Spelling mistakes

[BrookeBond]

Has anyone noticed the amount of teenagers, and even adults, who cannot spell simple words. Does this worry anyone else or am I being picky? Surely schools are failing?

[sg]

my father would have taken his bely buckle to me....(hi Squeb!)

[quizbabe]

I was in the supermarket one day and the lady in front of me had two children with her and was talking to the till operator. She said her son was confused about spelling and that she had been called into school because he insisted that you spell quick as Kwik. When his teacher told him that was wrong he said "No it's not my mum shops at Kwik Save sometimes". Can we really blame just the schools?

[Buenchico]

Yes, I've noticed.

I've also noticed people who use 'amount' when 'number' would be better ;-)

Chris

PS: It's all to do with discrete and continuous variables. See here:
http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Phrases-and-Say ings/Question532593.html

[Buenchico]

On a slightly more serious note:

Language is always changing. While it worries me that many people can't spell (or that they don't know when to consult a dictionary), there do seem to be some new spellings which are already regarded as acceptable by some people in the USA. (For example, "your" as shorthand for "you are" frequently occurs on US-based message boards, even when the contributors obviously have an excellent grasp of language). It would seem to be only a matter of time before such spellings become acceptable on this side of the Atlantic.

Chris

[compman]

As well as not spelling correctly, some people don't even know the meaning of words or how they should be used. This then makes conversation difficult.

It amazes me how many people use the phrase 'I should of..........' instead of 'I should have............'.

Also, what about people recalling a conversation to friends, saying 'He goes...............', and 'I goes..............', instead of 'He said..............', and 'I said...........'.

[Whickerman]

loose does not equal lose.

And please, don't get me started on apostrophes.

[Bathsheba]

I agree Whickerman . Is there a special evening class for greengrocers in the abuse of the apostrophe?

[figure]

I think continuous shortening of words when texting may also be a contributing factor to this.

[spudqueen]

I agree BrookeBond. When I see wrongly spelt words (or the wrong use of words) on answerbank I am just itching to correct it. I have tried this, I once pointed out to someone that as they were asking about envelopes then it should have been stationery not stationary. There were then about six posts shooting me down in flames. But if you don't know then you will only learn if people point these things out.

[Bathsheba]

It's so irritating isn't it though? At a library I was invited to browse through their new book's. In a library!!

[crisgal]

my 14 year old's spelling and punctuation is shocking!
His school isn't bothered though. He recently brought home a history paper that had been marked as a GCSE. He got a C although it was riddled with terrible spelling mistakes!
He says that it isn't a problem as there is always spellcheck!

[jake-the-peg]

My spelling has always been attrocious.

However, it didn't stop me from getting a degree in Physics and getting a grip on subjects like quantum mechanics and relativity and working as a physicist on nuclear fusion experiments.

I guess to some extent it depends on what you're writing and why you're writing it.

Spelling mistakes look unprofessional but they rarely inhibit what you're communicating.

The real questions are
1) Why do we still see them so often with spell-checkers so common
2) When are we going to get one on this website?

I agree about apostraphe's ;c) because they change the meaning.

But certain things are dying and we should let them go.

Semi-colons for one - I can't remember the last time I saw one in technical literature.

And "whom" - that just needs a final knock on the head to consign it to the same fate as "thee" and "thou".

And don't get me started on people who think there is a "proper" English or those who flip out about the Hibernian (H)aitch!

(Oooh I started two paragrahs with "And" there! - smack my wrist! )

[Bathsheba]

Apostrophes didn't need an apostrophe there jake!

[jake-the-peg]

That's why there was a smiley with a wink ;c)

[pingping]

need I say anything else: http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Media-and-TV/Qu estion538197.html

[andrea81]

Very aware.. My first language is Welsh and I tend to spell as I say it, so I'm rather rubbish with spelling! I do worry about it and try my best though! Plenty of crosswords and reading has helped!

[jake-the-peg]

Ah! Now this is "text speak"

A classic example of how communication is the core important factor in writing.

The idea of course is to communicate the maximum amount of information with the smallest amount of "bandwidth".

To use a computing analogy it's similar to using data compression on old slow modems. The overall effort in encoding and decoding is higher but the impportant thing is the size of the message which is minimised.

I think it's inappropriate and frankly a bit rude on a site like this where you have plenty of bandwidth (2000 characters) but it's not the same argument.

Of course on the other hand I've seen the most wonderful flowing prose that communicates priceisely nothing.

Perfect spelling and grammer is useless if what you're saying is a pile of bilge.

Unfortunately I think that's often the bigger problem.

[annie0000]

"grammar"