I suppose what I crave most
are posts written in English with proper syntax. There seems to be a rash of posts lately that seem to be written in some sort of rudimentary cretinous pidgin English.

What's going on? Are people running their posts through into each language in turn on Google Translate and back to English again?
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Sun 17 Apr 2011, 22:45, 43 replies)

Yes.
Fact me know the case.

Amirite?
(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Sun 17 Apr 2011, 22:57, closed)

Hoist by one's own petard, it seems.
"Rash of posts" is a singular noun phrase, therefore the second "seem" in your original post should, I believe, be "seems".
( Amish Information Systems hates misplaced, commas, Sun 17 Apr 2011, 23:08, closed)

ooooft

(whorsepower needs an amusing sig, Sun 17 Apr 2011, 23:22, closed)

Zing!

(Vigilante Man weeps because you're stupid., Mon 18 Apr 2011, 0:03, closed)

Hound of Cullen's Law
Any post criticizing someone's spelling, punctuation or grammar will itself contain spelling, punctuation and/or grammatical errors.

Circa 1998 or so, as I recall.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Mon 18 Apr 2011, 0:41, closed)

On this note, I would like to query the repeated usage of the double quotation mark - to whit, "'seems'". I understand that rules are not iron-clad in this respect, but given that the double-quotation has seen prior usage indicating a direct quote, I'd suggest either a single quotation mark, or possibly even italics, would lead to less ambiguity in the second instance. Not that I care - moaning about seems is more of a /board thing.

Oh - as it's a quote from Hamlet, one would tend to be hoist with one's petard, rather than "by".
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Mon 18 Apr 2011, 2:27, closed)

That depends
on the country of origin of the poster. In the US the convention is that John said, "I told her that I was an American and she replied, 'I thought so, based on your lack of the letter "u" in most of your words.'"

In other words, it starts out with the double mark, then goes to the single mark for the nested quote, then back to the double for the nested nested quote, then back to the single, ad nauseum. In England it's the reverse, starting with the single and going to the double, and I have no idea past that.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Mon 18 Apr 2011, 2:45, closed)

No, it's the same in both countries - starts double, goes single for a nested quote, and then alternates.

My point, if it could be termed such, was that the second instance of the double-quotation was a suggestion rather than a quotation, and the double quotation marks had previously been used to indicate a direct quotation. Whilst the rules are somewhat ambiguous, I'd suggest that as a rule of thumb, one should not use a double quotation for different pursposes in the same passage, when perfectly viable alternatives exist.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Mon 18 Apr 2011, 2:51, closed)

Ah.
Okay then. I misread your post.

However, I have noticed that in older books from England- old editions of Agatha Christie, for instance- they started with the single quote and went to double for nested quotes. I assumed it just went differently over there than here.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Mon 18 Apr 2011, 3:04, closed)

She was writing post/ante/interbellum - she was merely saving ink to beat the Hun. That, or she was senile. Either way - by modern standards, she was wrong.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Mon 18 Apr 2011, 3:14, closed)

I don't remember where I saw it
but there was a recent article on how Britain has been gradually eliminating punctuation from abbreviations and titles and whatnot. It speculated that it was to save on ink or some such (humorously). Damned if I can find it though...
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Mon 18 Apr 2011, 3:29, closed)

I've yet to see fo'c'sle rendered as focsle - but this could, in part, be due to the decreasing importance of the forecastle since our Navy went to shit.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Mon 18 Apr 2011, 3:33, closed)

Hallowe'en

( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Mon 18 Apr 2011, 5:31, closed)

I saw a news item recently
outlining the fact that Birmingham City Council have eliminated all the apostrophes from its street signs as it "causes confusion". The same suggestion has been made about the sign outside King's Cross Station.
(ConanTroutman thought we would free the vulture, Mon 18 Apr 2011, 11:19, closed)

Brummies are thick.
I should know, I live in Brum :(.
(Vigilante Man weeps because you're stupid., Wed 20 Apr 2011, 0:08, closed)

I still sometimes put an apostrophe
in front of 'phone and 'bus.
I don't think anyone does that anymore.
Just as 'bus was dying out when I was little, as no one knew it was called an omnibus I think we will see the same with 'phone very soon. I think we will find the word telephone dropped in the next 10 years.
( Mrs Entity is in hiding., Wed 20 Apr 2011, 23:51, closed)

there's a story on The Straight Dope about it at the moment
it's an old one though. Removing unnecessary periods from abbreviations etc.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Mon 18 Apr 2011, 11:42, closed)

Such as the full stop
From Dr Pepper.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Mon 18 Apr 2011, 12:23, closed)

That was it!
Thank you- that was bothering me.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Mon 18 Apr 2011, 16:22, closed)

Thanks.
I didn't know that.
(dchurch bah, Mon 18 Apr 2011, 8:06, closed)

Incoming!
There is no such thing as a direct quote. "Quote" is a verb. I think the phrase you want is "Direct quotation".
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 18 Apr 2011, 9:01, closed)

I know, but it was starting to sound repetitive... Besides which, not making some form of error would have been poor form, in the circumstances.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Mon 18 Apr 2011, 10:43, closed)

I'm not sure.
The sentence could be parsed in two ways. If we emphasise the phrase "a rash of posts", then "seems" is required. But we could also emphasise "posts that seem". Either reading makes sense, and each requires a different ending for the verb.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 18 Apr 2011, 9:03, closed)

I agree with that what you has said.

(sabre-tooth monkey, Mon 18 Apr 2011, 15:58, closed)

Hoisted
(bblgoose, Mon 18 Apr 2011, 16:08, closed)

You're bard!
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Mon 18 Apr 2011, 16:22, closed)

i read this weeks QOTW nswers and thought to myself that it may be type like a spaz week, none of them seem to make any sense, entire words missing
!!
(whorsepower needs an amusing sig, Sun 17 Apr 2011, 23:23, closed)

entire posts missing, in some pathetic instances...
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Mon 18 Apr 2011, 2:36, closed)

Hahahaha! Can't even spell pigeon properly

( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Mon 18 Apr 2011, 8:05, closed)

I'm gonna go with......troll.
Right?
(ConanTroutman thought we would free the vulture, Mon 18 Apr 2011, 11:21, closed)

Ellipsis is dead.
*doffs cap and lowers head*
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Mon 18 Apr 2011, 11:38, closed)

They look like circles to me
Until I zoomed in and now I see they are actually squares.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Mon 18 Apr 2011, 12:25, closed)

I always get excited when I see a Double Ellipsis out in the wild, like that.

( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Mon 18 Apr 2011, 12:47, closed)

I pronounce them to the rhythm of the willam tell overture.

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Mon 18 Apr 2011, 13:23, closed)

Perfectly normal.

( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Mon 18 Apr 2011, 13:47, closed)

They're actually cylinders.
They turn sideways as you zoom in. Crafty fuckers.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Mon 18 Apr 2011, 13:21, closed)

Um... no.
It's self-evidently a joke, not a troll post.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 18 Apr 2011, 13:59, closed)

I'm gonna go with...
joke.

And quite a good one I thought.


Edit: Oh. Or just read Enzyme's post above instead.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Mon 18 Apr 2011, 17:12, closed)

Well, I made a comment and did exactly what you suggested with Google Translate
and came up with

"Grammar Nazi in the fifth century palace"

which is actually spelled correctly and makes grammatical sense, so we can't discard the null hypothesis and accept your theory about what people are doing just yet.

Anyone who can guess what my original comment was gets a special prize.
(StapMyVitals wouldn't mind a bit of that, Mon 18 Apr 2011, 14:27, closed)

Was it "I SNORTED MASSIVE DRUGS OFF A SUPERMODEL IN MY HONDA ACCORD"?

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Mon 18 Apr 2011, 15:03, closed)

No,
although if you're wondering what that would be it's:-

"In this case, the best medicine and even cell phones."
(StapMyVitals wouldn't mind a bit of that, Mon 18 Apr 2011, 15:45, closed)

"I have heard many things which he wrote in the drug Supermodel Honda Accord"
I think you are right. Even if you translate it through several languages to the point of gobbledigook, Google translate does seem to understand grammar and spelling better than may qotw posters.

It also calms down SHOUTY UPPER CASE if you go through Chinese.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Mon 18 Apr 2011, 16:04, closed)

Ah yes
But we shouldn't discard the null hypothesis just yet, as a single test case is not statistically significant.
( rofl harris, Mon 18 Apr 2011, 15:06, closed)