Steve lee which joined the Restoration of the wp 0-6-0 at the western pacific railway museum decided that he liked big locomotives more so he has arranged to has sp 4460 to be moved to the museum to be restored to wp 486 and the first trips will be a triple headed trip with up 844 abs sp 4449 through the feather river canyon on July 25 2012

April fools

John must be under 25.........:)

Well so am I. What exactly are you saying? =]

Hey Aaron, Don't get offended, I am just commenting on the fact that far fewer of those under 25 slow down and take the time to use those old fashioned concepts like punctuation and grammar.......When I was in school (back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth) it was beaten into us with sledgehammers........

The good Sisters of St. Casimir in Providence, Rhode Island, did a decent job of teaching me the proper use of the written and spoken English language--sometimes using an 18-inch wood ruler for added emphasis. I suspect many of us baby boomers slightly cringe when we see posts on chat boards and such from the younger folks. They are good people, don't get me wrong. But it makes one contemplate what really gets taught in our primary schools in this day and age.

Thanks!

Actually, as a member of a younger generation (I was born in 1985), I am also dismayed by my generations improper use of written and spoken English. The informal use of text messaging and shorthand with electronic devices often leads to errors going unedited and undetected. Similar errors often carry over, unintentionally, into formal written English. With my students, I cannot stress how important it is to proofread and edit, and then do it again. Now I will take my teacher hat off, and resume posting on railway preservation.

Steve

I'm 28 and have to agree with what others have said in here - even though I'm young(ish), I also cringe when I read posts like that - no punctuation, no grammar. We're in a "texting" era, when our shorthand from text messages gets typed out into computers, and even makes it into our everyday conversations. Hearing someone say "OMG" on tv or elsewhere drives me crazy.

Slow down, type it out, use punctuation and grammar, and we won't have endless threads of people (like me) complaining about a lack of grammar. I know I'm not perfect...but jeez...

Gary, I tend to agree with you. Grammar and puncuation has gotten less and less important to people as we type things on the web. It's amazing how many people don't use periods or capital letters, including some teachers I know. How can you teach something to your students when you can't be bothered to do it yourself?

Another problem is that when you see other folks doing it, you tend to adapt the same practices. Your post is a good example. I see eight periods at the end of your post. Wouldn't just one be sufficient? I don't know where the whole ellipse "..." thing came from, but it's way over-used on the web. I saw one fellow... who put them... into his sentences... about every three or four words... Not sure if he talks like that in real life too, making frequent pauses, but it would be just as annoying as it was on the screen.

When I was a kid, we didn't have ellipses, we had to use paragraphs. :)

The two are definitely related. Try writing a grant application and you'll see just how important that stuff really is. If the proposal looks like it was written by a fifth grader, they'll treat it that way.

I understand the importance of proper Grammar and spelling. I enlist the help of people much better at it than myself for grant work and other important work. I understand it to the point that I type everything I post here on Word then paste. My spelling sucks!
That being said I find trying to learn grammar and spelling to complicated and confusing.
Mechanical things are much more clear. Take for example 4 stroke theory, you need 4 things for an engine to run. They all must happen in order or it doesn't work. No exceptions. In spelling there is the rule i before e except after c. I understand there is a variance on that as well. Not everyone can remember all of these rules much less master them. It might be easier if it was more clear cut and a little simpler. Not everyone has the same abilities as others on here.
Enough of that. I do not point out errors or mistakes people make mechanically on this or any other board. Be these waste of time or money projects or the manner someone tried to repair/restore something. Never have never will. The moderators would probably sensor it and I just don't think it is productive to what we are all here for.
Why is that people here seem to complain and point out grammatical/spelling errors very quickly instead of just over looking it?
I'm sure I have violated several laws in written communication in this post but oh well.
Off the soap box now.

The state of grammar, spelling, poor speech and the use of the apostrophe on everything with an s on the end sets my teeth on edge. I even see this in advertisements and on billboards, so it's almost hopeless.
People who never use caps are really annoying and if you are in my generation, it actually makes something harder to read if it's all lower case.
I'm at an age where I just throw up my hands and say the hell with it, it's just the result of two or three generations of dumbing down the schools, laziness brought on by computers (you can type faster if you don't use caps.).
Had I done all of this when I was in school, my knuckles would be as big as Barry Bond's head.

Try writing a grant application and you'll see just how important that stuff really is. If the proposal looks like it was written by a fifth grader, they'll treat it that way.


Also, try writing a job application and you'll see the importance of proper English and grammar. Most of those are done by the younger generation we're considering (in part) in this thread.

I tend to write informal postings as communication rather than business prose unless I mean to make it businesslike prose. Given my academic background was in the theatrical bit of English, I do use a series of periods to indicate either a pause in connecting thoughts or for a response as if i were writing spoken dialog, dashes to interject, and otherwise parse out punctuation pretty parsimoniously - I learned that from David Mamet. My lapses in capitalization reflect hand injuries and missing fingers that miss the shift bar or whatever you call it on a computer keyboard.

From my point of view, tweeting seems only useful for Haiku or those having nothing of any depth or breadth to say. I wonder if it links to shrinking attention span and increase in ADD over the past couple decades?

Apologies for my indiosyncratic posts, it isn't entirely unintentional, and I do know how to do it better when I want to.

dave

I'd like to hear John talk about his [lack of] punctuation. My wife is 25 and an English teacher; she'd have a few thing to say about that.

I think we may have scared John away. But if you look at his past posts, (profile, "Search user's posts) you'll see that he is at least consistent with his grammar and punctuation (and lack thereof).