Grammar, Spelling, and Fonts

[CYDA LUVA83]

Sorry Lagie, but you might want to pressure your students a bit more.  It's very... basic.  To put it lightly.

 

This is from when I was 12: (unedited, straight from the document)

 

Victoria Wong

10-10-05

Report # 1- Persuasive

Why space exploration's nothing but a load of

 

Why is the human race so interested in shooting off people in giant rocket ships to the moon and sending probes and satellites to the far - off planets?!  I mean, like, the satellites used for monitoring Earth are okay, but do we really need to know about planets and our moon? We could be spending our time doing something worthwhile instead of building rocket ships.

 

Billions of dollars. It sounds like not a lot, but it is. Think about it reaalllllll hard. One billion dollars. $1,000,000,000.  We spend hal f a billion dollars to launch a single space shuttle, and $25 million a ton to send a good satellite up. There are cheaper satellites, that cost “only” $3 - 6 million a ton, but they are less reliable.  Either way they can fail, and if they do, *poof*, our money down the drain. In my eyes, space exploration's just a load of .  Billions of dollars to send people into space and satellites and probes to far - off planets?  Why not invest in cotton candy toothpicks or a submarine made entirely out of purple jellybeans? They're just as useless but at least they're edible.

 

Besides being extremely, absurdly, INSANELY expensive, it's also dangerous for the both the people who ride the shuttle and for the people building it.* While building shuttles and satellites, it's quite possible to  be crushed by heavy machinery, considering all the stuff they have in those huge shuttle-building buildings.  And besides that, there are two incidents of shuttle crashes. Two more than was ever needed. First, on January 28, 1986, the Challenger shuttle tore apart. 17 years later, on February 1, 2003, the Columbia blew apart. Both times seven people were killed**. That's 14 too many people killed than necessary.  We could have prevented the loss of those lives by not attempting space exploration.  I mean, really.  If we're so interested in space, you should still wait until you have a working shuttle, not just building shuttles haphazardly and blasting them off.

 

Over studying them makes the planets and stars less mysterious, wonderful and fun, because I’m quite sure one day that I will look up to the stars and planets and wish to have something to puzzle about, and not have to instantly know that “Oh, that planet is nothing but a big ball of condensing gases.” or something equally as boring.  It leaves us nothing to wonder about and admire. You say “Wouldn’t it be cool to live on the moon?”, then your friend tells you no, because you’d die from the lack of oxygen and how you would explode from the lack of atmospheric pressure, or something.  It's just so maddening that I can't have any fun imagining stuff like space colonies without having to take into account the lack of air to breath and poisonous chemicals and all that whatnot.

*Alright, so I don't really care about how many people or who dies because we're so overpopulated, but in a real report I wouldn't put that in, so I'm not including this in my "real" report.

**They could have voted to NOT go and save their lives, too.  But, hey, I'm just some snotty 12 year old brat writing a report. What do I know?

 

Fourthly in this supposedly 5 page long essay is that we could use the money that is usually spent on making these rocket ships and use it for something else.  Just a few examples are: we could fund the study of diseases and use the information we get from that to find cures for different diseases; we could use the money to improve our current technology, such as making more energy efficient cars/ electronic games/ cell phones/ etc.; we could use it to improve the education of children on this planet, and we could use the money to improve the living condition of poor people and feed hungry people.

 

Also, all the people that work on the shuttle - engineers, scientists, the actual builders, heck, even the custodians count, can be used (or rather, can work) for something useful. The smart people can do, uh, smart people things such as designing better refrigerators and whatnot, and the slightly - less - smart people can, uh, do grunt work stuff, like working at construction sites.

 

Second - to - last is how we should take care of all the problems on our planet first.  So far we've got a hole in the ozone layer, global warming, heavy pollution, radiation, disease epidemics, starvation, overpopulation, many animal species losing precious territory to us and therefore dying off, we're sucking all of our natural resources dry, and war.  All this going on right underneath our noses, and we aren't doing anything about it!  Instead of fixing up this planet that we've abused and taken over, we instead send shuttles, satellites and probes into deep space, and are attempting to design space colony things so we can live on planets far away. Let's at least clean Earth up before we mess up the other planets, too.

 

Lastly, we don't even know everything about our planet. If we study our planet instead of space, we could learn a lot of stuff that would save us from a lot of trouble in the future.  Fantasy invention - harnessing power from the heat from volcanoes. It might not have been a fantasy if we had studied Earth more. Besides, if we bide our tome and wait until we have more advanced technology,. then in the future, when we actually launch a shuttle, we'd have a higher chance of making successful launch or maybe a more efficient shuttle, but noooooo! Its rushrushrush to build half- functional things that break! Patience, people!

 

So, yeah! Overall we're a bunch of idiots who want to go hundreds of miles into the void of space, risking their lives for glory and spending billions to go to the Moon and send satellites and probes to the other planets while our own planet is being destroyed beneath our very eyes. Truly the human race is wise beyond comprehending! *NOT*.

*claps for Rhea* Brilliant story

Edited February 17, 2010 by CYDA LUVA83

[Qwackie]

I actually have pretty good writing grades.

Because I am a ROLE PLAYER Dammit!

[Efarilahn]

I agree, however, sometimes using a conjunction at the beginning of a sentence/independent clause (we never learnt about them, so please excuse incorrect terminology) adds impact. Or flavour.

And I agree with you. ^^ I only annoy people about things like that in formal essays (not in formal narrative writing).

 

Geez, Rhea. >.> Speaking of formal, I hope that essay wasn't supposed to be.

[RheaZen]

And I agree with you. ^^ I only annoy people about things like that in formal essays (not in formal narrative writing).

 

Geez, Rhea. >.> Speaking of formal, I hope that essay wasn't supposed to be.

No, it wasn't supposed to be. I did it myself because I felt like ranting. And my mum was forcing me to practice my writing skills because I wasn't good enough.

 

*Is amazed I remember all that*

 

D: Did I really use that many swears when I was 12?!

Edited February 17, 2010 by RheaDark

[Qwackie]

D: Did I really use that many swears when I was 12?!

...

It's not that bad.

I use that many swears and I'm 11.

._.

[RheaZen]

Still, the forum censor kinda is a slap in the face to my 12-year-old self.

 

But yeah, I was angry at mum for forcing me to write during summer vacay. Grr.

[Kei To Everything]

...

It's not that bad.

I use that many swears and I'm 11.

._.

Same.

 

/offtopic

[TheDarkCynder]

I correct my friends a lot... Yeah.

[INsanityPenguin]

This is from when I was 12: (unedited, straight from the document)

 

Talkie talkie word speak

You wanted to probe a planet?

[RheaZen]

You wanted to probe a planet?

I haven't even re-read the thing, I was just looking for an old document to compare Lagie's student's work to.

[War Pig Killer]

You wanted to probe a planet?

Does it make me a bad person that I want to send a probe to Uranus simply because it's funny? ._.

[INsanityPenguin]

You wanted to probe a planet?

Does it make me a bad person that I want to send a probe to Uranus simply because it's funny? ._.

... That would make you a fantastic person.

 

Please someone, do it.

[Kia_Kalix]

Sorry for making everyone's eyes bleed. If you manage past oh, say.. the first 16 chapeters, you start to see the writer's real grammar and spelling come out. A joke between our friends now is the "black tim machine" or whatnot . yes, I have read the whole thing, and while I have lost many braincells and tears, I also had many many lulz.

 

/is glomped

 

I agree on the essay things. I also have a plan that involves a weekly test for the students on homophones [the basics, not that huge long list I posted here]. Unfortunately, I think the class might be in need of re-learning basic grammar. I went to a good school, and our 11th grade class had to do it D:

[Lagie]

Is this uh... the whole thing the kid wrote for the prompt?

Yup. And this is the corrected version. I can't get my kids to write more than that no matter what encouragement I give them. Heaven knows how they're going to pass the national exams in May.

 

I started a story myself at the same time using one of the versions of the topic I'd given them, and I'm still writing! SR's was just under two pages of his notebook. I'm up to page 27 of the same size pages.

[Qwackie]

Chelsea went outside to check her mail. Her check had came in. She went inside, and put it on the table. She went out for her morning jog. She passed by the school and stopped. She missed school.. a lot.

 

~~~

A response from my roleplay someone else wrote.

Boring. D:

[Efarilahn]

Chelsea went outside to check her mail. Her check had came in. She went inside, and put it on the table. She went out for her morning jog. She passed by the school and stopped. She missed school.. a lot.

 

~~~

A response from my roleplay someone else wrote.

Boring. D:

I do hate responses like that. However (OMG improper use of however!!! It's not after a semicolon!), I get sort of annoyed when I'm in roleplays that demand posts that are over a page or so, and expected to be crammed full of detail. There's a point at which I honestly do not want to read the million and one adjectives that Roleplayer Suzy came up with to describe that gorgeous sunset, or the quality of Gary Stu's sigh.

 

But I digress.

 

On a completely irrelevant topic, I'm often surprised by how authors use (or don't use) grammar in their work. Has anyone here read Toni Morrison's Beloved? I find chapter 22 really interesting in that regard.

[Lagie]

Sample 2: DGC, 9 years old, grade 4, unedited

 

Spiderman and friends

 

In the night when the three robbers stole the money. Spiderman and friends appeared. I was Spiderman, Xanthe was FireWoman, and Kiran was Ice Man.

 

So when we appeared the robbers were scared. They took out their guns and said backdown, [sound effect bubble here] splat! [end bubble] I shot my web at all two of the guns and Kiran freezed one gun. I took the guns in my hand and told them backdown, so Kiran conected the ice to a pole nearby then Xanthe melted the ice so it can stay. Next Xanthe fled [sic: flew] in the air and put a fire ring around them. Finally I put a web cover over them. Last the police came and took then to jail.

 

THE END

 

[interesting that both boys chose the same two companions! This story took the full class time allowed plus 10 minutes of the lunch break as it wasn't completed in time. Bahamians say "all two of" instead of "both".]

[evilbunny405]

Ugh, I remember a time when my friend tried to make a series. It was awful, to be brutally honest. It was about a girl who ran into a wood, found something, magically teleported (back in time?), and ended up being able to transform into any animal she got a footprint off. At the end she defeated a dragon in eagle form without getting injured at all. I was thinking, "An eagle defeating a dragon? No. Just no." The grammar was fail.

 

And then another girl started making books with dragons in them. I was biting my lip the whole time not to intervene and show them what real writing was, but it was just too funny to watch. My friend was like, "I wrote about dragons first! She's not allowed to do that!" I just watched. This other girl then made a book about a family of robins. At the end she tried for a cliffhanger when the bird got trapped by a cat with a french accent. I facepalmed. The grammar was also fail. I think she made the Twilight thing too, as I saw her reading the series.

 

Both of them are rejecting my constructive criticism. I give up.

Edited February 18, 2010 by evilbunny405

[RheaZen]

Post their works here, wait for us to descend and rip it apart, and show them the aftermath.

[Lagie]

Sample 3: Kiran, 7 years old, grade 3, unedited ~ He's my advanced student.

 

Ultraman VS Firestorm VS Ghostflame VS Aliens VS Robots

 

At 2:00 in Bayview city at BJIWAS (Boring Junk Institute With Atomic Stuff) Devard, Stefan and I were taking a tour of the Chemical Lab. Then, we heard an alarm. The radiation tanks exploded! We were caught in the unstable experiments of BJIWAS. Every body else was gone already. When we got up we had powers. I saw two men in the same outfit and it had the division sign on it except one I could see through and he was floating!

 

I decided they were villains. I warned Stefan and Devard. We got up. I could hardly see Devard. One of the men looked at us. Devard punched him. He fell out the window. He told the floating man "Duplicate and destroy them!"

 

He made three more of himself. Stefan and Devard were fighting the clones while I was battling the original. I knocked him in a glass dome. The door closed. I saw a button that read DRAIN and LAUNCH. I pressed it. BOOM! There was a lot (two words, not one) of light for a second then it stopped. Then the clones dissapeared. The dome was launched into space.

 

[Another one where there's no death in the actual story, but a probable death after it! His two companions are the two who wrote the other stories. On the first day of school, while he was still six, this child told me that The New Avengers was the best comic ever. I tried to read it about a year ago and was unable to get into it.]

[War Pig Killer]

^ That's at 7 years old? That's pretty impressive - the longest I wrote around that age was a notebook page long, with big sloppy handwriting.

[DarkLorienne]

 

This video asked me to be posted here. For the sake of roflmao.

[War Pig Killer]

 

This video asked me to be posted here. For the sake of roflmao.

Hehe... Grammar nazis...

[Lagie]

 

This video asked me to be posted here. For the sake of roflmao.

That was very funny.

 

Edit ~ War Pig, he may be advanced in his writing, but his social skills are lousy. He believes that being right justifies any action, including stabbing with pencils, kicking, and rolling on the floor fighting.

Edited February 18, 2010 by Lagie

[miladyz]

1. Copy and paste this into Microsoft Word:

Marry hat hey lid tell lam; ids fleas woes wide has know.

2. Feel superior to spell checking technology. >:]