this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2026
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Off My Chest

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I will confess, I'm not that great at grammar. Mainly, I'm the sort of person that write/type stuff as I am thinking it and barely look back at what I have wrote. I see it as that it's online and it's as informal as it gets. As long as it is readable, it shouldn't matter if it not 100% perfect.

With that said: majority of the time, I swear that they can just make out roughly what I am trying to saying. I will understand it more if my grammar for a message was so bad that they can't make out what I'm trying to say. Otherwise, I just felt kinda bullied and mocked for having bad grammar skills.

As ridiculous as it sounds, it makes me so self-conscious and paranoid to post anything and it can even be as simple as making a reply on a post. Internet is a brutal place but so is real-life. The only difference is that I would just block them which I know is little petty but I think that it would be better than me snapping at strangers online. My patience is thin and I just get sick of having people in my life just getting angry at me as well as I feel like a punchline to a joke.

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[–] unmagical@lemmy.ml 14 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The goal of a communicator is to be understood. If you're fine with a vague, subjective feeling that you got your point across then you're good. If you want to ensure precision in your communication then improving your grammar is one skill you can practice.

FWIW, I'm the kind of person that will reread everything I write at least 5 times. I still miss stuff.

[–] sem@piefed.blahaj.zone 4 points 5 days ago

This, and the internet is a collaborative place. If someone points out a mistake in my posts, I can go back and edit it to rectify the mistake. I don't have to take it personally, it can be a group effort for us all to communicate clearly. They are providing me the free service of a copy editor. IMO, that is why redditors sounds like "editor" is because of the edit feature.

[–] paris@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Blocking is not petty. The feature is there to hide people you don't want to see and prevent you from interacting with them. I LOVE blocking people it's awesome.

[–] MonsterTrick@piefed.world 4 points 4 days ago

Thank you. I have block tons of account before but I always feel little guilty at times for doing so but I do need that reminder.

[–] devolution@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

At the risk of sounding like an ableist, much pedanticness comes from Autism I believe.

[–] MonsterTrick@piefed.world 1 points 5 days ago

Doesn't sound ableist at all. I know few Autistic which it bugs them when the grammar incorrect. Ironically, I'm at the other side where it doesn't bother me too much for as long as I can understand and read what someone is saying.

[–] Feyd@programming.dev 4 points 4 days ago

barely look back at what I have wrote.

Doing your best and messing up is fine. Straight up not caring or trying to improve is kind of rude to be honest.

[–] Libb@piefed.social 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

As long as it is readable, it shouldn’t matter if it not 100% perfect.

+1 to your two clauses.

I will confess, I’m not that great at grammar.

Neither am I. Even less so when I post in English (which I mostly do) instead of my native French. Not that I'm that better with French :p

Otherwise, I just felt kinda bullied and mocked for having bad grammar skills

The thing is that you should focus on the things and people that matter to you. And ignore the others.

There are 8 billion people on the planet. Of those, I know a few dozens personally. And of those few dozens only a handful of them I care about what they think about me. The 8 billions remaining? Well, I wish them the very best but I will not act differently in the hope of maybe please them. No hard feelings ;)

The only difference is that I would just block them which I know is little petty

I don't think it is.

The blocking feature is one I very regularly use and would probably use Piefed a lot less if it was not for it. I'm not spending my time here to read shit/Low effort content and certainly not to be bothered by people whose obvious desire would to trigger some emotional reaction on my part.

So, when I spot such a person, I block them. End of the drama. A bit like I decide who I let in at my own place, I filter out who I do not want to be forced to read. Exactly like I filter my home feed to 'Subscribed' only and I subscribe only to selected communities whose content I know very seldom produce turd content ;)

My patience is thin and I just get sick of having people in my life just getting angry at me as well as I feel like a punchline to a joke.

You can't win if you want the world/people to change and act/be like you want them to. What you can learn to do instead is to ignore the things and persons you can't act upon and focus on what you can act upon.

[–] adhd_traco@piefed.social 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Just wanna add to this, I had to learn to cut people off who simply give me bad vibes as close friends. Home and your close circle should be a good place. You don't need reasons to kick em out. So if you're not up to some serious business, where near perfect grammar is expected, then I'd say, screw em. Write how you want, as you long as you are happy with the respect, etc. that you are providing, and just ignore or block. This is your free time, and you're not hurting anyone by blocking them.

[–] Libb@piefed.social 1 points 4 days ago
[–] sem@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

At the risk of attracting a block, I think you meant "spot" not "sport"?

[–] Libb@piefed.social 2 points 4 days ago

Thx, edited. And, nope, I don't block for that kind of interactions, quite the contrary ;)

[–] BodePlotHole@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

As someone who both reads and writes a LOT of emails/messages as part of their job, I go by two simple rules:

  1. Let the situation determine the level of precision in your writing/grammar.

  2. Always reread what you have typed at least once. Sometimes more depending on the situation.

You take the time to write it so that someone else will read it, and then understand it. If you read what you write and feel it's concise, it's good enough. After that if someone wants to be a pedant about it, they can suck shits.

It can be pretty clear (especially on the internet) when someone hasn't read what they wrote.

To me, that's the line between an acceptable post and a shit one.

That, and whether or not you completely agree with everything I have ever thought, ever.

[–] dsilverz@calckey.world 2 points 4 days ago

@MonsterTrick@piefed.world @goodoffmychest@lemmy.world

As an ESL (English as a second language) individual (with my primary language being Portuguese), I'd say understanding is way more important than grammar.

I mean, philosophical and literary (especially Shakespearean) works are "the apex of correct grammar", still those texts can often reveal themselves hard to understand. The highly-elaborate grammar didn't improve its understandability. That's because English, and human languages in general, have a lot of quirks, and they can only get so far when it comes to the expression and communication of mostly-ineffable human feelings. In fact, human languages suck when timelessness and beinglessness are involved (e.g. explaining the transcendental concept of "non-existence" (such as in Ein Sof) as something other than "nonexistent"), languages expect a "when" and "objects/subjects".

Don't worry trying to be perfect. Don't even worry to impress humans or to satisfy humans's whims, for humans themselves can't even satisfy themselves, and they won't even try to be perfect towards you despite expecting your perfectness towards them. And even if they tried, it's not feasible trying to be perfect, for we, human beings and living beings, we're far from being able of perfectness. We exist in an imperfect demiurgic Ordo, one where Chao (primordial chaos) constantly frustrates any attempt of perfection coming from self-rearranging structures, not because Chao is bad, but because Ordo is born from it.

[–] DrSleepless@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

I jus don’t let thems kindsa person bother me

[–] Paragone@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

Just they're stuck on it, doesn't mean that everybody ought be stuck on it.

Please learn to not-care what internet blockheads think: it'll do your blood-pressure good.

_ /\ _

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 1 points 4 days ago

My grammar and spelling is atrotious and to make it worse I do it purposefully sometimes for humor purposes. All the same it does not bother me when people correct it unless they like call me names or along with it. Most people just correct it and I see that as their right because. After all. They are right (or usually). There is no shame in someone wanting stuff done correctly and I can totally understand some being frutstrated by poor writing. That being said there is no shame in being loose and casual with writing. Especially in a very infromal setting like online forums. So I guess im saying if I was upset at all it would be to tell them to chill but if I expect them to chill about me then I should be chill about them.

Eh. I used to care about spelling and grammar. Since I learned that the purpose of language is to communicate and if you've communicated your intent, you've done your part. If I understood you, then I'm the asshole if I correct you. You've done nothing wrong.

That being said, if what you wrote could have gone two different ways and your mistake made it go the other way, I and others absolutely will call you on it — you see this online all the time, and it's always in good fun. Or if it's obvious it was an iPhone autocorrection. But we're not saying you're an idiot, we're just saying it's funny because you didn't convey what you mean. We still got it, but it's funny and we're all gonna laugh together. Or at least that's my read on the situation.

Being a "grammar cop" isn't the best, because then you're an expert and people wanna keep coming to you with how to spell this or that and it's like... bro it's not that big a deal. I had a guy come to me and ask me if he spelled a word correctly, and he spelled it the American way. I said technically that is valid English but it's American English. And this is how you spell it in proper (i.e. the King's) English... he didn't understand why it wasn't right or one way was more correct. Ultimately it doesn't matter. Now if it's something like maneouvre vs maneuver, the Yanks will give you some shit for that one. If you wrote colour, I mean everyone knows you drop the U in American English. But an -ise vs -ize (like utilise/utilize) — most people won't even see it. But I'm the weirdo for knowing English and American English. I prefer English. My phone prefers American English. I know how to change it. I can't be arsed. Because anyone who knows English understands both well enough, for the reasons above.

Now when I start mixing in other languages... I admit, that's a bit extra...

...but getting back to the topic at hand, when you've acted in good faith and people call you out, remember that's their problem and not yours, and you can safely ignore them (and others should, too). You see someone getting picked on over something petty? Don't give it any air. Don't react. Ignore it, treat it like it didn't happen — because it never should have happened.

Oh... and now guys like me get shit because AI uses em dashes — like that. Guys like me have been using them all along. It's possible AI trained itself on the people with the best grammar, so now we sound like AI. Fucking great, right? So now we're getting it from the other side. I guess what goes around, comes around...

[–] addie@feddit.uk 0 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Your grammar is fine, MonsterTrick. Language is a tool for communication; I understand completely what you're saying, therefore, you have wielded that tool sufficiently well. Fuck the haters.

In fact, in a world of LLM slop, a few paragraphs of straight-up opinion with a little wildcard grammar, maybe a typo or two, is most welcome.

[–] MonsterTrick@piefed.world 2 points 5 days ago

To be fair, I did took my time to manually check this time which I tend to forget to do but thank you!