Is politely correcting someone's grammar/spelling offensive? Why?

[Kage]

It's my experience that many already notice their mistakes. Repeat misspellings will make my eye tick and it depends on my rapport with the other roleplayer whether or not I will tell them. The thing is, most people I know in live RP will already have seen it. I may comment on it in a different linkshell that I share with them but I don't want to place it in /say, even if it is (( ))

 

Why? Well, it seems to break the flow a bit. I'm not sure about immersion because that's not a big deal for me, but the flow of the words and the story is broken just to fix a minor typo.

 

I will fix things with ((OOC)) chatter if it is important for the scene and for clarification.

 

If one of my friends posts up a large IC post in the IC section and it has a typo, I will point it out.

 

I honestly just don't see it as my place unless someone asks me for help. There's a ton of RPers I would comment on about their typing. I have done so with others who I know would rather avoid that interaction. (Closer to chat speech, tends to capitalize things for no reason, constant misspellings, reminds me of the way I wrote when I was 10, etc.) I just don't see it as my place. I'll rib friends for it or point it out for an IC post but unless they ask me to check over their words or their language, I'm not going to 'school' anyone.

[Nebbs]

I personally take no offense when someone corrects me, even in a public channel. However, many people disagree and say correcting someone else is wrong.

 

How are we supposed to improve if we are never made aware of our mistakes? As long as you are being polite and not an ass about it, I (personally) don't see a problem.

 

First, who is the "we" you are trying to improve? I get the sense that you think your role is to teach someone? 

 

Don't is my advice, unless your role is proof reading or similar. I mean, would you like someone to comment on your own falts in public?

 

As a dyslexic I struggle, I have always struggled. Any such correction just makes you one of those folks in my life who want to point out my limitations rather than see past them. 

 

In my view I see the inability to overlook errors that do not get in the way of the communication as your problem. What will you make of peoples diction, what about the struggling person where English is not there first language? 

 

Honestly, unless people have asked for the feedback, keep quiet.

[Virella]

Depends. If they just hit their head against the keyboard, and reading their text ends up being a game of hints, yeah, I will tell them to stop doing that. As well people using auto translate in their roleplay is like... no please stop that.

 

But besides that? Meh. On WoW I was a bit harder on it, because everyone and his mum could download Misspelled.

 

That said, I am Dutch, I got Dyslexia critting me over 9000 while roleplay often, I just slap open Google translate often. Not even to type in the Dutch word, but more so to have Google translate going "YOU MEANT X", and very rarely having to literally translate words from Dutch to English.

 

Dyslexia is not seeing the difference between whether and wether. And not, for example, spelling I constantly as i. That is all just bashing grammatical rules in your head, everyone had to do it. Gods, it makes me rage inside when people who claim to have dyslexia that they cannot capitalize their sentences, use punctuation ect.

 

But in truth? People with dyslexia tend to be the lot who takes care of their posts the most, because we know there is something off, just not exactly what.

 

Then and than for example? Explaining that to a non-native English speaker + dyslexia. Uh. I literally cannot see the difference. I know there is one, that there is a rule to it, but I just tend to wing it, or avoid it completely when typing. And explaining it to me is not going to change a thing. That said, I've been told native English speakers fuck this up all the time as well so... guess we aren't that far off

[Roen]

I never correct someone during RP.

 

The little text window is terribly limiting, I don't get to see my full post most of the time before I hit enter, and most of the time I am furiously typing. I know what I want to say, but my fingers sometimes skip a word or misspell something. I know it happens to me, and it can happen to anyone. I don't feel the need to correct that.

 

Usually the person I am playing with can figure out what I was trying to say, although if it can be grossly misinterpreted, I will correct myself immediately (or two sentences later when I actually read what I said...). Else I would prefer that the scene just kept going, rather than be bogged down by corrections.

 

If I keep making mistakes, I usually stare at the screen in disbelief, bonk my head a couple of times, and apologize in party chat (( )) ... but I still just keep the scene going.

[Flickering Ember]

If you can understand what they're saying in under 5 seconds there's no need to correct em because you got the message regardless. 

 

If you can't for the life of you understand them then just ask if they could repeat it better spelled or something in /tells.

 

Not all people are as adept at language (or care enough to type it correctly). Just pay it no mind. Because pretty sure if you try to correct them 7/10 times you'll never see them bother you again.

 

 

This. If you understood what they wrote, how in the world does it matter? There's no need to correct someone other than some vague satisfaction that you caught an error they didn't. Readability I do think is important too though. Like Septha said, break up your sentences. That's it though.

 

The only time I feel it is appropriate is if that RPer is looking for feedback.

[D'aito Kuji]

English is one of the most complex and confusing languages there is.  It's no wonder that native speakers often fail to get it perfectly correct.  There's no shortage of grammarians who argue, sometimes with great vitriol, over aspects of the language. It is a hodgepodge of other tongues, not only their verbs and nouns, but plenty of their rules.  And those rules are sometimes in conflict with each other.  There are more words in English than in any other language.  One simply cannot expect all English speakers to be experts, especially in an MMO with a global audience.

 

As long as I can get the gist of what is being said, I have no desire to ask or correct. It's simply not my place to do so.  Imagine if you were to play a game or do some other form of writing in another language.  How would you feel if even the most minor details were called out in a public way?

 

Lastly, when RP'ing, colloquial speech is often preferred over strictly grammatically correct forms.  Talking and writing are not the same thing and I feel RP is best when the flow of communication resembles verbal conversation rather than overtly adherent to arbitrary rules adopted from other languages.

 

I feel like I should also point out the hubris of English speakers and their demand for grammatical accuracy when they are the least likely to speak another language at all.

 

tl;dr Yes

[Oilbasedoleander]

Let me tell you about my first post here on the forums...

 

It was late at night, I'm tired with my pajamas on and hair up in a bun and my stuffed sheep in my lap that I snuggle when it's not to hot.

 

For some reason, I knew exactly what I wanted to type about my character, "Does not know her sire."

 

And I put, "Sired by none."

 

Which makes not a LICK OF SENSE. 

 

But since my brain was already scrambled eggs with no side of bacon, I didn't even catch it. And peacefully drifted off to slumberland.

 

The next morning were posts from other folks here on the forums poking fun at my little mistake... a lot. Had I been a more sensitive person, this would have deterred me from ever coming back. It was uncalled for, honestly, and unintentional on my part. But because I'm so awesome, I laughed it off and fixed it to what was intended.

 

I do not correct. I didn't major in English. Didn't become a teacher. It's not my job, I already have one of those. If I got the jist, I roll with the mistakes. Just call me Gumbi because I'm flexible. Uhm, mentally, not physically.

 

However, when asked, I will help when I can and be encouraging in my corrections instead of "This, this and this are wrong. Fix it and maybe I'll consider RPing with you."

 

BUT TO EACH THEIR OWN, YO.

[Kai Motokawa]

Being the person who has a very lazy hand and uses the shift key to much, I love it when people correct me. I still have simple issues with things like Theyre, Their and whatever the other one is.. I have a very faulty memory, so I really like it when people correct me, but not when they say "Oh so you spelled this wrong stupid." It all depends on how you choose to correct someone or how the person being corrected takes it.

[Siha]

As as warning, I didn't read the whole thread, I'm terrible but I just wanted to chime in really quick!

 

I don't tend to correct the grammar of people I RP with, I don't know if I'd say it's rude if you do though. It's all about tone and intention! If someone WERE to correct my grammar I think I'd be ok with it so long as they phrased it in a way that wasn't mean, just a, 'hey you should have ordered it like this, or, that word should actually be' whatever. If you're nice, I think it's ok. But like some have said, it would be best done to people that you know. I personally don't do it but that's because I know that sometimes my grammar is terrible despite my best efforts and even taking courses on it. For some reason I will sometimes arrange my words in an order that doesn't make sense, and I know it as soon as I do it. More often than not though I comment on it myself so I do their job before they do.

 

As an aside, going back to words people use wrong, it ABSOLUTELY drives me INSANE when people use weary and they mean wary. I see it all the time. I don't even point it out but it makes me grit my teeth and flinch like someone smacked me. I don't know why.

[Ashe]

Sometimes I would find it rude and I recognize that I type things strangely sometimes. Some people who RP on PS4s will get that they may type faster than the character-per-second limit on the PS4 making it very difficult to type out things sometimes. I can't copy and paste and change things easily...and I understand there are others who can't either.

 

I should probably also say that I am an editor...like that's my job. To edit books (well, comics...)

I am GREAT at nitpicking other people's stuff but when it comes to my own stuff I'm like wheeeee words I don't know lawlz let me write stuff down like a maniac who doesn't know english yaaaay >>

I may joke to someone like "omg you wrote that wrong pfffft" but I will never seriously pick at someone in RP. Some people just suck at typing...like me >>

[Aris]

One thing I see often online is when two people are arguing, one will start to correct the other's grammar as a way to undermine the person further. That's one reason why I think people can take offense from it, as sometimes a way of being snarky. Probably completely wrong, but I'm trying to post more so stuff it I'm gonna do it. :blush:

 

Personally I find it helpful as my grammar is atrocious and I seem to have made up my own set of rules?! I don't usually comment on other's mistakes because of this, and to be honest as long as I understand what the person is saying then I don't really mind any way. Maybe in a public conversation the safest and politest thing would be to do it through /tell instead.

[Addison]

Like everything else, it depends on the situation and the person. Mostly I abstain from correcting people.

 

I have a wonderful friend I met through roleplay when I played Everquest 2. She was the first friend I made in the roleplaying community in that game, and several years later, we're still the best of friends. She's absolutely wonderful. She's highly intelligent. She's so much fun to be around and is like a little ray of sunshine across your screen.

 

She can't write worth a shit though. Spelling errors galore. Grammatical errors everywhere. It's an English teacher's worst nightmare.

 

But I muscle through it. She's self-conscious about her writing but she really does try. She's abstained from forum RP for a long time because people would send her nasty messages about her writing. When she did get involved with arcs on forums, she would ask me to proof read her writing.

 

Naturally, I don't correct her unless she asks, or if I need clarification in our roleplay. I know how hard she tries, and the fact she can weave a wonderful story and make roleplay so much fun it should be a crime far outweighs the small annoyance of spelling errors.

 

If someone corrects me, though? I don't generally care.

[Little Yuna]

It boils down to how you go about correcting them. If you kindly point it out from time to time, they won't get ticked off. However if every time they make a mistake and you correct them, they might take it as an insult to their intelligence. I once made a tiny mistake on spelling, and someone went off on me with a rant about how everyone he RP's with is always breaking his focus every time there is a spelling error. I'll quote him on this, he says mispelling is the equivalent to "A needle being plunged into the base of my neck."

 

Just be polite about it, otherwise people will just come to ignore you.

[Caspar]

I never correct someone during RP.

 

The little text window is terribly limiting, I don't get to see my full post most of the time before I hit enter, and most of the time I am furiously typing. I know what I want to say, but my fingers sometimes skip a word or misspell something. I know it happens to me, and it can happen to anyone. I don't feel the need to correct that.

 

Usually the person I am playing with can figure out what I was trying to say, although if it can be grossly misinterpreted, I will correct myself immediately (or two sentences later when I actually read what I said...). Else I would prefer that the scene just kept going, rather than be bogged down by corrections.

 

If I keep making mistakes, I usually stare at the screen in disbelief, bonk my head a couple of times, and apologize in party chat (( )) ... but I still just keep the scene going.

The thing that hurts the most about the chat box for me is redundancy. If I must describe the same thing twice or more in a long post, my bird-like memory may have already forgotten the word I used first by the second time.

[Roen]

The thing that hurts the most about the chat box for me is redundancy. If I must describe the same thing twice or more in a long post, my bird-like memory may have already forgotten the word I used first by the second time.

 

 

AAAAH! I DO THIS! And it drives ME up the wall!! ("Why did I use that word twice..." "...In the SAME SENTENCE EVEN!" /headdesk)

 

Although I can't say I've said the same about someone else's post while I am RPing. So I think (hope) that I am being overly critical about myself but it isn't as distracting to those I am RPing with.

[Knight Kat]

I think it's important to also keep in mind that many people don't always talk in good grammar. I reflect that -intentionally- in character dialogue. Plenty of characters have accents too, and it's hard to tell sometimes if their imperfect grammar is intentional.

 

One of my characters speaks very formally because that is how she learned common Eorzean. However, she also uses needn't, 'tis, mayhaps, nay, ect. These may not be considered wrong, or bad grammar, but they are an example of intentionally trying to make the character sound like an Eorzean.

 

My other character has an accent. However, unlike sailor/pirate and Highland accents, trying to make someone sound like they have an Othard accent is a challenge. I intentionally make her dialogue seem imperfect, and she has trouble with big words. I plan to have her improve over time, but for now, I am enjoying the experiment.

 

As for correcting and being corrected, I am often of this mindset below:

 

I never correct someone during RP.

 

The little text window is terribly limiting, I don't get to see my full post most of the time before I hit enter, and most of the time I am furiously typing. I know what I want to say, but my fingers sometimes skip a word or misspell something. I know it happens to me, and it can happen to anyone. I don't feel the need to correct that.

 

Usually the person I am playing with can figure out what I was trying to say, although if it can be grossly misinterpreted, I will correct myself immediately (or two sentences later when I actually read what I said...). Else I would prefer that the scene just kept going, rather than be bogged down by corrections.

 

If I keep making mistakes, I usually stare at the screen in disbelief, bonk my head a couple of times, and apologize in party chat (( )) ... but I still just keep the scene going.

[Verad]

There's a pretty hefty body of research about the effectiveness of error correction in college-level composition courses. It is, at times, a contradictory mess, such that composition programs often have wildly varying approaches to the correcting of errors for feedback on student papers.

 

Generally speaking, actively correcting grammar errors is most effective among ESL students, who actively seek correction. Some articles suggest that the overall impact of error correction, even in the form of sustained instruction and continuous feedback, has a very small overall effect on the kinds of errors a student makes, or only changes the types of errors they make. Researchers who are more optimistic about error-correction insist that it has more to do with the type of feedback students receive; specifically, that it needs to be sustained over a number of courses and assignments in order to achieve long-term success in error correction.

 

Bearing that in mind, ask yourself how effective what you do - that is, occasionally pointing out an exceptionally egregious mistake - is going to be.

[Nero]

Whether or not its offensive is pretty much irrelevant, because the function of correcting someone's technical mistakes in RP--whether it's spelling, grammar, malapropisms, or what have you--is superfluous, at least to me.

 

My own thought process on it goes like this:

 

Is the meaning of their sentence or sentences clear?

 

If yes, then don't bother, even if it's incorrect.

 

If no, then ask for clarification, proceed as normal.

 

If the meaning is misinterpreted, then that is an opportune time to bring up spelling, grammar, malapropisms etc. without it being needlessly critical.

[myahele]

as other's have said, who care if there's some minor spelling or grammatical error.

 

Whether it's may I or can I? Or the missus of there, they're or their; it does not matter since you know what they mean.

 

I supposed you can RP as someone like that, but the other person must know and/or agree to be corrected.

 

I've seen such character's on TV and they can be quite hilarious if done right

[Nebbs]

Just jumping back in on a general point.

 

Accept you are imperfect

Accept others are imperfect

Realise that interactions are going to require tolerance and compromise

Find the things that bring you together and ignore the things that separate you

If after all that it is not working for you, then step away rather than endure the pain

[Aduu Avagnar]

as other's have said, who care if there's some minor spelling or grammatical error.

 

Whether it's may I or can I? Or the missus of there, they're or their; it does not matter since you know what they mean.

 

I supposed you can RP as someone like that, but the other person must know and/or agree to be corrected.

 

I've seen such character's on TV and they can be quite hilarious if done right

*ahem* I believe that's 'misuse'

 

In all seriousness I would like to echo the statements made before. If I can clearly understand what they are trying to convey, I leave it. Hells I make too many mistakes to go around correcting people. If, however, I cannot decipher it, then I ask them to clarify their intent.

 

If they have asked in the past for corrections as they are learning the language etc, then I am likely to offer pointers.

[Paradox]

I wouldn't say it's offensive per se, but it's also somewhat embarrassing to correct them in front of people. In most cases if a few mistakes really breaks your immersion so badly you have to correct them to survive, doing so in private is the best thing to do. To be fairly honest, I myself don't correct people. Mostly because I don't care. I know several individuals that are very well spoken when they speak, but typo like crazy when they type or type run on sentences like they were going out of style. A lot of the potential offense also comes from the fact that while many people know exactly what they're saying, typing it is hard for them and they don't like being pressured. My policy is, if it's not largely unreadable, the human brain can decipher what they're saying well enough for it to be understood, and that's genuinely all you need.

[LiadansWhisper]

I think that unless you know them personally and do it privately, it's probably bad form.

[KitKat]

I'm a bit of a spelling and grammar freak. Even then, I'll only correct people that I know are open to being corrected.

[ShoggMommy]

If I wanted feedback, I'd ask for an editor. This being said; I'm not asking for one to proof read my roleplay. Usually I will catch my typos, however they do slip in. I had someone do this to me the other day and frankly it pissed me off. They weren't part of my rp, they weren't even a part of my FC or the people I was playing with. It's frankly; none of their concern. I know the difference between 'they're' and 'their'. Unfortunately at the time I was under the influence.

 

And considering the fact that I have worked as an English professor's aide; yes I take offense to it when someone snidely makes comments, especially when they don't have any idea what's going on beyond the screen. It's not their place to make remarks. It's not so much that I don't know, I understand rules concerning the language- it just sometimes happens. And it's not really anyone's place to take it upon themselves to -teach- me. They aren't a professor that I'm taking a class under nor are they my editor.

 

If someone doesn't like like typos, then they can keep it to themselves. It comes off as snobbery when people do it in this manner. If it's unreadable and you can't make sense, just politely ask in private. Don't randomly correct people you have no idea about, especially if you aren't rping with them.