Is spelling important?

[Edwardoka]

Spelling is very important. Typos are easy enough and excusable, laziness is most certainly not.
Our beloved language is being destroyed by 'Americanisms' and people who just cannot be bothered to try.

Language changes. Your beloved language is a slipshod mish-mash of Old German, Norse, Latin, Welsh, Gaelic and French and is riddled with rubbish, inconsistent rules (about the only good thing going for it is that it doesn't have implicitly gendered nouns.)

 

[nickyboy]

I’v heard a number of people recently ask “can I get a latte?”
We’re in England ffs!!!!

For info I always use this phrase. The fact it naffs off my MiL who insists on saying "please may I have..." makes it all the more appealing

 

[Paulus]

I’v heard a number of people recently ask “can I get a latte?”
We’re in England ffs!!!!

My response would be " You can order, or have a Latte, and then I shall get you the Latte",
This way of ordering has now become very common.

 

[nickyboy]

Language changes. Your beloved language is a slipshod mish-mash of Old German, Norse, Latin, Welsh, Gaelic and French and is riddled with rubbish, inconsistent rules (about the only good thing going for it is that it doesn't have implicitly gendered nouns.)

We only spell colour with a "u" cos we wanted to adopt a Francophile affectation. Before then it was "color" which is why it's spelled (spelt?) like that in N America

Language isn't pickled in aspic, to be viewed in wonderment at its archaic nature. English particularly has absorbed words, spelling and grammar from many external influences. It will continue to change and that, to me, is a good thing. Shows its still alive

 

[Edwardoka]

For info I always use this phrase. The fact it naffs off my MiL who insists on saying "please may I have..." makes it all the more appealing

I got called out by my nuncle at a funeral for the crime of saying the vile Americanism "I'm sorry for your loss"
What was I supposed to say?
"Verily I doth profess mine sorrow forasmuch at this ill wind hath taken thine mater"

 

[Levo-Lon]

Language changes. Your beloved language is a slipshod mish-mash of Old German, Norse, Latin, Welsh, Gaelic and French and is riddled with rubbish, inconsistent rules (about the only good thing going for it is that it doesn't have implicitly gendered nouns.)

I think I dated her once..

 

[Kempstonian]

We only spell colour with a "u" cos we wanted to adopt a Francophile affectation. Before then it was "color" which is why it's spelled (spelt?) like that in N America

Language isn't pickled in aspic, to be viewed in wonderment at its archaic nature. English particularly has absorbed words, spelling and grammar from many external influences. It will continue to change and that, to me, is a good thing. Shows its still alive

We got that wrong then, didn't we? The French for colour is couleur.

 

[Profpointy]

I’v heard a number of people recently ask “can I get a latte?”
We’re in England ffs!!!!

Perfectly reasonable question: they should be able to get one at Costa's

 

[byegad]

I totally buy into the idea that our language evolves. But in this day of automatic spell checking it's not that difficult to get it right.

What really boils me up is the lack of any punctuation, capital letters and incorrect use of words like their, there and they're which make some people's posts hard work to make out their meaning. Cyclechat is really great in that almost everyone makes the effort. But there's a Tropical Fish forum which I used to frequent wear peepl maid know efortt atall

 

[swee'pea99]

The language changes constantly, and thank God for that. As northern scamp nickyboy says, change is what tells you something's alive. Nevertheless, at any given time, there are right ways of doing things and wrong. At best, using your when you mean you're puts ambiguity between you and your reader, which is unhelpful. At worst, wrong compounding wrong delivers no message clearly and more often than not is just plain fugly toboot. The fact that 'fugly' would not have appeared in any dictionary from the '70s doesn't make it wrong, or a non word, or a bad word. But such innovations should, like the rest of the language, be introduced with care and consideration, and subject to the overriding principle that we are all beneficiaries of thousands of years of work by countless millions of people. We are the inheritors of a language of uncommon beauty, agility and precision, and it behoves us to treat that legacy with respect, even reverence.

Innit.

 

[PK99]

The language changes constantly, and thank God for that. As northern scamp nickyboy says, change is what tells you something's alive. Nevertheless, at any given time, there are right ways of doing things and wrong. At best, using your when you mean you're puts ambiguity between you and your reader, which is unhelpful. At worst, wrong compounding wrong delivers no message clearly and more often than not is just plain fugly toboot. The fact that 'fugly' would not have appeared in any dictionary from the '70s doesn't make it wrong, or a non word, or a bad word. But such innovations should, like the rest of the language, be introduced with care and consideration, and subject to the overriding principle that we are all beneficiaries of thousands of years of work by countless millions of people. We are the inheritors of a language of uncommon beauty, agility and precision, and it behoves us to treat that legacy with respect, even reverence.

Innit.

Couldn't of put it better myself!

 

[Ian H]

Indeed, but rarely is someone's spelling etc so poor as to result in misinterpretation

Agreed (mostly) about spelling, but you also mentioned punctuation and grammar.

I'm thinking more about those who bang on about split infinitives, countable nouns, past perfect/past imperfect tenses. Stuff that if you get it "wrong" still doesn't result in misinterpretation. Who cares?

Those are the predictable straw-men. I'm not sure that most people who care about grammar would worry too much about them.

 

[nickyboy]

The language changes constantly, and thank God for that. As northern scamp nickyboy says, change is what tells you something's alive. Nevertheless, at any given time, there are right ways of doing things and wrong. At best, using your when you mean you're puts ambiguity between you and your reader, which is unhelpful. At worst, wrong compounding wrong delivers no message clearly and more often than not is just plain fugly toboot. The fact that 'fugly' would not have appeared in any dictionary from the '70s doesn't make it wrong, or a non word, or a bad word. But such innovations should, like the rest of the language, be introduced with care and consideration, and subject to the overriding principle that we are all beneficiaries of thousands of years of work by countless millions of people. We are the inheritors of a language of uncommon beauty, agility and precision, and it behoves us to treat that legacy with respect, even reverence.

Innit.

You will have seen I snuck (another new word I rather like) in a few colloquialisms in my posts such as "cos" and "naffs off" to see if I would get any bites. The fact I didn't may tell us something

 

[PK99]

30 years ago my job involved reviewing Safety Case documents written by engineers designing Sizewell B nuclear power station before submission to the licencing authorities.

Occasionally they were well written, but it was by no means unusual to find 100 words plus, single sentence paragraphs that, when untangled, actually said the opposite of their intended meaning.

Sometimes precision and concise use of standard English are important.

 

[Pale Rider]

Couldn't of put it better myself!

Er, you could have put that better.