLASENT SHEEP BASTARDS DRAG YOU DOWN MAN. THOSE PRICKKX SHOULD OFBOUGHT YOU A ROUND MAN FOR YOUR HONESSTY.

wait! unless you didnt sing the rite words!

ok. so chronic misspellings and typos are annoying. s'why i can't do irc anymore. and no, it's not because they keep banning me.

FAROFLMBFBFMFBAO!!! irc rox! pwr 2 thppl!

down boy.

<------- so flippin n aww n trippin didnt no ne1 here wuz on irc2.

i wouldnt say I get fired up. to get cranky and document it just feels like a skip in the record otherwise known as a message board and im trying move the needle on. yes. i DO get annoyed by misspellings at times. watcher? watcher annoys me for about a dozen reasons, his chronic misspellings are one of them, not because they are obvious errors in keystroke or proofreading but because its clear he was never taught the proper spelling. I wouldnt rag his balls about it. I have, but i try not to. dave, regarding your sonora/karaoke experience...can i get a witness? agatha, please tell me you were there for that?

and jack, what did you eat for breakfast? you're somewhat of a spaz today, or so it seems.

Jack is a rhetorical ninja. Gaze on his works, ye lackwits, and despair.

but what did he have for breakfast spider? I dont want to "gaze at his works" you perverted woman.

He started getting creative around midnight last night. So, Patrick, are you calling him a freak? Only freaks eat breakfast at midnight. So what are you trying to say? Huh?

i don't even know what the hell you are talking about spider.

That's no surprise. Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday, dear ego. Happy birthday to me.

what the hell do you mean by that? who said anything about freaks? so whatever will you do on this very special day?

Nothing. Well, I'll eat some European chocolate. I'm celebrating this weekend. My brother is getting me Radiohead's new album, so I've been listening to the Bends today to prepare.

Happy birthday, Spider. I'll capitalize words, but just for you, and just for today. Have a good day.

Happy birthday Spidergirl. I get really annoyed at people who say 'axsk' in stead of ASK. ITS ASK YOU MORONS.