"An Arguement for Misspelling"

djm · Post by **djm** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 12:35 pm

There are on-line dictionaries. There are automated spell-checkers. While I don't get too hairy about type-oze

I think this subject of spelling really comes down to how much you care about your audience/intended reader. No matter how illogical some of the spellings are in English, the simple fact of having a standard allows room for more communication between us than does allowing everyone to cook up their own spellings.

Chaucer is a poor example, as the percentage of the population capable of reading anything in his day was so minimal as to make the written word almost mystical to the general populace.

One can swoon over the value of content all day, but if it is illegible or unintelligible, the content loses all value. You have to be able to communicate your meaning. The quality of one's ability to communicate with others is at least as important as the message we wish to deliver, as far as I'm concerned.

CranJack wrote:It's a matter of "what is, is."

Hiding ignorance or laziness behind the label of "language evolution" wears thin pretty quickly. You will be taken for as big a buffoon as you choose to portray yourself in your method of communication as much as your intended content.

The reverse is not necessarily true.

djm

Jack · Post by **Jack** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 12:40 pm

djm wrote:
Jack wrote:It's a matter of "what is, is."
Hiding ignorance or laziness behind the label of "language evolution" wears thin pretty quickly. You will be taken for as big a buffoon as you choose to portray yourself in your method of communication as much as your intended content.

What we're discussing is neither ignorance nor laziness. I spell (in English, at least) well, and that is not the point. What we're discussing is the way that languages change, plus a related matter: how the cultures, societies, and individuals use language. The English language of five hundred years ago was different in many ways from the English of 2008. That's not because anybody said it "should be" different, and it's not because any organization made up "rules." It's because the people speaking the language changed and grew and so did their language.

fearfaoin · Post by **fearfaoin** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 12:45 pm

Nanohedron wrote:Down-home auto mechanical? Maybe not so much, although personally I'd like to see that, too.

Obviously not cake decorating...

Post by **Dale** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 12:46 pm

I don't think an "anything goes" attitude is sensible or helpful. But, I do think we fail to recognize, as natives speakers/writers of English, that we have a very messy system of writing and spelling. I think it's much easier to give someone a pass on argument/arguement versus, say, someone who confuses "lose" with "loose."

Last year, I got a letter from a new professional in town who had sent out a letter to many people in the community, introducing herself and her new clinical practice. Here's the opening sentence:

"My name is (Jane Doe) and I have opened a new practice in Birmingham, specializing in working with families as they go through the downward spiral of addition."

For a split second, before I realized she had written "addition" for "addiction," I thought to myself, "What an incredibly narrow market. Maybe she should expand her practice to include the downward spiral of 'take-aways.'"

peeplj · Post by **peeplj** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 12:52 pm

For a split second, before I realized she had written "addition" for "addiction," I thought to myself, "What an incredibly narrow market. Maybe she should expand her practice to include the downward spiral of 'take-aways.'"

This is an example of why spelling software on computers won't always be of much help.

To a spelling checker, this sentence is fine:

Ah went two the game an watched hymn as he through.

--James

missy · Post by **missy** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 12:54 pm

I am a horrible speller (sight reading anyone?). My oldest son is also a horrible speller (whole language anyone?). My youngest is very good at spelling (speech therapy anyone?).

If I'm doing something for work, or official, I will use a spell check (although I hate training them for scientific words). On here, if I notice it's miss spelled, I will usually go back and fix it, but sometimes I honestly don't notice.

It's not laziness - although I suppose I could run every single post I put through a spell check. I can spell chemical names just fine - it's simple words (that one would have learned if one had had phonics) that I have difficulty with.

And since I KNOW I have issues with spelling, I really have no problems with someone correcting my spelling. But I hope that the content of my posts is more important than the presentation.

Post by **Nanohedron** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 12:57 pm

peeplj wrote:Ah went two the game an watched hymn as he through.

If I read a book spelled in such a way, I sure enough wouldn't chalk it up to "evolution" at all. Deliberate artistic license, yes, if I couldn't tell and was feeling charitable.

djm · Post by **djm** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 1:00 pm

peeplj wrote:Ah went two the game an watched hymn as he through.

This is a good example of a literate person who is unable to effect the ignorance of the semi-literate. Your grammar is too correct. Also, a person who is spelling phonetically would have used "thru" or "tru", not "through".

Dale wrote:"My name is (Jane Doe) and I have opened a new practice in Birmingham, specializing in working with families as they go through the downward spiral of addition."

Finally! - a therapist for my arithmetical dysfunction.

djm

peeplj · Post by **peeplj** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 1:45 pm

djm wrote:
peeplj wrote:Ah went two the game an watched hymn as he through.
This is a good example of a literate person who is unable to effect the ignorance of the semi-literate. Your grammar is too correct. Also, a person who is spelling phonetically would have used "thru" or "tru", not "through".

djm

True, but that's not the point I was addressing.

The sentence as I typed it will make it fine through spelling-check software, as none of the words are misspelled. It is an example of why only depending on the spell-checking features of Word, for instance, will eventually get you in trouble.

--James

Dameon · Post by **Dameon** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 1:52 pm

"My name is (Jane Doe) and I have opened a new practice in Birmingham, specializing in working with families as they go through the downward spiral of addition."

I'm relatively certain addition makes numbers go up, not down. Jane Doe is not qualified to help families with their math-related issues.

Take writers of books, for example: authors with spelling difficulties are not news. The content is paramount, and spelling is a peripheral detail. That's what editors are for.

I'm not sure which authors you're talking about. From what I know, if you send an editor a story filled with spelling mistakes, the editor's going to toss it in the nearest wastebasket. If he's really nice, he'll send you a letter telling you to learn to use a damn spell checker. Editors don't have time to slog through everything they're sent doing work the writer should have done in the first place.

This is an example of why spelling software on computers won't always be of much help.

They are TONS of help. Your example is just deliberately designed TO pass a spell checker. Sure, there are words they won't catch because they look like another word (although a grammar checker can sometimes catch it), but most misspellings don't look like other words.

We need standard spelling, because we need to be able to understand each other. Personally, I don't want to have to waste brain power trying to muddle through somebody's writing that's written with their own individual spelling because they don't want to learn the same English language the rest of us learned.

Should language evolve? The English language, with all its chaos and difficulty, evolved, and look how fun it is to learn. Do we really want it to go evolving more and getting worse? Personally, I shudder every time I get a text message that reads "hi how r u im god i hope u r 2".

Post by **Dale** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 2:00 pm

My new album of death metal polkas will be titled "The Downward Spiral of Addition."

Post by **Nanohedron** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 2:01 pm

Dameon wrote:
Take writers of books, for example: authors with spelling difficulties are not news. The content is paramount, and spelling is a peripheral detail. That's what editors are for.
I'm not sure which authors you're talking about. From what I know, if you send an editor a story filled with spelling mistakes, the editor's going to toss it in the nearest wastebasket. If he's really nice, he'll send you a letter telling you to learn to use a damn spell checker. Editors don't have time to slog through everything they're sent doing work the writer should have done in the first place.

Couldn't tell you specifically. Perhaps it's just an urban myth, but I've heard that more than once. Maybe it's a case of those who need them having their own editors. It would only be smart thinking to do so. I sure as heck wouldn't submit a work full of bad spelling except where it was deliberately intended.

fearfaoin · Post by **fearfaoin** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 2:01 pm

djm wrote:This is a good example of a literate person who is unable to effect the ignorance of the semi-literate.

Or even "affect" it.
There's no such thing as an "effectation".

djm · Post by **djm** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 2:06 pm

fearfaoin wrote:There's no such thing as an "effectation".

Darn! I saw at soon as I read the quotation at the top of your post! ARGH!!!! And I kept telling myself, "Don't use the wrong form. Don't use the wrong form."

I have read several books that were self-published in fields too obscure to get the attention of a professional publisher. Gawd, could they use an editor ... and a spell checker .... and a grammar checker .... and a life .....

djm

susnfx · Post by **susnfx** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 2:07 pm

Regarding employees who send in a great resume but fail to live up to it: We have a great nurse in our clinic. She knows her job and has a cute personality. I don't recall what her resume looked like, but obviously it was okay or better since she got an interview. However, if she'd said, "Have you tooken an antihistamine in the last few days?" during the interview, she wouldn't have been hired. Since my office is close to two exam rooms, I hear her say this several times a day. She's not going to lose her job at this point, but I do wonder if patients are a little hesitant to have tests done by anyone using the word "tooken."

Susan