Can't read it wrong

[benhall.1]

I suppose next will be a merit badge in Pokemon Go.

Lord spare us!

[Tunborough]

Lately, I've noticed a fearful number of typos in simple two letter words, confusing things like 'is', 'it', and 'if', or 'or', 'of', and 'on'.

about four in five Canadians say that there are some things you "just shouldn’t express in front or people you don’t know."

[Tunborough]

... but to get back to the OP, I don't find it derails my reading entirely ... just diminishes my opinion of the source.

[Nanohedron]

...the issues I see look as though they might be caused by the various auto spell and spell checking routines.

I've been going on that assumption. For example, I'll get bizarre text messages from people just because they hurriedly relied on spell check or word prompt and left it at that, only to notice and correct the mistakes afterward. Awkward and needlessly time-consuming, but it is what it is. Occasionally it is funny. I assume grammatical issues like "its" and "it's" are part of this, but it has to be said that this has long been a source of difficulty before spell check routines ever came on the scene.

That is discouraging.

It is when it's blindly relied on in publications. Your average Joe is one thing, but I still hold articles for public consumption to a different standard, and I won't back down over that. Are there even flesh-and-blood proofreaders any more?

[benhall.1]

It's also amazing what effort and expense go into producing commercial material for businesses - ads, signs, flyers, business cards, etc. all seemingly without the benefit of a proofreader. It's not that uncommon to see horrible work, along the lines of "RIO Olypmics" make it into final print. I even have a magnification app on my phone that through many updates still ends with "Thank you for using Mangifier". You're welcome.

Here's one that I was just reminded of. It's not really an example of my "brain quirk", which I see as a real problem for me - caused by other people's carelessness, ignorance, stupidity or laziness, but still a problem affecting me. No, this other example produced in me a much more rational response.

About a year ago I was looking round for an alternative tax adviser for a very important client of mine - one with wealth at a level beyond my own ability to advise in all aspects of tax and tax law. There is already a national head of tax of an international firm of accountants in place, but it was felt that having an alternative might be sensible, even if we didn't use him/her for now. So I met, in a social setting, with another national head of tax - one with a different international accounting firm. We had quite a pleasant chat and he gave me his card. I said I'd email and keep in touch. I emailed him. The email bounced. So I telephoned his secretary to check that the email on the card was current. It turned out that the business cards were newly printed and showed both an incorrect spelling of said national head of tax's own name and of his email address. Needless to say, it has never occurred to me to use that firm from that day, and it will never occur to me to use that firm.

[chas]

Yes, Ben, I feel your pain. IMO, the proliferation of internet news sites that have low or nonexistent standards has led to the wide misuse of the English language. OTOH, I also think spelling/grammar checking in the print media has led to a real decrease in the quality of copy editing. I read most of the Washington Post on Saturdays and Sundays, and on any given day can come up with a half dozen or more cases of the misuse of words, usually use of a word that sound similar to another but has a different meaning.

Regarding the math issue: The only shops that I frequent that don't allow bigger bills are mom-and-pop shops that don't want to deal with bills bigger than $20, largely as a safety issue. Many bigger stores have strong boxes for fifties and larger, while the smaller stores only have enough slots in the registers for up to 20, and don't want to stash the big bills under the trays. Those places don't take checks either.

Once I was in a fast-food joint, I think somewhere in New Jersey. I had just gotten my order and paid the cashier. She had the register drawer open when there was a power glitch, and the register went out. She said, "There's nothing I can do now that the register's rebooting." I said, "I get $1.11 in change." She looked at me suspiciously, and I said, "I gave you a five, my meal was $3.89, you owe me $1.11." I might as well have been from Mars; she said, "You mean you can do that in your HEAD?"

Gone are the days when cashiers counted up to how much money you gave them -- three eighty nine, ninety, four, and a dollar makes five.

Don't even get me started on baggers who put cans on top of fruit, or potatoes on top of bread.

[ytliek]

Doing the simple math in your head... I love seeing friends of mine and other people as well struggle to figure out a 15% or 20% tip after a meal, or the cell phone comes out to calculate the sum. Whew!

Stationary or stationery... used on the promotional ads, brochures for design, printing, and publication services. You mean there's a difference?

[Brus]

Once I was in a fast-food joint, I think somewhere in New Jersey. I had just gotten my order and paid the cashier. She had the register drawer open when there was a power glitch, and the register went out. She said, "There's nothing I can do now that the register's rebooting." I said, "I get $1.11 in change." She looked at me suspiciously, and I said, "I gave you a five, my meal was $3.89, you owe me $1.11." I might as well have been from Mars; she said, "You mean you can do that in your HEAD?"

If you really want their heads to explode, tell them you got to the fast-food joint without using a GPS locator.

[Nanohedron]

I've said it many a time: I am one of those for whom God created the calculator. But don't worry; I am NOT proud of my difficulties with math.

[david_h]

I correct, or omit to correct, enough mistakes in my own writing that it doesn't bother me. However, journalistic laziness over content bothers me greatly. There is a lot of it about.

I was at a festival at the weekend. The bar had a £1 deposit on plastic glasses. Come the end of the weekend I took several back for friends when I bought another pint. The cash register did not seem to do subtraction. Neither did the bartender. And by that stage mine was a little slow as I puzzled over my 'change'.

[Nanohedron]

The bar had a £1 deposit on plastic glasses.

That seems rather steep.

...the misuse of words, usually use of a word that sound similar to another but has a different meaning.

Which reminds me of another latest pet peeve: the use of "peak" in the phrase, "pique one's interest". I suppose it's understandable if by "peak" you verb it to mean "uppify". But it strikes me that those who spell it that way must have only heard the phrase, not read it. It's not that out of the ordinary, is it?

[david_h]

That seems rather steep.

In previous years it was 20p. Many spent the day under seats in the venues, or were thrown into the plastic recycling. So I guess it helped re-use during the weekend. We usually found some around the campsite after the bar had closed (I was under instruction not to bring any more home). I don't know if they went on to other events. The main financial impact may have been on kids collecting abandoned (or not yet abandoned grrr...) glasses - less to find but a bigger prize.

In acknowledgement of the topic of the OP this post was passed through a spell and garmmar checker

[Tor]

Many years ago my father went to a farmacy and bought ten of something with an item price of 0.25. The cashier grabbed a calculator to find the total.

As for "its" vs "it's", from my Gut Feeling Statistical Analysis Method (TM) I get the impression that somewhere around 40% of native English speakers will write "it's" where it should be "its", 100% of the time. As a non-native English speaker I find that baffling.

Right now, having bought a Kindle and testing out the format by downloading a lot of indie authors from the "currently free" section of Amazon, I have to abandon a lot of books because this new tendency to skip punctuation where it's still important: "Don't kill, Jack" becomes "Don't kill Jack". It bothers me greatly.

BTW, for you natives, since when did 'shined' become a way of writing 'shone'? Has that always been an American form? I would write 'I shined my shoes', but 'the sun shone'. 'The sun shined' doesn't sit well with me. Maybe it's me. But it just doesn't feel right.

[kkrell]

Another thing that bothers me about news "reporting", whether internet or TV broadcast, is the inability of writers/reporters to quote properly.

For example, in an article on the BBC website:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-37241708
Steve Irwin letter reveals gratitude to parents
The letter, written when he was 32 but only recently found, said it took him "over to 30 years" to realise his parents were his "best friends".

The actual letter, pictured with the article, reads "over 30 years", not the "over to 30 years" quoted in the article. It's not correct, and doesn't even make sense. Never mind that Steve Irwin misuses "you're" when he means "your" in his text.

Similarly, in news broadcast, they'll roll tape of a person being interviewed, making a statement, and then the camera cuts back to the news anchor/reader who repeats it incorrectly, sometimes changing the meaning, and certainly not preserving its accuracy. It's very frustrating when you can see them screwing up right in front of you.

[Nanohedron]

BTW, for you natives, since when did 'shined' become a way of writing 'shone'? Has that always been an American form?

Not necessarily, because I've seen some pretty dubious English just like that out of the UK. No protests from across the Pond, now - you know it's true. I think we've all just gotten tired and come down with a case of can't-be-arsed (a Britishism that is far nicer than would normally come out of my mouth).

I would write 'I shined my shoes', but 'the sun shone'. 'The sun shined' doesn't sit well with me. Maybe it's me. But it just doesn't feel right.

"I shined my shoes until they shone" would illustrate the difference between those transitive and intransitive forms, but I think that it's kind of like "its" and "it's"; I'm betting native English speakers have probably always had trouble with those to some degree.

And then, a bit differently, there's "hang": A picture on the wall is hung. A man on the gallows is hanged. If he is hung, it is too much information for the news.

Just saw this in the so-called news today: "15 Disasterous [sic] Situations Only Cat Owners Understand". And if you hadn't already guessed, the featured disastrous situations weren't disastrous at all - just the typical annoyances that come with having a cat. And so it goes ... right down the journalistic crapper.