Introverts, it turns out, are more likely to get annoyed at both typos and grammos. Not only that; they’ll probably not want to share their lives with you if you’re particularly error-prone.
Boland and Queen tested people’s reactions to emails responding to an ad for a housemate. Some of them contained typos, some grammos and some were perfectly written. They were then asked whether they agreed with statements like “the writer seems friendly”, “the writer seems considerate”, “the writer seems trustworthy”. Their ratings were combined to produce an overall “good housemate” score.
They then had to fill out questionnaires about their own personalities, based on the “big five” traits – openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.
And that’s how the researchers found that introverts were more likely than extraverts to rate people as poor potential housemates if their spelling or grammar was bad. There were other findings – agreeable people, perhaps unsurprisingly, were easygoing when it came to grammos. Conscientious people tended to see typos as a problem. Levels of neuroticism, oddly enough, didn’t predict any kind of penchant for pet peeves.
Also, a cool discussion of how errors drive linguistic change:
And now there was no doubt that the trees were really moving - moving in and out through one another as if in a complicated country dance. ('And I suppose,' thought Lucy, 'when trees dance, it must be a very, very country dance indeed.')
Brus wrote:
You do realize that's a sentence fragment?
That's style, not grammar. And besides, your school teacher lied. There's never been an era in which the finest writers in english haven't used sentence fragments with blithe abandon.
And now there was no doubt that the trees were really moving - moving in and out through one another as if in a complicated country dance. ('And I suppose,' thought Lucy, 'when trees dance, it must be a very, very country dance indeed.')
Tell us something.: I'm a fiddler and, latterly, a fluter. I love the flute. I wish I'd always played it. I love the whistle as well. I'm blessed in having really lovely instruments for all of my musical interests.
Location: Unimportant island off the great mainland of Europe
Brus wrote:
You do realize that's a sentence fragment?
That's style, not grammar. And besides, your school teacher lied. There's never been an era in which the finest writers in english haven't used sentence fragments with blithe abandon.
... and in any case, shouldn't it be, "You do realize that that's a sentence fragment?"
Tell us something.: Mostly producer of the Wooden Flute Obsession 3-volume 6-CD 7-hour set of mostly player's choice of Irish tunes, played mostly solo, on mostly wooden flutes by approximately 120 different mostly highly-rated traditional flute players & are mostly...
Tell us something.: I'm a fiddler and, latterly, a fluter. I love the flute. I wish I'd always played it. I love the whistle as well. I'm blessed in having really lovely instruments for all of my musical interests.
Location: Unimportant island off the great mainland of Europe
Tunborough wrote:Actually the researchers observed that introverts are (more likely to be) grammar pedants. They didn't comment on pedants being introverts.
Edit: I'm an introvert.
Well, they also found that extraverts aren't (as) likely to be pedants, which gets you to the same conclusion.
And now there was no doubt that the trees were really moving - moving in and out through one another as if in a complicated country dance. ('And I suppose,' thought Lucy, 'when trees dance, it must be a very, very country dance indeed.')
kkrell wrote:I had to look up the terms "extraversion" and "extravert."
...
I have no idea how to properly place the period in my first sentence.
Those are scare-quotes, so the period belongs outside them. I'd put a period inside quotes when I'm citing a whole (or substantial part of a) sentence, and the speaker's thought has come to its end. It's most common when writing dialogue, but its hard to generalize a rule because very subtle rhythmic considerations come into play and when I'm writing carefully rhythm trumps grammar.
And now there was no doubt that the trees were really moving - moving in and out through one another as if in a complicated country dance. ('And I suppose,' thought Lucy, 'when trees dance, it must be a very, very country dance indeed.')
I feel I should point out that the establishment of a correlation between pedantry and introversion does not imply that there is a causal relationship.
"Yes... yes. This is a fertile land, and we will thrive. We will rule over all this land, and we will call it... This Land."
Coffee wrote:I feel I should point out that the establishment of a correlation between pedantry and introversion does not imply that there is a causal relationship.
Good point. Generally a 95% correlation is considered positive, and there have been loads of "studies" that might look at 100 things (diseases are a biggie) in a large data set. Statistically they'll get about five positive hits even if there's absolutely nothing there, just by the way they've designed the study.
I don't know how they decided there was a correlation here, but if it's the same one I read about last weekend, psychopaths also scored high as grammar pedants.
Charlie Whorfin Woods
"Our work puts heavy metal where it belongs -- as a music genre and not a pollutant in drinking water." -- Prof Ali Miserez.
Tell us something.: I'm a fiddler and, latterly, a fluter. I love the flute. I wish I'd always played it. I love the whistle as well. I'm blessed in having really lovely instruments for all of my musical interests.
Location: Unimportant island off the great mainland of Europe
I wouldn't know - I seem to have always had the good sense not to poke at swarms of bitey things.
And yes, I cheerfully split verbs and infinitives and put "And" at the front of a sentence. Or not. It's about euphony. People should put those "rules" to rest once and for all.
"If you take music out of this world, you will have nothing but a ball of fire." - Balochi musician
