Questions tagged [grammar]
For reporting grammatical errors in UI elements and for guidance/suggestions on grammatical standards for posts.
144 questions
10
votes
1
answer
249
views
Settings "When you flip this switch" language problem
There is a "Settings" page available in your profile page. Some of the setting descriptions start with "When you flip this switch". Maybe "flip" means "enable" ...
- 3,443
7
votes
0
answers
143
views
Please fix the grammar on the first sentence of the Stack Exchange Network description popup
Currently, when you click the button towards the top left saying "Stack Exchange", a popup titled "Stack Exchange Network" appears. Below it, it says (emphasis added by me):
Stack ...
- 7,990
-13
votes
2
answers
226
views
"How to ... ?" questions might be wrong grammar. Will it help dropping the question mark for all questions or warning the user or something the like?
I would like to find out by discussion whether and how this can become a good feature request.
"How to ... ?" questions might be wrong
I see "How to ... ?" questions every day. ...
- 632
23
votes
1
answer
295
views
Inconsistent punctuation in the '?' dropdown menu in the top-bar
In the top-bar, clicking on the '?' button (not sure what it's called), opens a dropdown menu for 'Tour,' 'Help Center,' 'Meta,' and 'About Us.' (Meta sites are slightly different, but the issue is ...
- 175k
10
votes
1
answer
302
views
Errors in blog post "Ask like a human: Implementing semantic search on Stack Overflow"
I probably should have included these earlier, but I didn’t realize at the time of posting. I also realize this post is rather nit-picky, but most, if not all, of these are valid issues anyways.
Here ...
- 1,824
12
votes
0
answers
192
views
Can we actually suspend accounts excessive discussion?
Yes, you read that right, but no, we cannot. Yet here it is:
This account is temporarily suspended excessive discussion in comments.
I think the "due to" was skipped, and it should read &...
- 8,866
36
votes
1
answer
467
views
"This question doesn't meet a <SITE> guideline" is incorrect if site name begins with a vowel sound
I was reviewing close votes on Ask Ubuntu, and noticed a grammatical error in the reasoning message:
Currently, it says:
This question doesn't meet a Ask Ubuntu guideline
It should say:
This ...
9
votes
4
answers
691
views
Is it better for SEO for question titles to actually be questions (grammatically speaking)?
When asking or editing a question, is it better (from SEO or user perspective) for the title of the question to be an actual question? Do we even care? If the preference is for questions, is there ...
CommunityBot
- 1
5
votes
1
answer
68
views
Make tooltip text ending on user tab sorting order consistent. Only the "participation" tab contains dot at the end
Tooltip for "participation" tab contains the . at the end, but there's no dot for all other tabs:
I suggest to remove it here as well. Adding the dot to the all other instead I can't ...
- 69.7k
37
votes
5
answers
1k
views
What constitutes acceptable English on Stack Exchange sites?
It's well-established policy that English is required on Stack Exchange sites (language-specific sites aside). That policy led to the question of whether English means UK English or US English. The ...
- 16k
18
votes
1
answer
116
views
Correcting editing-help#code
Here, in the Preformatted Text section, the sentence :
Indent four spaces to create an block of preformatted text
Should be
Indent four spaces to create a block of preformatted text
GlorfindelMod
- 256k
10
votes
1
answer
235
views
Correct nonsense sentence on "Established User" privilege page
The Established User privilege page contains the following "sentence":
An expanded usercard is only available if you have have at least 28 characters in their "About Me" section of their profile.
...
- 7,785
5
votes
0
answers
79
views
Strictly Necessary cookies text: "then" not grammatically correct
When customizing cookie settings, the following is shown under Strictly Necessary (click for bigger/sharper image):
These cookies are necessary for our website to function properly and cannot be ...
- 5,600
17
votes
1
answer
136
views
NLN flag description should have an Oxford comma
Company guidance says to "Use the oxford [sic] comma in sentences."* However, the description of the "It's no longer needed." flag, from the flag modal, says "This comment is ...
- 4,034
-4
votes
1
answer
102
views
Capitalization for image placeholder
I found out that in process of posts improvement by this user, the phrase "enter image description here" used as a default image description placeholder is often (always?) being capitalized ...
- 56.4k
14
votes
0
answers
117
views
6
votes
3
answers
481
views
Is attribution required when using LLMs to improve the grammar/formatting of a post?
Let's say a user has posted a question/answer with the following content. The English is slightly convoluted but it's good content otherwise:
On enormous territory of park there are lakes, rivers, ...
CommunityBot
- 1
18
votes
0
answers
202
views
Wrong phrasing in defender of the unicorn instructions page [closed]
Once you reach the defender of the unicorn page, it says
There she is! You have are almost there!
shouldn't it say either
There she is! You are almost there!
or
There she is! You have her almost ...
- 3,552
8
votes
1
answer
122
views
Why does the next tag badge need a colon, but a regular badge doesn't?
In the user profile page you can see progress for the next badges. One for regular (right block) and one for tag badge (left block):
Why does a sentence in one case end with a colon, but in ...
GlorfindelMod
- 256k
6
votes
0
answers
70
views
Settings are inconsistent on whether descriptions end in periods or not
On the user settings page (your Meta SE one is here) the smaller-font descriptions sometimes end in periods and sometimes don't. This guidance says "Don’t use periods in interface copy unless it’...
- 8,314
8
votes
0
answers
124
views
Grammar mistake in Sparkles the Unicorn Game [duplicate]
Page 3 of the Sparkles the Uniform Game has a grammar mistake in the second sentence of the page header:
There she is! You have are almost there!
Presumably the word "have" was ...
- 838
6
votes
0
answers
89
views
The "You can accept your own answer in <period>" alert is missing a period․
When trying to accept your own answer too early, you get an alert like
You can accept your own answer in 11 hours
According to the Stacks design guidelines, it is missing a period; it's a full ...
GlorfindelMod
- 256k
-7
votes
1
answer
201
views
"log in" should be "login"
From https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/login?returnurl=https%3a%2f%2farea51.stackexchange.com%2fusers%2flogin-or-signup%2fdelegated%3freturnurl%3dhttps%253a%252f%252farea51.stackexchange.com%26type%...
GlorfindelMod
- 256k
4
votes
1
answer
106
views
There is a full stop missing in the stackstatus header
I think maybe there's a full stop missing in the second sentence of the stackstatus header? It strikes me as odd that the first sentence has a full stop but the second sentence doesn't.
- 28k
3
votes
0
answers
314
views
Missing period in confirm new account dialogue
The following sentence in the Confirm your new account dialogue (this is when you visit a site on the network where you don't have an account and click "Join this community") should end with ...
- 28k
4
votes
2
answers
190
views
Make full stop usage consistent in badge descriptions
In the Badges page, out of the 80+ badge descriptions, only 5 have full stops, and the others don't have.
The five are: Fanatic, Enthusiast, and the three Tag Badges, it can be seen here:
Can this ...
- 2,908
-2
votes
1
answer
141
views
Pluralization bug in the network profile
This image says it all:
As you can see, I'm viewing someone's network profile and it says "1 questions". The same problem goes with the answers, but you don't see that in the image because ...
- 11.2k
32
votes
1
answer
480
views
"it's" should be changed to "its" on help center "How do I create an account?" page
In the help center's how do I create an account? page there is the following text:
In addition to creating an account for this site (and it’s associated meta-discussion site)...
This should be ...
- 28k
14
votes
1
answer
544
views
Fix "login" to verb "log in" on question pages
On the bottom of question pages is a prompt to "Sign up or login":
But login is a noun and log in is the verb.
See http://loginisnotaverb.com/ and "log in to" or "log into" or &...
CommunityBot
- 1
12
votes
0
answers
227
views
Grammatical error (inelegance at the very least) in a close reason
I posted this on meta.unix.se but it applies to the whole network so I'm reposting here. One of the canned messages for closing a question reads
Please clarify your specific problem or add additional ...
- 7,785
6
votes
0
answers
97
views
Comma splice in pending edit mouseover notification
When a 3k-rep user browses to a post that has a pending suggested edit, the edit link changes to edit (1). When you mouse over it, the title text displayed is:
1 edit to this post is pending, ...
- 8,314
6
votes
0
answers
52
views
Comma splice in message for nonexistent tag wiki
In the Tagged Questions list for a tag that has no tag wiki yet (see https://stackoverflow.com/tags?tab=new to find current examples), the message at the top reads
The bleep-bloop-blop-blorp tag ...
- 8,314
2
votes
2
answers
129
views
The title of the frequently asked questions list is redundant
The title for the FAQ tab of the questions list on SO is currently "FAQ questions". If you expand that, I believe it makes "frequently asked questions questions".
Is it supposed to be that way or is ...
- 8,314
20
votes
1
answer
5k
views
Missing comma in "welcome back" message
The autologin message is missing a comma.
Welcome back user_name, you've been logged in
should be:
Welcome back, user_name, you've been logged in.
user_name is a vocative, expression of ...
- 8,314
6
votes
0
answers
137
views
"560 MILLION pages views per month" [closed]
In huge characters in an H1 element near the top of https://stackexchange.com/performance is:
560 MILLION pages views per month
That should definitely be "pageviews" or "page views&...
- 175k
7
votes
1
answer
120
views
Very minor grammar error in users page for tags: "non community-wiki" should have a dash to be "non-community-wiki"
At https://stackoverflow.com/tags/numerical-methods/topusers (and indeed, the same page for any tag), there is a very minor grammar error at the very bottom of the page:
Only non community-wiki ...
- 7,785
10
votes
1
answer
126
views
Missing hyphen in "read-only mode" when browsing a post in read-only mode
Seen during yesterday's maintenance period where the sites were in read-only mode.
While the network-wide banner, general communication, and hyphen rules (that I know of) mandate the spelling "...
- 5,124
7
votes
0
answers
83
views
Chat conversations tab's tooltip text is missing an "of"
I noticed an apparent bug in the text when I hover the "conversations" tab in a chat room, it looks like the text is a little grammatically wrong:
The text reads:
a chronological list ...
- 8,314
9
votes
1
answer
168
views
Incorrect new answers notification
Is Gollum working for Stack Overflow?
(Although I guess it would be "answerses" if he was.)
- 8,314
6
votes
2
answers
188
views
Should poor grammar be fixed in a meta post where the OP is asking if (their) poor grammar is okay for the main site?
On a Stack Exchange site where users must post in English, a user who said their native language wasn't English asked on its meta site whether having poor grammar should stop them from posting (on the ...
- 28k
-9
votes
2
answers
251
views
Automatic capitalization of "i" [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Can 'u' and 'i' part ways?
I've observed that a significant number of people use "i" instead of "I"
Sample:
i create a iframe to get acess token in facebook ...
- 8,314
25
votes
4
answers
322
views
Unnecessary "and"s in reviewer stats
I've noticed that the reviewer stats in the review queue contain awkward uses of polysyndeton:
user has approved $count edit suggestions and rejected $count edit suggestions and improved $count ...
- 175k
15
votes
0
answers
67
views
Too many "and's" in Reviewer Stats [duplicate]
In the Suggested Edits Reviewer Stats, I saw that the Reviewer has no commas and lots of "and"s:
Whereas the Editor Stats do have commas and don't run on. Small bug, but can we give the ...
- 26.9k
13
votes
1
answer
94
views
Typos in Review Suspension help pages
On the help pages for review suspensions (example: Meta), it says
reviews negatively effect
but it should be "affect".
In the same paragraph:
access to the Reviews Queue
but it should be ...
16
votes
1
answer
164
views
Vote To Close? Vote to Close
It is commonly held that titles do not capitalize their prepositions. When I open the close dialog I see this:
This doesn't seem right. It should read "Vote to Close" network-wide.
- 111k
-20
votes
1
answer
235
views
I've been getting grammar corrections rejected - resulting in a ban, while in the past every single one was always accepted. Review system broken? [closed]
I've so far been very impressed with Stack Overflow's unique review system, which has been a marked improvement on most any other.
Yet, I got banned for reviewing... What I think happened was that non-...
reneMod
- 92k
9
votes
1
answer
88
views
Missing full stop in privileges area
I have just noticed that there is a missing full stop at the end of this sentence (the last one):
And as it is really bugging me, I thought that I would report it.
Although I give my example as AU, ...
CommunityBot
- 1
12
votes
1
answer
170
views
Grammar error in review: does this affect several SE sites? [duplicate]
A dedicated ELL contributor has just brought a grammar issue in a review queue prompt to our attention (thank you Davo!). Grammar error in Review
Apparently the reason description under the "Not ...
- 26.9k
2
votes
2
answers
278
views
Why are SEO keywords not in title case?
SEO keywords (from tags) are left in lower case in the title. For example, How can I reject values from one array based on a parallel array? starts with "ruby - How can I ..."
Why is that?
CommunityBot
- 1
14
votes
0
answers
250
views
So you're saying that multiple close votes from users can total up to one?
I know this is an extremely small grammar problem, and that it is rather pointless to fix it, but when a question has 4 close votes and you hover your mouse over the "close" button for about half a ...
- 665