I am fairly certain that those who post on the forum also post to the campground review pages.

I was just reading some campground reviews and noticed a difference in writing techniques. Most forum posts appear to be well written, grammatically correct, easily understood, and convey information quite effectively. But many campground reviews are not even close to what I read here on the forum. When one reads the review comments they sound choppy and abbreviated. It's like the writer thinks that there isn't enough space to make a complete sentence in the review so they throw out any noun/verb combinations. The lack of web space cannot be true, because I have also read some very nicely written reviews that comply with basic English 101 techniques.

Assuming that an individual makes posts in both places, it's like a Jekyll and Hyde situation. Why does a person communicate well on the forum and then use grammar and sentence structure that would be graded an F by any self-respecting 5th grade English teacher?

I'm not an English teacher nor am not trying to offend anyone or change the 'system.' I am most likely an offender myself. It was just an observation and I was wondering why the difference.

I had to read that line a couple times.

Like you, I've noticed the 'relaxed' grammar and sentence structure in reviews, but it doesn't bother me. Really, I'm just grateful that people take the time and make the effort to write reviews.

True, but then you get posts like

One crazy thread

and

Another crazy thread

I just try to be "short and sweet" in my reviews. I think saying "No pool" instead of "although I would have loved to have a pool in which to swim, there didn't seem to be one on the grounds so I had to take a point off" gets the idea across. I hate to wade through a review that waxes eloquent and in great detail how much they liked the dog park or how they would have rather stayed in a Walmart parking lot.

My reviews usually say things like: "No pool or playground. Personnel friendly and attentive to problems. Bathrooms and showers clean. Long and wide gravel pull-throughs with concrete patios. Good access and interior roads. Low water pressure. Wi-fi strong, good selection of cable channels. Laundry room clean but expensive ($2.25). No campfires allowed. Nice 1/4 mile trail down to the lake. Mostly seasonals, but all sites well-maintained. Near to highway, so noisy. Trains blowing horns but only during the day. We would stay here again."

If my lack of literary skills and/or verbs offends thee, so be it.

First, in the two threads listed by HappiestCamper, there really was only one poster who wrote in very bad English, and at the time we strongly suspected this person was doing this on purpose. Not only was her English very bad, but also the information she posted was not correct either. It seemed like the more people commented on her bad posts the worse they got.


Now, jamarynn1: I do not want to offend you. Your review is very understandable and the content is excellent (I wish they were all this good), but it is not written in complete sentences. You don’t have to “wax eloquent and in great detail” (we don’t want that either), but if you do not write complete sentences the admins who check reviews will probably have to take time to correct them. Using your example, this is probably what an admin would do: "There was no pool or playground. Personnel were friendly and attentive to problems. Bathrooms and showers were clean. There were long and wide gravel pull-throughs with concrete patios. There were good access and interior roads. Water pressure was low. Wi-fi was strong, and there was a good selection of cable channels. Laundry room was clean but expensive ($2.25). No campfires were allowed. There is a nice 1/4 mile trail down to the lake. There were mostly seasonals, but all sites were well-maintained. The location was near to the highway, so it was noisy. Trains blow horns but only during the day. We would stay here again."

I do not get the idea that you lack literary skills; I bet you can write complete sentences any time you want to. When you don't, you are just trying to save time and be “short and sweet”, but we prefer reviews be submitted and posted in standardized English. It just makes it easier for everyone to read and understand, and it takes less time to get reviews on line.

No offense taken. I've looked back at my reviews and don't see that the admins have changed my wording. Sometimes I'm a little more wordy than other times, but I have plenty of reviews still showing with the dreaded "incomplete sentences"; apparently not everyone has a problem with them. I was a journalism major in college and remember that the first thing we were taught in class was, when reporting, to keep our words to a minimum ("the facts, all the facts and nothing but the facts"). Now if you're writing a novel and getting paid by the word, all bets are off.... So I will continue to keep my words at a minimum and if the time comes that my incomplete sentences become unacceptable, please let me know and I will stop submitting reviews. I only write reviews to help other RVers, not as a vocation. I certainly can live without it.

Those posts read as though they were written by someone with a cognitive impairment (TBI? Alzheimer's?). There might have been a medical reason for that writer's syntax.

(And a note to jamarynn1: Please keep writing reviews)

I did say that I was probably an offender myself. Would you believe that I just put that in there to see if anyone was paying attention?

My, not very important, observation about writing techniques between reviews and forum posts is evident by everyone's current, well written reply to the original post. As I said in it: "Most forum posts appear to be well written, grammatically correct, easily understood, and convey information quite effectively.

The way in which a reviewer writes his/her comments is a credibility issue for me. If they are sloppy in doing a review, and can't effectively use some basic English language skills, then I probably am not going to give that review much attention. We all have different factors that effective our judgement on how we each pick a campground, but I would guess that reviewer credibility is a factor for everyone who reads a review.

Be that as it may, perhaps "Relaxed grammar" is an honorable compromise between butchering the English language and waxed eloquence.

Also, I would guess there is a large amount of users of this website who use and post reviews, but who never access the forum. That may be another reason you will find different styles in the reviews. It took me over a year to realize there was a forum and there were interesting topics here.

I am surprised that no one made mention of the fact that sloppy sentence structure is a common occurrence today. Pick up any newspaper and read through it and you will find many problems.

I tend to agree with Fitzjohnfan that there are many posters who don't read and/or post to the forum. I also agree with RLM's self admonition as I also make plenty of mistakes myself. We all make some mistakes. Some of these mistakes are just momentary lapses and others are errors that we repeat often. For example, we may occasionaly misspell a word but also always spell some words incorrectly all the time. Unlike RLM, I think I see as many of these "english" mistakes in posts as in reviews. My two favorite areas are: 1) misuse of the words that are pronounced the same but have different meanings (to, too, two; there, their; hear, here; etc.). It is sadly surprising how often I have seen these words used incorrectly. 2) plural/singular nouns used incorrectly with singular/plural verbs. Examples: "It are" and "they is". Again. I see this error often. While it is true that some mistakes are "typos", I do remember one poster a couple years ago who kept spelling the word "people" in his posts as "peaple". He did this at least 3 or 4 times. I had to check the keyboard just to make sure it couldn't be a "typo". The guy just didn't know how to spell "people".

Even though I live in a glass house, I also cringe sometimes when I see word abuse and misuse. I wonder, though, if part of what we see is an accelerating change in the way American English is spoken and written (and being taught) today. I had a friendly discussion recently with my granddaughter's English teacher (at a rather elite private school). They are minimizing the teaching of cursive writing (it is kind of a useless skill anymore) and spelling, sentence structure, word use, and other "rules" of English that we were taught to rigidly adhere to are less important there. Much of what she said stuck in my craw, but there are a lot of things youngsters are exposed to today that I neither understand nor agree with. But, then again, our generation had our chance. It is time to move aside and make room for the youngsters.

The only thing that bothers me more than a person who criticizes other folks' grammar is when that person doesn't proofread his own posting.

He probably just put there in there to see if anyone was paying attention again.

I have a 20 something daughter in college, and one of her biggest pet peeves with her classes is the lack of correct spelling or grammar. I have another child in another school who truly doesn't care what or how people spell or use grammar as long as they get their point across. Both are cell phone text junkies, the one spells every thing out, the other uses ebphonics (sp) every chance she gets... Do you truly have a clue how difficult it is to read "had to go to the store" as "had 2g2 store"? ? That is our new generation. Short cut central. As humans we hate change, however, we tend to adapt rather quickly when not given a choice.

So as much as I perfectly agree with full sentences, correct grammar, verb usage, and spelling; it just is not going to be the case as time passes.. Word meanings change, sentence structure changes, like everything else English Grammar is changing... We can fight it all we wish, we ARE the minority. Be grateful we are at least still using english.

Regardless of what that school believes is the proper approach to teaching English, for quite a few years the hiring decisions for the jobs those young people apply for will be made by people like us who learned the traditional rules for the use of the language. If two applicants are equally qualified for a position but one writes his resume in "text speak" and the other uses "proper English", does anyone want to guess which applicant is more likely to get the job? Someday it may not matter, but I bet it will for a good many years to come.

Quite a few years ago, when men's earrings were still fairly controversial, one of my sons asked me if he could get an earring. I told him that I didn't care, but that when he applied to get a job a few years hence he would have to interview with an old fart like me. I said that if I had one applicant with and earring and one without I would probably give the edge to the one without. It may not be fair, but it was the real world, I told him. Guess what--he never did get that earring.

Excellent parenting! You weren't judgemental, but you gave him reality.