Iz this spelt rite?

[MossRoad]

I said my kids scored high in language skills, not me.

Mine, too. They do well in everything. I wonder where they get it? Must be from the wife (I blame her for everything so I'll blame the smart kids on her, too).

Really, though, I think it is that my wife read to them every day. Whether it was just a quick book on the way to day care or long stories before bedtime, it instilled a love of reading in them that they still have. They'll each read 3 or 4 books a week no problem. I think it helps with their comprehension and that makes other subjects easier, since they can comprehend the instructions.

As for spell checking my posts on TBN... sometimes I do it and sometimes I don't. Especially late at night, when I'm discussing things with my Power Trac friends and I'm a little sleepy, I'll see a misspelling and just say, "Oh, forget it, I'm tired and want to go to bed. They'll forgive me." I close the window and go to bed. By the way, this is the face I make when I sleep...

 

[Soundguy]

I am afraid the late Shirley Piland (my wonderful English and Journalism teacher from high school) has rubbed off on me. In reading a post on this forum, particularly a lengthy one trying to make a serious point, the writer can get by with one or two spelling or grammar errors. After that my interest in what is being said starts to wane. Shirley was not a "content" teacher. The first spelling or grammar error took your paper from an A to an A-. The next one took you to a B+. So, regardless of what you had to say, 11 little mistakes in a 5 or 6 page paper and you failed.

While there is deffinately something to be said about form.. I still place a high importance on content.

I'd rather have a good competent mechanic who knew exactly what my vehicle's problem was, and how to fix it.. though may not be able to fill out the work order, vs some guy that only knows how to read a scan tool, and check a diagnostic flowchart.. but is a whiz at filling out my invoice.

I guess it boils down to ballance and diminishing returns. You don't want so little form that the content is unuseable.. and you don't want to stress form so much that high content individuals are obsoleted in favor of low content high form individuals... at least that's my opinion anyway.


Soundguy

 

[Soundguy]

I think that many abbreviations came about from low bandwidth connections.

I'm an old BBS guy.. I used to run multi-node BBS's on dial in lines back int he 80's and 90's ( still have a single dial in line up... ). In the old days.. you saw everything from 57bps acoustic coupled modems to 300, 1200..etc and 2400 was the 'norm'.. then high speed schemes came in One of the earlier ones I remember was HST vis USRobotics modems... which i still use today. I still have one of their older external V.Everything units.

Much of the abbreviates text is a carry-over. Also.. text messaging, for obvious reasons, use many abbreviations.

Soundguy

The other thing that I don't like is how we as a society have accepted the abbreviation of most everything. Thanks to Instant Messaging everything is abbreviated. LOL, BTW, DW, DH, IMHO just to point out a very few.
Just spell the word so people know what you are saying.

 

[flwiii]

All kinds of things like those have spilled over into the English language. The term we use spelled "OK" is in reality a spoof that an old journalist did way back in the 30's I believe. I am not sure of the date, but he had a column where he made fun of certain phrases. The one he chose to attack on this certain occasion was the phrase "All Correct". His column started with "Oil Korrect". It eventually morphed into OK to mean "All Correct". After that it was unstoppable.

 

[Marine1]

Soundguy,
That's no excuse . Seriously though, that is a good point I wasn't into computers at that time so I don't really know about that history. Makes sense though. Truthfully, I'm not really into them even now. I can understand the need for it in text messaging, but even with dial up like mine the need for it just doesn't seem to exist. I think it is a real problem for our youth who don't practice spelling and punctuation when they can. People today can't even speak well, much less spell well. The way you speak means a lot to other people in the job hunt and If you make to many mistakes filling out an application then it really gets bad.

I guess I'm just old fashioned.

Oh! is BBS Broad Band Service? I really don't know.

 

[flwiii]

Bird:
Thank you for the grammatical correction. I get the gist of it now.

I agree, ignorant doesn't mean unintelligent, just lack of knowledge on a given subject. The trick is to use your knowledge to develop wisdom.

 

[flwiii]

"While there is deffinately something to be said about form.. I still place a high importance on content."

SoundGuy:
Definitely has only 1 "f" and no "a's" in it. Balance has only 1
"l" in it. Unusable has no "e" after the "s". Sorry, just couldn't resist after I used jest incorrectly earlier.
Can't be sure now if you are doing these on purpose to see if anyone catches them.

 

[SkyPup]

Lurning English reqierz roet memory rather than lojic.

Wuudn't it maek mor sens to spel wurdz the wae thae sound?

 

[Soundguy]

I would have to have a very uninteresting and sedintary life if all I did was set and identify other's errors! That's why i just type and go. As I said.. as long as the text is mostly human readable.. I'm happy!

Soundguy

 

[Soundguy]

Lurning English reqierz roet memory rather than lojic.

Wuudn't it maek mor sens to spel wurdz the wae thae sound?

Have you read the paper. There is a small movement trying to get the US to simplify spelling. As a matter of fact.. they want to go to phonetic spelling... So.. what you wrote would be perfectly acceptable!!

Soundguy

 

[flwiii]

Marine 1:

BBS stand for Bulletin Board Service.

 

[Gatorboy]

How much attention to spelling do you pay?

Quite a bit.

I never use a spell checker -- if I know I don't know how to spell a word, I look it up in a dictionary. I hated English, and I am a horrible writer, but I do pride myself on my spelling ability.

When some words that are not used that often get misspelled, I overlook it, but when common words that people use everyday are spelled incorrectly, there is no reason for it. The same words are used correctly by others, and when they read the posts on here, doesn't it sink in?

I'm not referring to when someone hits the wrong key, or hits a key by accident and doesn't catch it -- I'm talking about the same words misspelled over and over again.

 

[Marine1]

Flwiii,

Wow! was I wrong. At least I was close. There were 2B's and an S.
Thanks for the insight.
All I know is that I am fluent in two languages. English and Jibberish.

 

[MikePA]

Misuse of words (see below) I've always assumed are people being in a hurry.

Your - You're
Their - They're - There

A new one,

wasting - waisting

 

[PitbullMidwest]

.. they want to go to phonetic spelling...

Shouldn't "phonetic" start with an "f" ?

 

[goaliedad]

One of the radio stations I work for is a talk station- each week they do a segment with a retired English Professor about spelling, word meanings and origin and grammar and punctuation. The "Prof" has a saying that he uses to open the show- not sure if this is a direct quote or not- This show is about the English Language and it's rules. Not that grammar is a scared cow, but it is how we communicate. The limits of my language are the limits of my world" I work in sales- it is extermely important that I express myself clearly and accurately. As many have pointed out, in personal communications things may be lax, in business, it better be clear. In this forum, sometimes I have problems following someone's thoughts. Then I say, yes spelling is important- if I can follow the thread- no harm no foul. Now, where is that spell check button?

 

[Gatorboy]

A new one,

wasting - waisting

How about those using the word loose when they mean lose.

Loose - NOT tight
Lose - Did NOT win

 

[BillyP]

The other thing that I don't like is how we as a society have accepted the abbreviation of most everything. Thanks to Instant Messaging everything is abbreviated. LOL, BTW, DW, DH, IMHO just to point out a very few.
Just spell the word so people know what you are saying.

Kind of like FEL and HST huh?

 

[AndyM]

How about those using the word loose when they mean lose.

Loose - NOT tight
Lose - Did NOT win

This one bugs me most...

It's - Its

 

[Farmwithjunk]

Well, I started this mess, I aught to get my say in before it's over.

I'm not a great speller. I do TRY. I keep a dictionary handy. I use my spellcheck on work related "stuff". On websites like this, I don't take enough time to proof my "work", but that's generally do to being in a big rush. (Trying to get my job done and still have time to play)

What I've learned;

NEVER make a final judgement on someone by just their spelling. It MAY look bad to spell Hydraulic as hidrualik or any of the 4973 ways I've seen it spelled, but that doesn't on it's own mean anyone is "dim". The two "smartest" guys I've ever met would appear to most folks to be real dufus material.

Get the important points right in any conversation.

Sometimes the brightest of the bright play the role of rube just to keep others off guard.

It's not what you know that's important, it's what you DON'T know. You never know how much you don't know. And you may never know just how wise the "big dummy" next to you is.

In closing, I have to laugh at myself for the reason I started this thread. I was reading someones post, saw a misspelled word, realized it was misspelled, then saw in one of my OWN posts where I'd used the same misspeling. What a stooge this other guy was. And mine was just a simple mistake.