Question to anyone who uses text messaging.

June 12, 2010

Does anyone else here use proper grammar when they text? I do, and everybody else thinks I'm weird. I'm wondering if this is writer mentality.

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radicaldreamer - June 12, 2010 (05:18 PM)
For the most part I do. I tend not to use appostrophes though, so I don't use proper grammar for contractions and possessives. This is because I'm still using a traditional cellphone so the apostrophe is quite out of the way when I just want to write "won't" or "Steve's." This might change if I get a smartphone though.

Oh, and it definitely came from the habits I formed while writing, since they predate my texting habits.

Suskie - June 12, 2010 (05:38 PM)
Ha, even when I had a more traditional keypad to work with, I'd go out of the way to use an apostrophe. There were a few other forms of punctuation that forced me to hit the 1 key a thousand times, and they always annoyed me, but I used them anyway. My phone now has an actual keyboard now, though, so it's all good.

So here�s what happened. Someone at EA noticed that the God of War games are incredibly successful, both commercially and critically. They noticed that those games are rife with excessive gore and nudity, that they unfold in busy set pieces accompanied by shrieking choirs and wailing strings on the soundtrack, and that they�re chock full of very angry men making very loud exclamations. Let�s do that, they said. People seem to like that.

They needed a historical context, of course. Sony had them there: Greek mythology is rather conveniently a franchise with no trademarks, full of familiar stories and characters that can easily be exploited without having to pay royalty charges. EA then surmised that Renaissance-era Italian literature isn�t copyrighted, either, and thus settled on Dante Alighieri�s The Divine Comedy, which � what do you know � contains numerous allusions to Greek mythology! I�ve never understood that, since the poem itself is grounded in Christian beliefs, but here we are.

Dante�s Inferno, the game that resulted (and is based on the �cool� part of the classic poem), is a game in which its title character � who, I�ll remind you, actually existed and was a poet � storms through the gates of hell, confronts Charon and offers his life and his soul for his loved one�s return, to which Charon responds, �Fool! Those belong to us already!� I guess you play a game like Dante�s Inferno for lines like that.

Dante�s Inferno is full of chest-thumping bravado. It is calculated, rather transparently, to make you feel masculine. At the very beginning of the game, Dante is supposedly murdered, but makes it out alive because he manages to slay the Grim Reaper with his own scythe. That�s how much of a badass this guy is: The first thing he does is kill Death. I didn�t know writers had the potential to do that; I�m kind of feeling like a badass myself right now.

What�s that, you say? The Grim Reaper is unfitting for a modern adaptation of 14th century literature, because the image of Death as a hooded figure with a scythe wasn�t invented until the 15th century? Shut up, you! I hope you honestly weren�t coming into this expecting developer Visceral to, heaven forbid, honor the original text. As an English major myself, I�m almost compelled to point out the thousand or so ways in which the Dante�s Inferno video game bastardizes its source material, but I know just as well as you that the sorts of people this kind of product attracts probably aren�t going to care.

Let�s harp on something else, instead. When you fight Lucifer at the end of the game, his junk is out. Why is his junk out? Because someone at Visceral thought it would be mature and edgy for Satan�s junk to be out, clearly. I�m forced to remember that some artist at Visceral was made to spend a good chunk of his time rendering and animating this penis to perfection, and he is to be commended for a job well done, as it is easily the most convincing feature of the character model. Satan himself (whose name, for some reason, I keep misspelling "Stan") is represented here as a tall, hairy beast with hooves and antlers, but Visceral�s penis physics man made absolutely sure that these aren�t the first attributes to catch your eye.

But I am straying from the point. Dante�s Inferno is as shameless a rip-off of God of War as I�ve ever seen. The controls are identical, even going so far as to employ the right analog stick for dodges, thus leaving players at the mercy of an automated camera system

A God of War clone isn�t necessarily a bad thing. Even a blatant rip-off still has the potential to copy what that game did well,

This isn�t good level design; this is just a sequence of mock-Endurance modes.

bloomer - June 12, 2010 (07:35 PM)
Ehh, half the time. Not if I'm in a hurry, which I usually am if texting. So I may skip apostrophes, I may not.

With the particular predictive speller on my oldish phone, it's usually faster to use full words than to manually enter abbrevations (EG - it's faster to type 'your' than 'ur')

But if I'm sending an informative text, usually it's pushing the max length of one text, and I don't want to pay for two. If I anticipate this, I manually enter abbrevations to save character on the way, or if I'm near the end and run out of room, I go back over the content and abbreviate words, axe spaces, etc.

Genj - June 12, 2010 (07:56 PM)
I use an older flip phone and as a result I hate texting, so I tend to write with as few characters as possible. Likely I'd be more inclined to write messages more properly whenever I upgrade to a Droid, but then again I don't always follow the rules of English on AIM either. Uh oh.

Halon - June 12, 2010 (10:22 PM)
My grammar is horrible, but I make sure it's readable by anyone regardless of who I'm sending it to. Kind of like my posts here with a few abbreviations and no caps/minimal punctuation (basically question mark is it). I don't spend more than 30 seconds on a text, or else I might as well make the phone call.

zippdementia - June 13, 2010 (10:02 AM)
I do, unless I'm talking with my sister, in which case it can sometimes become a blur of abbreviations and acronyms.

joseph_valencia - June 13, 2010 (05:45 PM)
I always use proper grammar, capitals and apostrophes and all.

bluberry - June 13, 2010 (11:03 PM)
i'm in between. i mean i don't even write message board posts in proper grammar so nyah, but when i text it's kind of in between ur and You're

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	radicaldreamer - June 12, 2010 (05:18 PM) For the most part I do. I tend not to use appostrophes though, so I don't use proper grammar for contractions and possessives. This is because I'm still using a traditional cellphone so the apostrophe is quite out of the way when I just want to write "won't" or "Steve's." This might change if I get a smartphone though. Oh, and it definitely came from the habits I formed while writing, since they predate my texting habits.
	Suskie - June 12, 2010 (05:38 PM) Ha, even when I had a more traditional keypad to work with, I'd go out of the way to use an apostrophe. There were a few other forms of punctuation that forced me to hit the 1 key a thousand times, and they always annoyed me, but I used them anyway. My phone now has an actual keyboard now, though, so it's all good. So here�s what happened. Someone at EA noticed that the God of War games are incredibly successful, both commercially and critically. They noticed that those games are rife with excessive gore and nudity, that they unfold in busy set pieces accompanied by shrieking choirs and wailing strings on the soundtrack, and that they�re chock full of very angry men making very loud exclamations. Let�s do that, they said. People seem to like that. They needed a historical context, of course. Sony had them there: Greek mythology is rather conveniently a franchise with no trademarks, full of familiar stories and characters that can easily be exploited without having to pay royalty charges. EA then surmised that Renaissance-era Italian literature isn�t copyrighted, either, and thus settled on Dante Alighieri�s The Divine Comedy, which � what do you know � contains numerous allusions to Greek mythology! I�ve never understood that, since the poem itself is grounded in Christian beliefs, but here we are. Dante�s Inferno, the game that resulted (and is based on the �cool� part of the classic poem), is a game in which its title character � who, I�ll remind you, actually existed and was a poet � storms through the gates of hell, confronts Charon and offers his life and his soul for his loved one�s return, to which Charon responds, �Fool! Those belong to us already!� I guess you play a game like Dante�s Inferno for lines like that. Dante�s Inferno is full of chest-thumping bravado. It is calculated, rather transparently, to make you feel masculine. At the very beginning of the game, Dante is supposedly murdered, but makes it out alive because he manages to slay the Grim Reaper with his own scythe. That�s how much of a badass this guy is: The first thing he does is kill Death. I didn�t know writers had the potential to do that; I�m kind of feeling like a badass myself right now. What�s that, you say? The Grim Reaper is unfitting for a modern adaptation of 14th century literature, because the image of Death as a hooded figure with a scythe wasn�t invented until the 15th century? Shut up, you! I hope you honestly weren�t coming into this expecting developer Visceral to, heaven forbid, honor the original text. As an English major myself, I�m almost compelled to point out the thousand or so ways in which the Dante�s Inferno video game bastardizes its source material, but I know just as well as you that the sorts of people this kind of product attracts probably aren�t going to care. Let�s harp on something else, instead. When you fight Lucifer at the end of the game, his junk is out. Why is his junk out? Because someone at Visceral thought it would be mature and edgy for Satan�s junk to be out, clearly. I�m forced to remember that some artist at Visceral was made to spend a good chunk of his time rendering and animating this penis to perfection, and he is to be commended for a job well done, as it is easily the most convincing feature of the character model. Satan himself (whose name, for some reason, I keep misspelling "Stan") is represented here as a tall, hairy beast with hooves and antlers, but Visceral�s penis physics man made absolutely sure that these aren�t the first attributes to catch your eye. But I am straying from the point. Dante�s Inferno is as shameless a rip-off of God of War as I�ve ever seen. The controls are identical, even going so far as to employ the right analog stick for dodges, thus leaving players at the mercy of an automated camera system A God of War clone isn�t necessarily a bad thing. Even a blatant rip-off still has the potential to copy what that game did well, This isn�t good level design; this is just a sequence of mock-Endurance modes.
	bloomer - June 12, 2010 (07:35 PM) Ehh, half the time. Not if I'm in a hurry, which I usually am if texting. So I may skip apostrophes, I may not. With the particular predictive speller on my oldish phone, it's usually faster to use full words than to manually enter abbrevations (EG - it's faster to type 'your' than 'ur') But if I'm sending an informative text, usually it's pushing the max length of one text, and I don't want to pay for two. If I anticipate this, I manually enter abbrevations to save character on the way, or if I'm near the end and run out of room, I go back over the content and abbreviate words, axe spaces, etc.
	Genj - June 12, 2010 (07:56 PM) I use an older flip phone and as a result I hate texting, so I tend to write with as few characters as possible. Likely I'd be more inclined to write messages more properly whenever I upgrade to a Droid, but then again I don't always follow the rules of English on AIM either. Uh oh.
	Halon - June 12, 2010 (10:22 PM) My grammar is horrible, but I make sure it's readable by anyone regardless of who I'm sending it to. Kind of like my posts here with a few abbreviations and no caps/minimal punctuation (basically question mark is it). I don't spend more than 30 seconds on a text, or else I might as well make the phone call.
	zippdementia - June 13, 2010 (10:02 AM) I do, unless I'm talking with my sister, in which case it can sometimes become a blur of abbreviations and acronyms.
	joseph_valencia - June 13, 2010 (05:45 PM) I always use proper grammar, capitals and apostrophes and all.
	bluberry - June 13, 2010 (11:03 PM) i'm in between. i mean i don't even write message board posts in proper grammar so nyah, but when i text it's kind of in between ur and You're

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