Learn to say (or type) it right!

[Laserbeak]

Do a search in Google if you're not sure of the spelling, it'll usually fix it.

[MrHungx]

Originally Posted by The Orchid Boy

Totally agree, people need to care about their grammar in speech and writing, if you know orchids you should also educate yourself on the correct abbreviations, ect.

I'm a teenager but I love English, grammar, and spelling in school so I'm constantly correcting my family. Especially with these words: it's, its, good, well, bad, badly, real, really, there, their, & I could go on and on. I sometimes want to correct the news anchors too.

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only teenager who maintains impeccable grammar and spelling.

I definitely agree that 'its' and 'it's' are misused a lot and these are one of the easiest mistakes to correct. Replace 'it's' with 'it is', and if it makes sense in context, you're using it correctly.

[euplusia]

For most people Latin has always been a secondary or auxiliary language, in the Roman Empire, in church, science, medicine, botany.
English has replaced Latin as the auxiliary language of the internet.

International auxiliary language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[bethmarie]

I rather regret I read through this thread. The tone of some of it is off-putting and discouraging.

My first priority and the main reason I'm on the board is to learn more about how to keep my plants alive and thriving. I've yet to master the complexity of orchid growing, much less orchid names. I expect I will continue to make mistakes with names, as many of the distinctions that are obvious to long time growers are still greek to me. I'm open to friendly input, but not apologetic about only knowing as much as I know at any given time.

Fortunately, the orchids seem blithely unaware when I botch one of the tongue twister names they're saddled with.

[gravotrope]

Don't sweat the small stuff, people. Language and grammar matter a lot more if you have a desire to be respected, well understood, published, graded, etc. but also you have every right to bastardize a mother tongue, in reflection of how we are all colonized by history, as evidenced by a survey/study of Caribbean literature or really anything after Anglo-Norman times that exposes a struggle between a dominant culture and another. In society it is also a conundrum, because even with perfect grammar you still have to prove you deserve respect, so really it is only something that authorizes the rest of that process.

If you constantly correct people it is out of a desire in your own life to be viewed as an authority and really not much else. I read most of the thread, and where it diverges from actually talking about orchids is really not the point at all. Anyone interested in breeding or cloning orchids really should know what a grex is, and that a registered hybrid should always be capitalized so if you look at a tag, you know it is not a specific species. Anyone interested in learning the system of binomial nomenclature should take it upon themselves to learn it, but it doesn't mean they're better than someone who doesn't care about it at all...that's the beauty of respecting equality, which is a lot rarer than one would hope in this world.

Every single human being has it within themselves, encoded in their DNA, to find and understand a 'pecking order,' which in turn enables a lot of judgments and elitism, superiority complexes, and a host of other things that don't really matter. Because how we live is more important than who we judge.

And some Jehovah's witnesses just knocked on the door while I was typing this. I was nice to them but refused their literature. It seems ironic to me!

[Subrosa]

Just wondering. I understand that most of us are not interested in grades or publication, and that what constitutes respect is highly subjective, but why would someone wish NOT to be understood in an endeavor they chose of their own free will?

[gravotrope]

I'm not going to debate, that is too far off topic. I will say your argument posits that someone without perfect grammar wishes to not be understood, and I have a hard time following your logic there.

You can always ask someone to attempt to clarify something if you don't understand them.

Orchids are pretty cool. My favorite of the moment would be Angcm. viguieri....

[Subrosa]

Your argument is the one which posits that sir! You are the one who said such things as grammar matter more under certain circumstances, some of which you delineated. If they matter more under certain circumstances, that implies that they matter less under others. I thought I wished to understand why, but upon reflection, I already do.

[RosieC]

Just a reminder to keep things nice and friendly.

[gravotrope]

It doesn't matter whose statements imply what here, I'm not arguing with you but I need to clarify my statement. Since there are degrees of understanding I used the phrase "well understood." You extrapolated with flawed logic to a meaning that someone without perfect grammar has a desire to not be understood. Not lacking the desire to be understood well, but specifically a desire to be not understood. That falls clearly outside the scope and logic of my statement, which is why the attribute goes to you. Also if one has such a desire, the simple solution would be to not speak or write...

An assertion by anyone that relies on communication existing with a desire to not be understood is gibberish. Even cryptography and codes are designed to be understood or have the capability to be understood by someone. Either contribute to the topic at hand or exercise that desire to not communicate.

I'm personally very sorry for this digression, since it in no way ties back to binomial nomenclature. It diverged as an attempt to write people's issues with grammar out of the conversation.