[Closed] spelling mistakes, really that important?

Drac - Moderator

At the age of four, I could count to one thousand.

I could count to 1001.

At the age of four I knew that 1001 could clean a big, big carpet and for less than half-a-crown.

I fully support the race to the bottom in the world of communication and those who think it is acceptable.

More work for those of us who can string a sentence or two together whilst the rest carry things or shovel things for a living.

People that whine about other people's poor English on a forum are utter bellends. I don't correct or tease people about their English skills [i]except[/i] when they've tried to correct, chastise or otherwise act the snob to someone else and then have made mistakes themselves.

It's a pretty basic human skill.

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Thats not really an illustration of poor spelling. All those words have the right letters in them, they haven't been misspelt

What that attempted Facebook meme better illustrates is good text layout. People tend to subvert themselves when they try to make text clear, by making text bolder, or typing in capitals, or increasing the text size to such a degree you only get 3 or 4 words on a line. But if you do all that you lose the shapes of the words and phrases and the legibility decreases. A good example of that is road signs used to be all in capitals - when roads got busier and the speed of traffic increased they had to switch to lower case as you can read lower case quicker. So counterintuitively if you leave text in lower case and give the words a bit of breathing space by keeping the point size modest so you get whole phrases on line you can jumble the letters as much as you like and people can read it

But as for the snarking and sniping here about spelling and grammar..... its only a forum for chit chat. I'd take the time to proof what I type if it was going out to a print run of several thousand copies or was being submitted for assessment, but for you lot I just click 'send pist'

Y'know, this thread and the [url= http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/am-i-too-unconventional-to-work-in-an-office ]office workwear[/url] one are ostensibly the same argument.

Rightly or wrongly, people will judge you by your appearance. It's human nature. And on a text based forum, how you type is how you present yourself. If your posts looks like they belong on a teenager's Facebook page, it potentially undermines your credibility. That's not irredeemable, but it means you've to work a little harder for respect. Similarly, if I were to go to a meeting in jeans and a tee-shirt, certainly with people I don't know, I'd expect to have to make more of an effort in order to be listened to.

Of course, STW isn't a job interview. When I go to work day to day, I wear jeans and a polo shirt because everyone knows everyone else, it's a relaxed atmosphere and I don't need to dress up to be taken seriously.

So I think what I'm trying to say is that it [i]shouldn't[/i] matter in an informal setting, but it does make a difference until familiarity has been established.

People that whine about other people's poor English on a forum are utter bellends.

It depends how it's done, though, doesn't it. Sometimes I like to take the piss with a cock-up but some still get the annoyed by that, seeing it as some sort of attack on their character.

I don't correct or tease people about their English skills except when they've tried to correct, chastise or otherwise act the snob to someone else and then have made mistakes themselves.

You need to chill...

I absolutely refuse to learn or be taught anything. I have no pride in myself and I don't care whether people perceive me as being thick or lazy. I also don't care whether or not I am understood by others and simply don't have enough respect for you to write or speak correctly. I will find weak and pathetic excuses to cover my laziness and try, with all my ability, to make you responsible for my weakness by accusing you of pedantry.

It depends how it's done, though, doesn't it. Sometimes I like to take the piss with a cock-up but some still get [s]the [/s]annoyed by that, seeing it as some sort of attack on their character.

FTFY

This is the problem, those that deem it necessary to take the piss are not correct all the time but seem OK taking the piss as stated above.

However it very much depends. Some spelling mistakes are amusing, some posts make no sense at all.The fact that the person correcting someone else is "taking the piss" is the issue. If it was just for amusement it would be more acceptable as we all like a laugh. But in a deliberate attempt to belittle someone!

Ha, always the way.

But yeah, as long as it's done in a jokey fashion there's no problem as far as I'm concerned. As you write, though - to belittle is to make oneself a pianist...

It depends how it's done, though, doesn't it. Sometimes I like to take the piss with a cock-up but some still get the annoyed by that, seeing it as some sort of attack on their character.

...and pianists...

As an aside,

When I first joined on here, I made the mistake of correcting someone who I incorrectly believed was a non-native speaker (he was living abroad but born here, as I now understand). I thought I was being helpful; his response was to troll me for the next month.

It's so easy to be taken the wrong way.

I think the op is genuinely interesting. As for the correcting spelling and grammar on here, I always that was just part of STW folklore and tradition?

Predictive typing is a pain on here though IMO!!

It's so easy to be taken the wrong way.

So many retorts. So little time...

Yes yes. q-:

It's so easy to be taken the wrong way.

I know, I bled for a week.

EDIT: beaten again dagnabbit.

[s]I absolutely refuse to learn or be taught anything. I have no pride in myself and I don't care whether people perceive me as being thick or lazy. I also don't care whether or not I am understood by others and simply don't have enough respect for you to write or speak correctly. I will find weak and pathetic excuses to cover my laziness and try, with all my ability, to make you responsible for my weakness by accusing you of pedantry.[/s]

FTFY

this is largely just snobbery tbh

The whole point of language is to communicate ideas and thoughts - you can do this with or without good spelling and grammar [ though it often helps-see the campaign for real english where following the rules does not actually lead to good communication despite following the rules]

I dont view people as thick and beneath me because they cannot or dont do this anymore than I view someone who does not know how to lay and dig foundations as beneath me.

I often dont bother trying on here as its an easy way to spot the uptight folk who need to feel superior to some folk by archaically adhering to some rules which add little to comprehension

Colourless green ideas sleep furiously

Admire my spelling and grammar eh

I thought I was being helpful; his response was to troll me for the next month.

I might be wrong but I believe that post was written with tongue firmly in-cheek, Junkyard.

Probably wrong...

teasel +1 but it just shows how posts are so easy to mis-interpret, which is where many arguments on here seem to stem from!! By their nature, post always appear much blunter than intended IMO.

WHAT AND MINE WASNT - humorous that is, we will take the blunt as a given.

Hopes caps locks means he gets away with Edinburgh defence 😳

I thought it was pedant bat happy to use bellend in future. I have learned something today therefore it's a good day.

The possessive of it was originally it’s, and many people continue to write it this way, though the apostrophe was dropped in the early 1800s and authorities are now unanimous that it’s can be only a contraction of it is or it has.

Its when you get bollocks like above where the "authorities" state, I assume these are the same authorities that are getting buggered on some common in London, fiddling their expenses and running the country in their spare time.

Language will evolve as necessitated by the people. Compare modern English to that of even 100 years ago let alone 200 or 300 years ago. I believe there is a recognition with English being, currently, the most spoken language on the planet it will develop more quickly as people with English as a second language are having a greater impact on it than we are ourselves.

I don't mind typo's

People confusing loose and lose though, that winds me up

Most of the time poor spelling & grammar aren't a problem on here.
This isn't real life, however.

If you are an engineer, a coder, a medic or lawyer or accountant; if your writing is sloppy and incorrect it is logical and reasonable to assume that your work and advice will also be sub-par. Poor spelling & grammar matters in the world outside. It's more important now because of the greater amount of communications we have with non-anglophones, whom may have more difficulty in interpreting incorrect English.

There are a few spelling and grammar nazis on here though but any comment I make about someones spelling will be very much tongue in cheek.

@richmtb, I make that mistake a lot but it is because the "o" is knackered on my keyboard and I can't be arsed replacing it.

I think it comes down to how bad is it, the context and the individual.

I write technical documents, I actually understand and design what I discuss and write about. Running spell checker is a nightmare as it doesn't know half of the language that I use. However I was asked to interview someone the other day, my first ever interview, and the CV was shocking. Bearing in mind that a lot of what we do in my job is written! It was also twelve pages long so I gave up the will to live, I almost felt like correcting it, to the best of my ability, and wishing him good luck finding another role. Even though the candidate was extremely competent in another discipline.

It is about effective communication, with the odd amusing anomaly thrown in for good measure. It is fun when the grammar and spelling nazis get it wrong though and come back saying it was deliberate or tongue in cheek!

People confusing loose and lose though, that winds me up

the problem with loose and lose is the word 'lose' looks wrong on the page. 'Loose' looks more like 'Lose' sounds (to me). And because its so commonly mistyped its an easy mistake to make even if you know its wrong.

I don't mind typo's

I did a little 😆

sbd16v - Member

Why does it always come down to slipping standards, I left school without a gse in English 15 years ago, and I'm sure there were people 15 years before that without a qualification aswell.

Basic written english is primary school stuff though

Basic written [s]e[/s][b]E[/b]nglish is primary school stuff though

Go and sit in the corner and think about what you've just done.

You haven't lost it during your break CFH!! Welcome back 😉

Not sure he has much to loose {intentional] or hang on to tbh 😉

Why punctuation is important:

"I helped my uncle, Jack, off his horse"

Mistakes are fine, laziness is annoying, no wot i meen lyk?

spelling mistakes, really that important?

When posting on internet forums, no. When writing official documents for work, or writing CV's, covering letters etc. then yes spelling mistakes do matter.

I absolutely refuse to learn or be taught anything. I have no pride in myself and I don't care whether people perceive me as being thick or lazy. I also don't care whether or not I am understood by others and simply don't have enough respect for you to write or speak correctly. I will find weak and pathetic excuses to cover my laziness and try, with all my ability, to make you responsible for my weakness by accusing you of pedantry.

It's not that simple though is it.
I have to converse with people who don't understand the language that I speak fluently, that's because they are not as visually aware as I am or have a visual talent that is not the same as mine, this is why they employ me to take photographs not do the job themselves.
As long as I can converse by email (with a few typos and grammar mistakes), speak on the telephone and verbalise a visual concept so they can understand what I am producing for them and produce a invoice that adds up then they don't have a problem.
If my work was dependant on word perfect English I would try to attain that, it isn't so I dont bother, I make allowances for people's visuall illiteracy and they make allowances for my spelling/punctuation.

Text speak, rather slang speak, I like,

Elfin had a way of typing that I could understand and it amused me. Some folks on here are too literate, being a pedant is one thing, pulling someone else up by being pedantic is just bullying IMO.

Each word in the English Language has many interpretations depending on the context of both the Author and the Reader. How you spell shouldn’t have a detrimental effect if you understand the context of whats written.

When posting on internet forums, no. When writing official documents for work, or writing CV's, covering letters etc. then yes spelling mistakes do matter.

Isn't the best way to approach that to spell correctly every time, then you won't get caught out posting things about your "skillz" in that important work presentation?

I'm firmly in the "it matters" camp and even more firmly in the "relying on spell-checkers is no substitute" camp after seeing someone give a presentation on which their job depended, which consistently used the word "asses" where "assess" would have been the correct choice in the Powerpoint slides. He shortly thereafter was "pursuing other professional opportunities"

Text only communication so some things [b]do[/b] matter, spelling errors and typos are pretty forgiveable I reckon but you're/your and a bit of punctuation are quite important, otherwise it takes ages to decipher what's being said.

Predictive can cause a lot of confusion too.

Elfin had a way of typing that I could understand and it amused me

Elfin had a way of typing that pissed people off. Which of course is probably why he did it.

I'm firmly in the "it matters" camp and even more firmly in the "relying on spell-checkers is no substitute" camp

I might have to disagree slightly there. For informal situations, I wish people relied on spell-checkers more.

Say by your own admission you're bad at English. And I'm generalising 'people' here rather than talking about STW members. Assuming no mitigating circumstances (eg, dyslexia) you've basically two options. You can try and improve it, or you can go "I'm bad at English" and make it everyone else's problem to try and decypher your semi-literate droolings.

I guess I just don't understand why anyone would choose option b) other than sheer idleness or apathy (or I suppose, stupidity). It's the same attitude I hear at work from some end users, proudly boasting that they 'know nothing about computers' like it's some badge of honour - it's the 21st Century and it's part of your job, take some bloody responsibility and better yourself.

Because, the thing is, there are tools to help. We have spell-checkers. We have predictive text. We have people who will (gleefully) correct you. And if you use these tools, you can look up how words are spelt and, whilst it'll be a pain in the arse to start with, [i]you will get better.[/i] And yes, in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter on a chat forum, but think about it, what better place to learn?

seeing someone give a presentation on which their job depended, which consistently used the word "asses" where "assess" would have been the correct choice

Then he was an idiot. Not because his spelling was wrong (easy enough mistake to make) but because he didn't get anyone to proof read it.

i misspelt Shropshire as Shropshite in an advert in a programme, the client approved it,...clearly not my fault!!

seeing someone give a presentation on which their job depended, which consistently used the word "asses" where "assess" would have been the correct choice

My friends son submitted his first report in a new job and an inadvertent click of 'change all' while spell-checking changed every instance of Warehouse in the document to Whorehouse.

In a previous job, I accidentally signed off an email to the charity Scope with "Kind retards" 😆

Fred's typing gave me LOLs - he is bright and creative enough to do it and make it funny and original without being obvious, and it wound plenty up.

I think with the internet etc we see the written word of ordinary folk, so it appears that standards are slipping, while they may not actually be.

It can smack of laziness which is why it winds folk up I guess.

davidtaylforth - Member
At the age of four, I could count to one thousand.

POSTED 18 HOURS AGO # REPORT-POST

Thats probably because you had no mates !

Probably.

davidtaylforth - Member
At the age of four, I could count to one thousand.

POSTED 18 HOURS AGO # REPORT-POST

Thats probably because you had no mates !

Probably.