Is bad grammar a sign of low intelligence

[PatrickHenry]

CtC, I will concede your point that poor grammar, spelling and usage are not, in themselves, indecipherable. However they show a lack of concern for accurate communication that should be the heart of any effort to transmit thoughts.

Who is a correspondent writing to? Themselves? If to other people, why should they not make the effort to use standard formats? Slovenliness? Or do you regard it as artistic, as pam seems to do?

Snicker...just had a thought...how does a computer regard the smallest error in the code?

[ZNFYRH]

Chris the Chees,

And I find it interesting that you choose to respond to RickSp's derogatory comments instead of respond to mine, which are in no way aggressive. Seems like you chose the easy way out.

PatrickHenry,

That ties in with what I initially wrote in this thread, that a person would be posting for their own self-gratification.

[Chris the Chees]

Quote by: ZNFYRH Chris the Chees, And I find it interesting that you choose to respond to RickSp's derogatory comments instead of respond to mine, which are in no way aggressive. Seems like you chose the easy way out.

Very well.

No, your point was irrelevant. Olde English in context is perfectly fine.

It wasn't, you just don't seem to have gathered that I am not comparing medieval English with modern day English, a point I have noted on several occasions. The point was that, despite being purported otherwise, reasonable grammar does not assure comprehension and poorly applied or unfamiliar grammar do not make a piece of writing unreadable. You can, inaccurately I might add, repeat that spoken medieval English would be undecipherable to the modern ear all you like, that still won't make it at all relevent to the point I made.

[Gods_Mercenary]

When did we claim that proper grammar automatically makes your point well communicated? It helps, though.

[gw120]

No because the English language is an ever-changing language with many different accents and ways of talking. As long as you are able to use "proper" English it's all right, though you don't always have to.

And all you SOB's on forums who refuse to talk any differant than they talk in real life/MSN are retarded. I'm not one of these, I change the way I speak on forums.

[Gods_Mercenary]

Modern english has nearly universal rules, It is the guarenteed best way to get your message out to the most people possible. Not following the ules that everyone else reads by is just sabotaging yourself.

[dthmstr254]

Quote by: Sarah22 Even if bad grammar does not necessarily mean that the person has low intelligence, it shows laziness and/or lack of education. Using poor grammar is percieved as low intelligence, whether it is or is not true. If you want to be percieved that way, go ahead- make sloppy posts with numerous grammatical errors.

So a Deaf person who has a doctorate and works as a Certified Deaf Interpreter (not the same as a regular interpreter, if you want a description, pm me) but can't use proper grammer in English is uneducated or lazy?

[Scribbler1]

I'm wondering if this person will ever let us in on the reason for this charade. At least I think it's a joke, or a school paper or something. This person's vocabulary doesn't exactly reflect an unintelligent person.

[dthmstr254]

Quote by: gw120 No because the English language is an ever-changing language with many different accents and ways of talking. As long as you are able to use "proper" English it's all right, though you don't always have to. And all you SOB's on forums who refuse to talk any differant than they talk in real life/MSN are retarded. I'm not one of these, I change the way I speak on forums.

I talk like I write. Removing your speech communication style from your posts removes the personality from the post. That is why I use phrases and words like "Dagum", "shoot", and other terms.

[gw120]

If I did people would think I'm an idiot/hillbilly/retard. I also swear every other word so I'd probably get kicked off the board.

[King Wrong]

Bad grammar might be a sign of low intelligence, but that depends on your definition of intelligence. One might have bad grammar and be a mathematical genius. In my opinion there are many ways to define intelligence. Grammar really just shows communication skills and how educated you are.

[dthmstr254]

Quote by: gw120 If I did people would think I'm an idiot/hillbilly/retard. I also swear every other word so I'd probably get kicked off the board.

Well, it definitely would lower your credibility if you swore that often, but I am proud that I am a redneck, so that will stick to my posts. Now, if I end up posting right after my ASL 2 class I might just end up posting in ASL Gloss (the word order of ASL), and then come back and edit it into a syntax you understand.

[DayvaHen]

I think that ones grammar and their intelligence are not always a reflection of each other. English is the most difficult language to master, so if somebody makes a few grammatical errors every now and then, it should not mean that they are not capable of forming complete thoughts. Take the vast majority of Asian people that are way more advanced than more than half the population of American's. If you were to have them speak or write in English, it would most likely be grammatically incorrect, but that doesn't make them any less intelligent. It's not right to base somebodies intelligence solely on the way that they write. I know that when i'm on the internet or when i'm talking to friends, I don't always speak proper english. I speak in ebonics. I write in slang. Does that mean that because I do this I automatically lose IQ points? It shouldn't mean that at all, and it's a shame that we have been lowered to this kind of society that judges you just because you don't know how to use a comma in the right place.

[baby j]

Anyone who believe or even think that bad grammar is a sign of low intelligence is stupid. There's a lot of people who have bad grammar and is highly intelligent. Bad grammar could be a sign that a person maybe from another country or they lack education in grammar. Grammar alone dose not detrimine a person intellectual level.

[ZNFYRH]

Spoken grammar is one thing.

Written grammar is another. The presence of a spell-checker and ability to edit your comments for clarity before posting mean that you have no excuse.

Little grammar oopses happen all the time. Filling a post with them is just rude.

[The Bacon Guy]

Quote by: bj Bad grammar could be a sign that a person maybe from another country or they lack education in grammar.

If they lack education in grammar, the intelligent thing to do would be to learn how to use grammar properly. Not doing so indicates either an inability to learn the rules or grammar or an inability to grasp the fact that decent grammar is important in making a good impression. Neither of these qualities are particularly indicative of intelligence.

[phoenix_fire]

I tend to give people whose first language is not English a little leeway. After all, my Spanish is usually unimaginative, and I am trying to learn another language on top of that, and I would hope I'd receive a little mercy. Although...some people that speak other languages are pretty unmerciful too...

[rice]

I don't think that because you have poor grammar it indicates that your' intellegence level is low. Many people misspell common words due to shortcuts that are being used in "modern English". For example Albert Einstein's early years did not mark him as a genius. His parents worried because he was so slow to learn to speak. Although many speak as they write, the actual problem in todays society is that grammatical rules are not being followed. Therefore such lessons and teachings are being passed on to the next generation making them more grammatical incompetent than the previous one. One of the main reasons in which many are considered with a low intellegence by not practicing the correct way of writing English. Reading on a daily basis is essential for having and keeping a rich vocabulary.

[dthmstr254]

Ok, since a lot of people connect grammar to intelligence, so I will go ahead and draw up an example:

I am majoring in Sign Language interpretation at TTU. I am currently only in ASL 2 but have already been in positions where I have needed to interpret for someone 5 times this semester. By my teacher's assessment and my own agreement, my interpreting skills and use of proper ASL grammar is lousy. Does that make me unintelligent?

Deaf people find themselves in these situations all the time because us hearing people don't understand that grammar and ability to speak or write are not directly connected to intelligence. By far, I think that most Deaf people are by all rights more intelligent than most hearing people, because they at least grow up bi-lingual, while a lot of hearing people can't even use English correctly. Even then, cashiers and customer service reps at stores have asked the Deaf if they are retarded. Upon being told that the person is Deaf and not retarded, the cashier replied quickly, "Same thing." Sorry, I don't see a direct co-relation between bad grammar, which could simply be the result of thinking in another language, and intelligence.

[Scribbler1]

Intelligence without education is essentially worthless. Many times, if you can't UNDERSTAND someone you'll never know if that person is intelligent or not. Since it's hard to tell if that person is intelligent at all, you tend to assume that person is not.
And if people are smart enough to hook up with anything on the Internet, such as a debate forum, they are smart enough to find one of the many websites which TEACH you grammar, spelling and punctuation. There is no excuse for this.