I've found that if you've done enough reading and writing, it's hard to get away from grammar and spelling. It's like, could I really write uncapitalized sentences...? It'd be a chore for me; I'd have to concentrate on doing it.

So, when I find a post with no sense of grammar/spelling--and I mean more than just occasional mistakes--it leads me to assume that it's the work of someone who isn't all that into reading and writing, etc. Does that impact how I initially view the post? Absolutely it does.

It bothers me a lot. It's not that hard to put some punctuation into a sentence. If one is trying to tie in two different statements, then please put a comma or semicolon. Having a wall of text is never a good thing. There are also sentences that can be misconstrued for another statement without the proper punctuation.

Download Firefox.... it has spell checker too!

meh, I can write fine for college stuff, I just dont particularly care about my grammar or other peoples on the internet, it just doesnt matter as much, interesting as the internet may be at times, im not gonna put the same effort in to most of my posts as I would an essay for college, nor would I expect others to do so, especially considering that some people on the internet have english as a second language, to expect high standards of grammar on the web and to then critique it just makes me think people are being elitist and stuck up about something that really doesnt matter much in the grand scheme of things, probably not in there lives either, unless you think that what you post in this thread is more important than what you write in an essay for college or your work?

But good grammar is always important. There's a reason why "Grammar Nazis" (I prefer "Sticklers") harp on about it so much: because an ill-placed comma, or total lack of, can make a huge difference to the final render of a sentence.

To take the age old example,

A woman: without her, man is nothing.
A woman, without her man, is nothing.

The words are exactly the same, and yet the meanings of the sentences are completely different thanks to the changes of a couple of markings.

Out of interest for the people who your/you're annoys (which actually includes me), does youre/you're annoy you as well?

I've never seen people saying "youre". It's not a real word, so it doesn't annoy me as much. It's the omission of an apostrophe, rather than a grammatical mistake.

sure in sentences like that its important, but its not important in most sentences, you see loads of them around im sure, but how many are really that important or context altering

I really think people are making way too big a deal out of this, everyone makes them at least some of the time anyway, we are just human afterall

I think most of us are lenient when it comes to poor grammar on internet discussion boards, but let's not get sloppy.

On a semi-related note, OP, I'm sure you'll find Grammar Girl's podcasts to be informative and entertaining:

I have a pet peeve with grammar, I hate making too many mistakes.

I don't care when people make mistakes, though. And it's really annoying when other people correct you.

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.

'Why?' asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

'Well, I'm a panda', he says, at the door. 'Look it up.'

The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. 'Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.'


---

Give credit to Lynne Truss, though I'm sure she got it from somewhere else... so, don't.