The internet has made the sum of human knowledge freely available to anyone and everyone. The problem is, it's all a mess and no one really makes sense of it.

I believe the internet has made us smarter; all that information and text gotta count for something. It's really easy to forget that though since the stupidest shit I've seen in my life I have witnessed on these series of tubes. The bad examples always stick out more than the good.

Generally it has a positive impact on our societies intelligence IMO (<-- a great indicator of what is an oppinion, but it could also be a fact I suppose...). Though as you mentioned it has created or enhanced our opportunity to talk about things that aren't important, or seem not important. But you know the future is a funny thing, and you don't always know what will be best, perhaps someone asking themselves "is it rude to clear your plate in thailand" will inspire them to create an amazing mathematics proof that will change the world.

The real greatness of the internet is it's ability to inspire, and the real short coming of modern day humans is to actually do what was inspired. There is no balance, all the hard working people live in 3rd world countries and are stupid, and all the smart people live in 1st world countries are lazy.

The internet is a medium to communicate information. Very efficiently. Like the invention of the printing press, this will only result in good things in the long run, even if some of the stuff communicated is bad or trivial.

>>10707

Unlike most grammar Nazis, I greatly approve of the serial comma (with good reason, too).

I think the positive effects of the internet outweigh the bad, of which there are many.

>>10751
I have arguments with my mother about English all the time. She hard-lines against the Oxford comma, and we have heated arguments about learned versus learnt (Adjective and past-tense verb respectively, as in "I learnt this language from a learned man.").

She often tells me I look like a fucking retard in the workforce. I tell her she looks like a fucking retard to the rest of the Anglosphere.

She also tells me that Google Chrome is an awful internet browser and the reason the network in my house shits the bed so often is because I don't use Internet Explorer.

>>10751
>>10765
I don't like to use the Oxford comma. It just feels like it breaks the flow of my writing too much. But there are practical uses for it, especially in legal documents where precision and clarity are needed.

>>10765

Being from the UK, I use original British English, so I'm not sure about the views upon the Oxford comma in the States. Is it widely vilified?

I think your mother would loathe me as the Chrome-loving-and-serial-comma-using lout that I am.

>>10798

That depends on your writing style. The Oxford comma complements the tone of my prose, whereas it is ill-suited for others. I agree with you on the clarity point, however.

The Oxford comma should always be used unless you're intentionally leaving it out as a stylistic choice. English was not perfect the minute it was created, and any modern revisions to it, even if they're major improvements, are discounted solely because people don't like learning new things.

>>10800
>>The Oxford comma should always be used unless you're intentionally leaving it out as a stylistic choice.

Why?

>>10801
For clarity.

>>10800

Strange. I used it instinctively as a kid; not using it was something I had to learn. I'm inclined to agree with you because I think that connectives should (and do) supplement commas, rather than replace them.

In the end though, whatever is or is not used, maximum clarity should ultimately be the result.

>>10799
If my upbringing and education is considered common, the United States beats the oxford comma out of kids at a young age to the point where nobody even uses commas where they are needed by the time they get into high school. My mother and all of my teachers up until high school villified the use of a comma between the second to last listed item and the "and."

They even used a horror story in their purging of proper punctuation: The panda's diet:
>The panda eats shoots and leaves.
Now here, we see a sentence without a comma. It tells us that a panda eats bamboo shoots and leaves.
>The panda eats, shoots and leaves.
WHOA NOW! LOOK AT WHAT ONE COMMA CAN DO, FUCKING EVERYTHING UP LIKE A LITTLE FUCKING COMMUNIST SPY! THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU USE A COMMA, KIDS!
However, she failed to tell us something extraordinary: We will look like blind fucking idiots by the time we write our college essays:
>I am a very interesting person who likes sports math and science.
No comma, you look like an idiot.
>I am a very interesting person who likes sports, math and science.
In some mystical schools there really is "Math team," which competitively solves problems like a sport. However, math nor science are sports.
>I am a very interesting person who likes sports, math, and science.
Three distinct interests. A nice, well rounded individual who is aware of the proper usage of a comma in the English the rest of the fucking anglosphere speaks. Let this fucker into uni, not some idiot kids who can't use punctuation and barely spell their own surnames.

Commas are used to separate items in a sentence. Commas go where you pause for clarity in speech. Everyone should write the same way they speak, it's only common sense. Therefore, usage of commas where speech is paused is only logical. Otherwise, your sentence will not work.

Literally, I proofread my fair share of peer papers, and 90% of the people I proofread, even high honours students, would write the above paragraph like this:
>Commas are used to separate items in sentences. Commas go where you pause for clarity in speech. Everyone should write the same way they speak it's only common sense. Therefore usage of commas where speech is paused is only logical. Otherwise your sentence will not work.

There's only a base issue in one of those sentences, so they are lulled into disuse of the comma like a Swiss man never uses ß. However, it becomes evident that a person looks like they are illiterate when they come to an impasse such as pic related.

Edit: I, as well, have been a serial comma user since I started using them. I also write in, and speak, international English. No idea where either of these came from as nobody else I have ever known speaks or writes like I do.

Post edited on 6th Oct 2011, 6:47pm

>>10805
aymen eye thingK peepole should allso rite tha w'EH theh speek

allso

>Commas are used to separate items in a sentence

this is wrong, commas are logical connectives. It is an abstraction used to make things easier and be less data.

ie:
>I am a very interesting person who likes sports, math, and science.
=
>I am a very interesting person who likes sports. I am a very interesting person who likes math. I am a very interesting person who likes science.

commas allow you to loop, because it is conditional logic, just like computers (^_^)

>>10807
I write the way I speak, down to the smallest detail. People who know me irl say it's creepy.

>>10805
>nobody else I have ever known writes like I do.

Then you're a good writer. Keep it that way.

And don't get me started on semicolons. Or the insipid taboo against beginning sentences with common connectives (Orwell used it very effectively).

I apologise for derailing your thread anyway...

>>10808

Does that mean you're the sort of person who says "irl" in live conversation?

And to think I came this close to respecting you.

>>10820
Ironically, yes.

>>10821

Out of curiosity, do you say the letters ("I-R-L") or turn it into a word ("earl")?

>>10822
I-R-L. And I only do it once in a while.

i pronounce URL as "earl" because it sounds funny

>>10824
It also confuses the fuck out of everyone when you say it in conversation aloud. It is like when people say Gooey(as in goo), as a replacement for GUI(graphical user interface).

You know, OP? years ago, just for fun, I wrote an essay about the growing phenomena of female vloggers on Youtube. I considered mostly "attractive" looking but random crap sellers, like Lonelygirl15 (as the main root for all of them), vlogolution, LissaNova, Hotforwords, Applemilk1988 and (guess who?) Magibon. The main point was to show how people seemed to be caring less and less about what these women ever said (with Magibon finally just smiling, saying nothing at all), apparently demanding instead just to experience the safe presence (that is: not even in a sexual way, wich needs are better satisfied with porn) of a likeable person kindly looking at them: of someone virtually adressing to them, without ever knowing who any of them (the public and the vlogger) "really" were...

So you see, wereas internet has given a worldwide forum to the average person, and so had put an insane and before unthinkable amount of information at hand for people of all ages (be it properly cathegorized or not), the very means this information is now presented (mostly hypertext and multimedia, via WWW) has somehow dramatically changed the general ways people make use of the original sources, turning them into a kind of purely virtual amount of re-sources, wich new meaning can only be grasped whitin the very internet surffing experience.

So, whatever good or bad this propper new way of living may bring, it's something that cannot be evaluated anymore by any of the old days criteria, be it academic peer-referring or whatever. Internet has sprung as a new purely virtual nation, wich is already building its own ways, standards and laws.

Post edited on 6th Oct 2011, 11:50pm

>>10826
I suggest you remove that pic, not that I'm personally offended, but I know it'll probably brew up a shitstorm like it usually does..

>>10827
Ok.

The interwebs has certainly made it easier to get information but people seem to process it less these days, the emerge of(bubble) search engines and the commercial basis of today is definitely going to narrow the information tube for many. Common-knowledge seems to be more requested than the academic-knowledge, unfortunately.

>2015 my first websites was "Facebook" and "Youtube"

>>10765
She is right you should use Firefox instead of (non-free)botnet.
>>10825
is it not -Gou-ie ?

>>10829
>botnet

Don't start that bollocks. Take your browser wars elsewhere.

The internet is awesome and it knows everything.

Praise the internet.
Praise Science.