Rant: The Problem of Reading and Writing In Second Life Business

When it comes to language, syntax and many other things - I am very flexible. I don't beat people over the head when they make typos (I probably make more in a day than most do in a year). I respect when people are writing that they make mistakes, I make many. I shorten things inworld as well; I use acronyms such as 'lol' as well as emoticons. All of this is really acceptable, and while I hold myself to a certain level I do not hold others to that level. When others communicate with me, though, I ask one thing - I ask that people try to be understood. People who write outside of their native tongue are sensitive about this; they want to be certain that they are understood and on more than one occasion I have asked a person writing in English to relax because I understand them - or sometimes to even speak in their own language if it is Latin derived.

But I get really irked when a native English speaker goes so far off the beaten path that a non-native English speaker wouldn't have a clue what they were talking about. Here is an example I saw recently:

"Settle meant". Most native English speakers might boggle on that one - I know I did. It is supposed to be settlement; there is no way even an automatic translation could come up with 'Settle Meant' that I know of. 'Settle Meant' isn't even a sensible phrase. And English speakers aren't the only ones who do stuff like that; I've come across some Spanish which was so bastardized that other native Spanish speakers just ignored it. The point is not that people should be reading dictionaries instead of listening to the title of Hooked on Phonics.

The point is that people have to make an effort to be understood. If someone had written 'settlemeant', I would think 'ok, typo, I know what you mean.' That simple. An automatic translator such as babbler would probably choke, but automatic translations often choke anyway. I've been known to mediate discussions between different language speakers, and most of the failures I have seen with automatic translation have been - simply - poor spelling or words and phrases that would have a native speaker of a language leaping off of a cliff. "What do you mean?", is a priceless phrase.

But there is another point in here. If you can't write comprehensively, how can you read comprehensively? Recently I wrote 'Second Life is a part of the Internet'. Someone who glossed over that did not catch that being a part of something doesn't mean the same as being something. My nose is a part of my face - my nose is not my face.

After almost a decade of moderating discussions on the web, these things are easy to spot - as are the discussions which are done where a person's post is not read in entirety first, but is argued point by point. Here is an example:

First Poster: I was thinking about how Linden Lab could do things better but cannot think of anything that hasn't been suggested yet. Anyone have ideas?
Second Poster: We've all made lots of suggestions, you idiot.

The first person had already accounted for the suggestions already made, but the second poster did not read the first post in entirety or did not understand the first post. This kind of stuff is pretty manageable on a discussion board or in post comments, but in live chat such as IRC or Second Life, it snowballs really quick.

Of course, some people say that this is a case for Voice - but is it? Any real documents related to business (remember, we're talking about business) require text to be written or read. So many of the disagreements I have seen in Second Life business have not been over anything meaningful, they have been over people's inability to communicate even in their own native tongue. There is no record of an audio discussion in Second Life yet, but chat logs are captures of discussions.

I applaud the people who are teaching language in Second Life, I really do... but I think a lot of this stuff could be solved with some personal effort to be understood. Some of my best friends in Second Life aren't grammarians, they might make an High School English teacher cringe sometimes... but they are understood because they try to be understood. And at the end of the day, that is what really matters... not what your grade in English composition was, but whether the person in front of you can decipher what you are trying to say.

Please, make the effort. If you're trying to run a business and you lack these basic skills, don't be surprised if people misunderstand you... and even form the wrong impression.