Poor Spelling; what's the cause??

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fatblokish

Guru
Location
In bath
The forum is not a teaching environment, and most people are not here for grammar classes. And a little humility wouldn't go amiss amongst the pedants and didacts - not only are they often, as Vernon points out, wrong on their own terms and self-contradicting, but for me their preoccupations reveal some pretty fundamental misapprehensions and some deeply conservative assumptions about the way language works. It's quite common to see people correcting another when in fact they could learn a thing or two about writing from the correctee...
But the forum is certainly a learning environment, a place where those with experience can support, aid or otherwise assist those that seek advice. Oftentimes (particularly, in "Commuting" it seems^_^) teaching is provided without being solicited.


Our ability to improve is frequently inspired by others. Sometimes it is encouraged by others. Occasionally it is thrust upon us (the memory of school chemistry lessons last thing on a Friday afternoon still make me shiver). Should our efforts to seek improvement end when we quit school, or when the boss is finally happy with that report we wrote, or when we finish that 100k/25 minute TT ride? Very many of the posts on this and other threads would suggest otherwise.


And who are these pedants and didacts to whom you refer?
 

fatblokish

Guru
Location
In bath
I
If people would like their posts corrected marked, you could start a written English tuition thread and see what the take up is. Your offer to educate the peeps on here may be well received.
I'm not good with spelling or grammar, but I get by. What I come on this forum for is -

1. To be entertained by some very, very, funny members posts.

2. To read interesting threads and learn about cycling and maintenance through the experiences of others.

3.To ask others with more experience than me, (or is it I) for help, so the pleasure I get out of cycling can just grow and grow :smooch:.

I made no offer to educate anyone; I will leave that to those with better english than I.
 

Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
I'd sooner get good advice spelled incorrectly, than bad advice spooled baddly :smile:

But I know what you mean.

My biggest problem is when I review and edit a post before I send it. I tend to change little bits which then effects the context or leaves 'redundant bits' in. I must confess - I often have to go back in and edit posts after I've made them.

Conversely - I get constant criticism from my kids for spelling out words fully and using punctuation in my texts to them!

<sits on hands>
<chews lip>
<bites tongue>

Affects!

(Affect is the verb, that which is done to something. The effect is the consequence.)

I'll get my pedantic coat.
 

mr_cellophane

Legendary Member
Location
Essex
Partly down to poor elocution as this school in Essex proved. Get people to speak properly and then the spelling and grammar follows.
 
I'm guilty of typing to fast, well to fast for me anyway and not proof reading :blush: Common for me is to miss out short letters to, write 'it' rather than 'it's' or 'it was' for example or type something backwards or out of order, like 'teh' instead of 'the'. Or just writing something which is gobblygook until you add a few commas. Modern spell checkers (ie the one which underline a mis-typed word) have also made me lazy and when its not there I fail to notice sometimes :blush:
 

colly

Re member eR
Location
Leeds
Cobblers. It proves no such thing, and anyway I strongly object to the notion that RP is speaking "properly" - it's just a privileged accent.

I've no idea what the school in Essex were doing but speaking properly and RP are two different things.

I'm sure we have all heard people with strong regional accents speaking 'properly' and we can all understand exactly what they say and mean. Just as we have all heard people with all sorts of accents speaking so poorly that it is difficult to decipher.
It's more about diction and forming words properly.

'Would of' / Would have' etc
 
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