Glitter, I think the issue is that most people do see it as you calling them a retard. I think it's because, in the main, it's seen as an extremely anal thing to do. Especially on a forum. There's a time and place for the public correction of someone else's spelling/grammar etc, and a forum is not it. That place is a classroom or a workplace.

Also, being correctly by a total stranger is humiliating. If you're typing something out at work and a colleague just glances through it and says, "Oh hey, you missed an e out here", that is helping. But if someone's submitted a post on a forum, so one would assume that they've read through it and it satisfies them, them some other forum user that they don't know from Adam quotes a bit of it and shoves a mistake in their face...that's just embarrassing.

That's my take on it, anyway.

I will admit that I'm very often baffled by some people's inability to spell certain words correctly. Because if you're on a forum, and reading posts from other literate users on a daily basis, you should see the correct spelling for words all the time. So to then turn around and spell them wrong yourself...makes no sense to me. "Avitar" is an extremely good example of this. I have no comprehension as to how anyone can spell that wrong when it's written correctly on every single page of this site, but they do *shrug*

But yeah, I wouldn't point that out to them, because I see that as needlessly rude and offensive to them.

I still don't see why people should find it rude. If I make a mistake, then regardless of where I am, I appreciate being corrected so I know what's right in the future, rather than continuing to go around being wrong without even realizing it. Just seems like it should be common courtesy to me. What's one moment of embarrassment (though I would hardly find it embarrassing to learn something new) compared to a much longer period of people thinking you don't know what you're doing? Chances are, you're going to realize eventually that you were wrong the whole time and feel even sillier then. But like I said, because so many people DO throw a fit, I usually don't bother.

I'm not a nazi about it but words and misspellings used in the wrong context tend to irritate me. 99% of the time I don't say anything to the person about it, but then I'll gripe about it to my friends later on.

Which is why I constantly wonder how much schools emphasize proper writing anymore...

I'm not a grammar nazi in the least. I understand that everyone makes mistakes, and that includes me as well. As long as I can understand what the person is saying I'm happy.

I'm definitely not a grammar nazi, though I do make fun of my friends, but I still do correct them and other people occasionally. For example, one of my soccer friends was all hyped up on Monsters and said something like, "I be done good" or something, and we laughed it over and it became our new catchphrase for the next couple days.

It doesn't really bother me when someone's talking because that might be the way that they learned it, but if it's text (chat speak doesn't matter if you're texting, at least to me) or totally past comprehension when talking, I go ballistic. I hate when people talk with numbers and do chat speak online. But hell, I make mistakes sometimes too, so little mistakes don't hurt.

EDIT: Meh. Mind you, while I do correct people, I don't just go around correcting strangers. I mostly only correct people that I'm close to.

Grammar nazis never really bug me. Not even while chat speak. And I use chat speak A LOT! :P

I personally try to write, no matter where, with good grammar. Even when I write text messages to people. But I know I make mistakes and I know others do, too. So, I try not to be so extreme when others don't use good grammar. I know a few people who are very strict with grammar, and insist on others using good grammar around them, or they won't have anything to do with anyone who doesn't. It's extreme and very harsh... but you can't do anything to change that about people. We all have things we're "anal" about, so who are we to judge?

Because correcting people unsolicited is rude. As Jelly said, it has its time and place, and it would probably be fine if someone said something like "necisary (I think I spelled that wrong?)" but going around correcting everyone's little mistakes does make one seem a bit anal, and it makes it seem as though one completely missed the point of what the person was trying to say. If, for example, I wrote this reply to you and then you said "You spelled [blank] wrong, and you should have used a semicolon there" I wouldn't be embarrassed by my mistakes, I would feel you were being condescending and weren't putting weight into what I said because I misspelled something. I wouldn't be learning and you wouldn't be teaching me anything.

Some people certainly don't mind, and if you know for a fact a certain person doesn't mind (like a friend of yours who has previously told you to correct her if she makes a mistake), that's one thing (or like I said in my original post - if the person mangles their sentence so severely that you just honestly cannot understand what they're trying to say), but I don't think going around nitpicking people is ever necessary unless they've asked for it. If you can understand what they're trying to say without loads of difficulty, nitpicking people just isn't a nice thing to do, and does make one look rather insecure - like they have to put down someone else to feel a bit better about themselves via spelling. And I'm not saying that's true of you, of course, I'm speaking generally of the perceptions.

I used to be a Grammar Nazi, but I've backed down a lot.
I still can't stand chat speak and it irritates me to no end, but I can deal with it if I have to.
I find no reason why someone would possibly use chat speak when it's just as fast and easy to type things out.
As for writing it in essays? Oh hell no. That's just wrong and quite frankly, I would fail them. I have to decipher what people are saying even when they use the basics, and if I have to break out a friggin' decoder ring just to understand one sentence in your essay, you've failed. That's just me, though.
I won't correct people if they're like this, but I will make a comment that they have spelled something wrong (or just not reply to their topic).

I don't know about all that, I tend to type like a monkey when I'm in a hurry and I spell things incorrectly a lot. I look back at some of my older posts for debates and feel like I look like a moron for making a dumb spelling mistake. (Spelling has always bothered me more than grammar because most sites have spellchecker) If someone had told me I was doing it wrong I could have fixed it. I tend to see consistent bad spelling in serious discussions as a sign of sloppiness and/or laziness and I end up giving the other peoples post less credit because it was a poorly written or badly composed statement, which makes it feel somehow less valid than a well written statement (Yes I know, I know, OMG THAT'S SOOOO MEAN!!!! I've heard it all before I don't really care). When I make mistakes that make me look like a complete goofball I'd really like to know. I don't really find it rude that people don't tell me when I do something wrong, but it is really irritating, especially if the mistake is obvious and I know someone must have caught it.

But there we go again treating something as simple as correcting someone as though it were an insult. Silly example, but say you see someone trying to screw on a lid backwards. You're only going to make him feel more ridiculous by letting him keep doing it the wrong way and realize later not only that he was mistaken but that everyone saw him make the mistake and thought him too sensitive to point it out to him, as opposed to simply saying, "Try turning it the other way." That's not rude and he will learn from it, whether he somehow has an issue with that or not. You can hardly deny that when attention is brought to something, it will be better remembered in the future.
And the only way I can see a how giving a correction would make it look like one has missed the point of the post would be if that were all that was done in the reply. Of course it's going to seem that way if you write a huge paragraph and all you get in response is "*[proper spelling of a word]"; but if that person is not a part of the initial conversation, makes the correction a side note attached to a relevant reply, or adds a relevant reply later/does so before making the correction, then that hardly applies.
Either way, I honestly just find it silly to be upset over something that is not hurting you or anyone else and can only help. It is not rude to be helpful; if anything, it is rude to attack and/or make assumptions about a person who tried offering such advice. It has absolutely nothing to do with putting people down, because since when did knowing how to spell a word or where to place a comma make someone a better person? Like I said before, perhaps it might be an insult or a put-down if actual insults or condescending tones were attached, but they rarely are--and when they are, it's an entirely different story.

I don't correct other for not using proper grammar. Simply becuase I don't want to look bad having made a mistake or two. I am one of those poeple to write (types) as I speak... The same way you see on here is how I talk. It tends to surprise My teachers when I was in high school. And it urkes My professors now when I forget to pay attention to my tenses. :shock:


So when I see other post I just pay attention to what they are trying to say... Unless there mistakes are very obvious... Then I need to ask what is going on...

Oh boy do I dislike me some grammar nazis ;I The world isn't going to end just because someone spelled something wrong. Bad grammar does catch my attention but it doesn't make me angry at all or enough to want to be mean to somebody.

I tend to be somewhat OC with Grammar corrections. I don't tend to buy into the term "Grammar Nazi", I think its an entirely idiotic statement to call someone a "Nazi" because they are annoying you, or pissing you off in some fashion. Those who go around uttering such a term as "Grammar Nazi" probably haven't the foggiest idea about Nazism in the first place. I'm not saying this to insult the author of this thread, just sharing my opinion about such a generalization.

Grammar Nazi reporting in!

I don't correct people if they rarely make spelling or grammar mistakes, but if someone constantly misspells things I start correcting them. I stop doing it if they tell me it is annoying them, though.