Poor Spelling; what's the cause??

[MontyVeda]

why don't we just accept the fact that language is defined by popular usage and move on... the dictionary merely follows in the wake of what we write and how we speak.

Saying that... often times I get irate with some Americanisms... especially 'often times'... it sounds so wrong!

 

[Norm]

..still trying to resist...but "oftentimes" is a very old, originally British English word. It's been around for centuries.

As you were...

Indeed, many "Americanisms", including words and phrases, spelling and pronunciation, conform to the language that was prevalent at the time that they emigrated, and it's the British English which has changed.

 

[MontyVeda]

..still trying to resist...but "oftentimes" is a very old, originally British English word. It's been around for centuries.

As you were...

...which is thee most annoying thing about so-called Americanisms... they turn out to be Englishisms that we've opted out of.

Now, what about all them bloody zeds, or zees?


hands up who gets wound up by the constant misuse of the ellipses (...) ? I just use it as a longer comma most of the time

 

[vernon]

I tried to resist posting this but have succumbed:

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.

As you were.

 

[rusky]

why don't we just accept the fact that language is defined by popular usage and move on... the dictionary merely follows in the wake of what we write and how we speak.

Saying that... often times I get irate with some Americanisms... especially 'often times'... it sounds so wrong!

More often than not, the spelling isn't a case of accepting that the language is defined by popular usage. It's wrong, end of!

As Norm's already pointed out, it's the difference between knowing your shoot and knowing you're shoot!

 

[rusky]

I'm a bit peeved by spelling/grammar mistakes in the body of a message, even more so when they're in the subject line of a thread because we get to read them every time we open the thread up.

By the way, you only need one question mark after your subject.

Like I said, I know my grammar & punctuation is crap!

 

[Manonabike]

Could it be that people are not conscious about it or simply they don't care?

Spelling and grammar are things that I think about every single time I write. English is my second language and that makes things harder..... maybe more so due to the fact I began learning English at the tender age of 23 . I find it embarrassing making either spelling or grammar mistakes, having said that. most of the times I just don't know I made a mistake.

As somebody already mentioned, predictive text is making the problem worse. Spell checkers are really wonderful but they makes us lazy (totally agree with Mistersran on this) - teachers for not insisting on correct spelling, etc. I remember reading assignments that had already been corrected and yet errors such as "their" instead of "they're" were left untouched.

I also dislike using American spelling but I'm afraid we are on a loosing battle with that one. I can see more and more American influence on British spelling and words

 

[MontyVeda]

my spell checker failed massively the other week, so much so I had to take a screen shot:

now I don't expect it have 'prog-rock' in it's dictionary... but prig-rock, prod-rock, grog-rock... frog rock! WTF?

 

[Crackle]

Personally, I don't think it matters in this environment. Sometimes it takes me a few reads to get the gist of a post but then I reply to that, not to the grammar or spelling. Of course, I would hope not to receive any kind of formal letter/email which was badly punctuated and grammatically incorrect.

I think Arch has it about right.

I wonder if it's always been the same, but more and more people are writing stuff all the time now, so it'a more noticable. There was a time, perhaps, when a lot of people did no more than write in greetings cards or the odd letter, and those who did the writing of letters, notices etc, were those with better education, and those who felt confident writing. Now, everyone is tapping away online, often in a hurry, not bothered about re-reading to check content and so on.

 

[MontyVeda]

More often than not, the spelling isn't a case of accepting that the language is defined by popular usage. It's wrong, end of!

As Norm's already pointed out, it's the difference between knowing your shoot and knowing you're shoot!

so should we spell labour with or without a 'u'... seeing as it derives from the Latin, labor... the 'u' must have got in there through popular usage.

 

[rollinstok]

A recent article suggested >90% of modern "A" level students would fail the old "11 plus" entrance exam.
Dumbing down is a pretty effective tactic, used by successive governments to control the masses and to implement the "New world order"

 

[martint235]

I blame spell checkers. When people go back over their documents or posts they just look for the line that says there is a mistake. However, just because a word is spelt correctly doesn't mean its placement is correct. For example, in my new job I have to read a lot of RCA's. These are Root Cause Analyses of problems. For some reason Route Cause Analysis has become the term used.

 

[vernon]

More often than not, the spelling isn't a case of accepting that the language is defined by popular usage. It's wrong, end of!

As Norm's already pointed out, it's the difference between knowing your shoot and knowing you're shoot!

Did you mean; 'It's wrong. End of!' ?

End of what?

 

[vernon]

A recent article suggested >90% of modern "A" level students would fail the old "11 plus" entrance exam.
Dumbing down is a pretty effective tactic, used by successive governments to control the masses and to implement the "New world order"

Dumbing down and poor spelling are two separate issues.

 

[Norm]

so should we spell labour with or without a 'u'... seeing as it derives from the Latin, labor... the 'u' must have got in there through popular usage.

Possibly, but not necessarily and probably not in that particular example.

Common usage (in British English) is that the word is "labour", so that's how we should, IMO, spell the word.

What we shouldn't do, however, is cry "Americanism" when we see the "labor" alternative spelling, for the reasons that you have pointed out.