MVS posting standards:Sentences, Paragraphs, Punctuation, No text talk Please

[matthew1]

No need to apologize! You're trying. Remember, non-English speakers are not held to the same standard as English native speakers.

[Gazolba]

I strongly agree with this rule but I am occasionally guilty of using English spellings like colour instead of color. A hood is also a bonnet to me, a trunk is a boot and a windshield is a windscreen.

[lh123gt]

My Mazda has a wanker engine is acceptable...

Maybe.....I prefer to call my Mazda RX 7 engine, Wankel after Dr. Felix Wankel, the inventor. I am sorry, but could not resist the temptation....please forgive me.

[dcarguy]

Can't help myself, thanks for this, Matt.

[Roadrunner]

After reading most of these post i am thinking I will need to get out all of my old primmer books and re learn my English. Hum maybe i should start using Ireland's form of English. American English is abit hard to fallow depending on which part of the states you'r are in. Like a person from Maine sound nothing like a person from Missouri. Nor does a person from Minnesota sound like a person from New York.
The point I am getting at is I type like I talk so I have a odd way of typing some words.

Also over the pond they use different words for their tools or parts of car like Torch = Flash light,
Spander = Crescent wrench or adjustable wrench. The Boot = Trunk, or Bonnet = the hood and so on.

So New question is where do we go from her?

[matthew1]

You're ok, Roadrunner. Don't worry about your words. Non-native English speakers/writers are not held to this standard.

[woc2]

English is not my first language, but I also have learned that American english is not real english either. So I came to the conclusion that English english, is the real english. I abide by that rule.

[abscate]

I thought I knew English until my 14 year old told me to 'eschew the picayune'

I thought that was something impolite at the dinner table

[dosbricks]

I finally read this thread and can see that I've been guilty of a few infractions. This leads me to a few questions.

Such as:
Are attempts at creative writing, sometimes known as humor, frowned upon in a strictly technical forum?
Are ubiquitous web acronyms like "IMHO" discouraged because of unfamiliarity by an international membership?
What about contractions--such as don't for do not--for conveying a more dialog type of communication.

Thanks, and in the future I'll try to be more circumspect.

[Ozark Lee]

Humor is fine - God knows we could all use a good laugh every now and then. If there is a chance that someone might not get the joke use a smiley or something. There have been a very few cases where people take it the wrong way.

IMHO is fine - B4 is not. If you are responding to a poster from a country where English is not the primary language you might want to spell it out.

Common contractions are perfectly acceptable.

Trust me, you are not a problem. There are a few serial offenders that use no capitalization, punctuation, and extensively use "Text" language. I don't even read their questions anymore. While MVS doesn't have an ignore function there are so few of them that I just mentally keep track of them.

...Lee