Erm, I wasn't saying that ALL spelling 'mistakes' are wrong but your & you're are different words. You're is a contraction of you are. Both are correct spellings but the use is wrong. As for spelling for example, lazer is incorrect.
Poor Spelling; what's the cause??
- Thread starter rusky
- Start date
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Erm, I wasn't saying that ALL spelling 'mistakes' are wrong but your & you're are different words. You're is a contraction of you are. Both are correct spellings but the use is wrong. As for spelling for example, lazer is incorrect.
Light Amplification by the Ztimulated Emission of Radiation.
Unless you are referring to a town in Southern France, that is. 
vernon
Harder than Ronnie Pickering
- Location
- Meanwood, Leeds
Not if you are from Zummerzet.
deptfordmarmoset
Full time tea drinker
- Location
- Armonmy Way
Indeed, the famous ''grocers' apostrophe'' has been with us for a good while longer than the internet or mobile phones. I think until very recently there was quite a marked distinction between a ''literate'' class (i.e. those who regularly used the written word for work or letter writing, etc.) and a predominantly oral class whose work and domestic life rarely demanded writing skills, apart from chalking up the day's special offer on the board or sending a ''wish you were here'' postcard when on holiday.
Today, there is much greater - it could almost be tagged ''democratised'' - use of the written word. This has, in turn, brought the oral tradition into confrontation with the written tradition. The major battleground for this, of course, is spelling.
And here there's added interference from US spelling's bodged attempt to make English spelling more phonetic plus the kind of branding that thinks a new night light should be marketed as a NiteLite. People coming from a more oral tradition are faced with a wide variety of spellings and varying degrees of phoneticisation.
swee'pea99
Squire
I don't suppose it's any worse now than it's ever been. People just like to hark back to mythical 'good old days' in this as in many other areas.
In truth, the only way you learn to spell, punctuate and be grammatical is by experiencing language used correctly, in print. I can't spell wrong 'rong', because it looks wrong. Because I've seen it a gazillion times. The less you read, the less likely you are to internalise this awareness of how things should look & sound. And an awful lot of people don't read very much - and never have.
In truth, the only way you learn to spell, punctuate and be grammatical is by experiencing language used correctly, in print. I can't spell wrong 'rong', because it looks wrong. Because I've seen it a gazillion times. The less you read, the less likely you are to internalise this awareness of how things should look & sound. And an awful lot of people don't read very much - and never have.
LarryDuff
Guru
- Location
- Hillsborough Co Down
One cause is that a lot of people just don't care if they spell incorrectly.
MontyVeda
a short-tempered ill-controlled small-minded troll
- Location
- Lancaster... the little city.
All very true. At school and college my English was always very poor... then i somehow ended up working as a writer
since then it's improved tenfold and I even tackle the odd book these days. Bolton is not a palindrome by the way
fatblokish
Guru
- Location
- In bath
I've seen posts on here whose authors have been criticised for their poor or missing punctuation. Such errors, if I may call them so, make both the reading and understanding of the posts much more difficult, IMHO, than poor spelling. I cannot recall similar treatment being meted out to posters with poor spelling.
There seems to be a broad consensus that poor spelling should be addressed. So why not lift the involuntary amnesty here on CC on mis-spelling and pop in a few FTFY.
We gotta start somewhere' y'all.
There seems to be a broad consensus that poor spelling should be addressed. So why not lift the involuntary amnesty here on CC on mis-spelling and pop in a few FTFY.
We gotta start somewhere' y'all.
MontyVeda
a short-tempered ill-controlled small-minded troll
- Location
- Lancaster... the little city.
why is there an apostrophe after somewhere?
swee'pea99
Squire
I know.
vernon
Harder than Ronnie Pickering
- Location
- Meanwood, Leeds
I could start by pointing out the presence of a mis-placed apostrophe in your posting.
You posting highlights the hazards of offering well intentioned advice about spelling and punctuation when the advice proffered also contains errors.
Opening the doors to a plethora of FTFYs and having the FTFYs being fixed will lead to a bloating of the forums and the diminishing signal/noise ratio of the messages will greatly reduce the attractions of visiting the board.
No matter how well intentioned the guardians of spelling, punctuation and grammar are their actions are best left tethered to their dictionaries and 'Eats, Shoots and Leaves'.
threebikesmcginty
Corn Fed Hick...
- Location
- ...on the slake
Really, on a forum it's only the pendants who get overexcited by poor spelling.
deptfordmarmoset
Full time tea drinker
- Location
- Armonmy Way
Penned antics?
I don't think there's a consensus at all. People who get twisty-knickered about other people's grammar and spelling are simply more likely to go on about such things than those of us who aren't bothered by it overmuch. I find it extremely rude to criticize the quality of people's writing in the context of the forum. For that reason I only do it if I intend to be extremely rude. I can think of several posters who write interesting, eloquent stuff despite their dodgy grammar and spelling, and several who write utter bilge in very precise and correct English. I don't think it's helpful to make the former feel self-conscious about their writing or to fuel the already over-developed sense of superiority of the latter.
