ALL languages have punctuation. Proper language use including punctuation is the key to understanding what the other person is saying. If you can’t be bothered to post correctly, why should we be bothered to try and decipher it ? Most of the non-English speakers on this forum use punctuation correctly.
btw, an engineer who can’t spell won’t last long in any business I’ve ever seen. Submit a report written that way and it’ll be the last thing you do on that job.
Punctuation is relatively modern addition to many written languages. I for one am thankful for it 
1st century BC isn’t my idea of recent, but what do I know. Greeks in the 5th century BC were using dots to indicate pauses and stops in plays, handy for the actors learning the scripts. Of course nothing was needed as a standard till printing was developed. Punctuation is needed for the reader, it tells him what is being said
most famous example I know and one that is taught today:
In English, punctuation is vital to disambiguate the meaning of sentences. For example, “Woman, without her man, is nothing.” and “Woman: without her, man is nothing.” have greatly different meanings.
So my suspicion that other languages don’t use ANY punctuation has been confirmed!
We’re lucky enough to get forum posts from people all over the world, most of whom don’t speak English as a first language. I know there’s an immediate temptation to interpret broken spelling, grammar or punctuation as evidence of carelessness or lax moral fibre, but it isn’t always so. I shudder to think what I’d come up with, were I to post on a forum in a language I’m unfamiliar with.
Long story short: any and all patience and grace in such cases will be admired and saluted.
i don’t speak English as my first language, my English is rated “bad”. But firefox really helps me write words correctly. But really, if you want other people to understand what you write, you should take some time to write it properly.
my mark for English “bad” but others in my class are even worse.
I think the reason is that my teacher spends 9/10 of his time for school and thinks that we should too.
BTW nice comic.
translated to LEET:
OK i PHE3l 1 Ne3d To 93t C@$+L3 W0LPhEN @Nd 3+@DD 0N 4m I ri9h+ I Do r3M3m8ER Th3M 8OTh be1N9 0N @ FRE3 D0WNLO4d 15 THi5 $t1ll +Eh C4$e @l$o iPH n0t C4n 50M30nE poInT M3 1N teh Ri9H+ D1R3c+1on s0 1 c@n 9et +HI5 4LL 4ND lo0K pH0R MyS3lF y35 I KnOw YouR 4Ll l@UGhIn9 om9 hE’5 N3VEr pl4Y3d 1T 8UT I h@vE 4Lw@y5 bEEn PL@YiNg oth3R 9aM35 aNd n3V3R R34LLY +OOk 4 L0nG l0ok nOW 1 @M 4Bit Gu++ed I N3v3R D1D chE3R$ 9UY5 Oh 0Ne MorE th1Ng 4nYcL4n$ LOOK1NG PhOR @ m4TUr3 9AM3r5 4Bl3 +o D0N@t3 pLe45E pM Me 45 TH3 clan I Wa$ wi+H A1N’+ 9oNnA 8e pL@Y1ng +H15 fr0m wH4+ i CAN t3LL Ch3ER5…
and further leeted…
oK i Phe3L 1 ||ee|) +o G3T C45+L3 //olFEn 4nD E+4|)|) 0N @M 1 R19|-|t 1 do r3|/|e|/|beR thE|/| bo+h 8E1nG 0N @ PHr33 |)0//||l04|) 1S t|-|i5 ST1lL T|-|E cas3 @L5o 1f n0t can 5O|/|E0n3 p0iNt m3 I|| +HE r19h+ |)iReCtio|| $0 1 C@N gE+ T|-|15 4LL 4N|) l00|< F0r My5ELPH yeS 1 |<||0// YoUr @LL L4U9hI||9 o|/|9 |-|3’$ Ne/eR pL4Y3D iT BU+ 1 |-|4vE @lW4y5 BE3|| pl@y1||g 0+|-|3R 9@|/|E5 @|||) Nev3r R3@LLy tOOK 4 LO||9 loO|< ||0W i 4|/| 4b1T 9UT+E|) 1 ne/eR |)iD c|-|eeR$ 9Uy$ 0H 0nE M0re T|-|1||9 @nyCl@||5 LO0|<1||G f0R 4 |/|4+Ur3 g4m3R5 @bLe tO |)0||A+e plEA$e P|/| m3 4s T|-|3 CL4|| i w@s //It|-| @1N’+ 9o||n@ 8e PL4y1||G +hI5 PhR0|/| w|-|4+ 1 C@|| t3lL c|-|eEr$…
wow thanks for the critisum(spelling)!!! thankyou for the link to the download, and thankyou for telling them to stop being a bunch of spelling nerds.
let me clear somethings up before i retort!!!it was quite late,i was tired,been up since 5am that morning with work,basically i suk at grammer(which you all so vermentley pointed out)but hey we got one life we should all use it to the best of your ability you did your best!! so here’s my retort(is that spelled correctly lol). it goes without saying apart from a few of the nicer people on here who posted links etc… the rest can go sit on a sharp stick :evil: note the blatent disreguard to spelling fullstops and the rest of my grammer writing etc,i do so love it when people think that posting you forgot to use fullstops could not understand etc blah blah yadday yadda etc that it really matters that much if you could not understand my post then you should of ignored it.anyway i can image i upset someone with this and they will try to get me banned, they’ve nothing better to do!!! while there waiting for etqw’s to be released why not go bully someone while they wait lol pick on me again and these guys will be visting you.an soon!!!
dam i just read the post i did last night and have to say.it was bad.but no need for all the critics there’s enough people in the world going i told you so.
‘/34|-| L337 $P34|< 1$ /3r’/ 34$’/ 4$ 1 7|-|0U9|-|7 j00Z 4LL
$P34|< L1|<3 7|-|1$, jU$7 4 $|-|4//\3 7|-|@ 1 |-|4D 70 U$3 4
0||L1||3 (0||/3r70r! :lol:
Compare and contrast posting styles. Whos post would you rather read? How effective is the authors’ use of language at creating emotion in the reader or communicating clearly to him?
Feel free to come check out the old farts Section 8, we actually understand your name, and feel for the older generation of gamer!
In all fairness I don’t think anybody is taking the fact that people from all over the world are posting here for granted. There were simply a few comments that well… “commented” on the fact that the original post was hard to read and weren’t trying to teach an english class. When a few people got defensive stating that English may not be their first language, others (including myself) commented on how punctuation is pretty much universal in all languages. So, bad spelling or not, punctuation can make a world of difference.
And Section8, what if I like sitting on sharp sticks? Hmm… actually… be back in a few…
sci-fi, let me translate it into english from 1337 $P34(this button i dont have on my keyboard).
“yeah leetspeak is very easy as i thought you all speak like this, just shame that i had to use a online convertor!”
but the 4 should be 4N
English
Honestly, using English as a second language is no reason to ignore proper grammar. I could translate this in any language you want, it is still easy to read.
German
Ehrlich Englisch als zweite Sprache ist zu verwenden kein Grund, korrekte Grammatik zu ignorieren. Ich könnte dieses in jeder möglicher Sprache, die du, wünschst, es übersetzen bin noch einfach zu lesen.
French
Honnêtement, employer l’anglais comme deuxième langue n’est aucune raison d’ignorer la grammaire appropriée. Il pourrait traduire ceci dans n’importe quelle langue que vous voulez, il est encore facile me lire.
Spanish
Honesto, usar inglés como segunda lengua no es ninguna razón de no hacer caso de la gramática apropiada. Podría traducir esto en cualquier lengua que desees, él sigo siendo fácil de leer.
Russian
Честно говоря, используя английский в качестве второго языка, нет никаких оснований игнорировать синтаксиса. Я мог бы перевести это на любом языке, Вы хотите, все же легко читается.
Arabic
بصراحة استعمال الانكليزيه كلغه ثانية ليس سببا لتجاهل قواعد سليمة. أي ان يترجم هذا في اي لغة تريد ، فانها ما زالت سهلة القراءة.
More to the point, it is nearly impossible to decipher broken English through a translator. In fact, the OP has less respect for people using English as a second language, to be quite frank.
holy crap, are you mutilingual? If you are, then you can land many government jobs. :lol:
Chinese
誠實地，使用英語作為第二種語言不是原因忽略適當的語法。 我可能翻譯此在你要的所有語言，它是容易閱讀的。
heh heh you need some plugin to look at the symbols. I actually copied and pasted the text from dictionary.com so I cheated. Although I am chinese, I don’t know how to read or write it.
And to reverse translate that into English it reads like this:
Honestly, the use of English as a second language is not appropriate because the grammar overlooked. I might translate this to you in all languages, it is easy reading.
Notice it is still punctuated? Sure it is a bit of a broken translation, but you get the jist of it.
And no I am not a multi-linguist, I just use Google translator. 
ah it just shows how cruddy dictionary.com is, or is the google translation cruddy? I need to see the symbols to check it out.
But I think google is better because I understand some french, and it looks like the translation is more perfect there. I remember using dictionary.com to translate a sentence into my french essay. That sentence was completely wrong and not what I actually meant.
When I went to chinese school, instead of these “.” we had these “O” except that the circle is a bit smaller than captial O but bigger than lower case o and is more centered. Also the thickness of the circle is very thin compared to a 0 or a O or a o.
If you read chinese text, you will understand what those O’s mean.
Come to think of it, I don’t really remember the size of the chinese period/full stop. I don’t know if it actually an o but more centered on the line. Also chinese is written top to bottom, then the next line would be left of that, and the full stops would be centered on the line. So if the text were supposed to be in between these ||, then the period would look like this |o|.
