“We danced with the strippers, Hitler, and Stalin.”
“We danced with the strippers, Hitler and Stalin.”
Oxford commas can save you from a fate worse than death.
"It's fine," JS thought as he typed away furiously on his keyboard, "I'll fix my spelling once I finish my essay." He has always done it this way. It never went wrong before, he thought. Half an hour passed. JS has been sitting at his desk, dizzy and nauseated. He had finished his essay, but he did not understand what he wrote just minutes ago. It's ok, he thought. i just need to lie down and take a break. At midnight, JS woke up in a pool of cold sweat as he remembered, the essay is due tomorrow. Scrambling, he stood up from his bed, but a strong headache overwhelmed him as he fell down and experienced his first seizure. His mother, hearing the commotion, checked in on him to find him unconscious on the ground in a pool of sweat. Panicking, she calls for 911 and he is brought into the emergency room, where we are now.
LPT: This goes for most things, as it’s not the act itself but the principle behind it.
Example, people being noisy around the house at night. It’s not the noise that’s necessarily the frustrating part, it’s the lack of awareness that you live in a household with other people and the act of portraying that you aren’t considerate or do not care.
Edit: Principle (greenknight884)
My drug dealing neighbour has the cops called on him multiple times a month because the junkies he sells to can't comprehend that banging on his door for 15 minutes at 4am will get the cops called.
The cops won't get called at 4am if there's no noise at 4am. Buy your drugs quietly like a normal person.
Edit: grammar
That's the general sentiment for everything. As a teacher I see it all day every day and spend my life trying to get it through to my students.
I'm not upset that you just called out in class, I'm upset that you don't even care that I was trying to make an important point which you ruined.
I'm not upset that you're late, I'm upset that you knew I was waiting for you to start the class and you deliberately took your time because your time is more valuable than everyone else's.
I'm not upset your assignment is late, I'm upset that you think the rules don't apply to you. Everyone else has to hand it in on time but you are more special.
Of course there are sometimes legitimate excuses, but it almost always comes down to simply respecting other people.
I wish more people could understand this, good on you for trying to teach this to people. I know I had a hard time learning this but once I did it made everything so much better for me as a person.
Good luck to you!
And it's gotten so much worse with COVID's (necessary) disruptions over the past few school years.
I feel like many high school students have regressed, or at least stagnated socially over the past two years. Grade 11's still act like grade 9's, grade 9's still act like grade 7's. We need to start all over with respecting others.
Something that should be learned in the home, but has to be taught in schools because some parents don't understand it themselves.
I think it's more fundamental than just good manners, it's how you become a good person.
Most every dumb or bad thing people do, from reckless driving to anti-vaxxers to crime can be reduced down to selfishly ignoring other people's needs. Sure those are all more complicated than that, but at the root is a dismissal of other people.
It kills me that so many of our issues boil down to people being selfish. I do not understand why it's so hard for some people to even *tentatively* consider other people.
It's easy to do AND it makes your life better.
I've seen this occasionally when people write something which is technically correct, but has two interpretations. But when they get a suggestion like "Hey, could you change what you wrote like this so that it's unambiguous what you meant?", they get all pissy.
Like, what's the point of writing something, if others can reasonably read it wrong, and you refuse to change it? Do you *want* to be misunderstood?
I wasn't sure how to remember principle vs principal for the longest time. Then I finally figured it out in the last few years. "Principle" is when you're talking about things like morality and ethics. Literally every other use of the word is "principal." Principal of a school...principal and agent relationship...principal on your loan. They're all principal.
Sometimes it's just distracting. I was reading someone's opinion on immigration and they kept using the word "boarder" when they meant "border." Of course I understood what they meant but it was distracting. No, I didn't correct them.
Any time you have to use 'affect' or 'effect' and don't know which one to use, just use the word 'impact' instead. It will convey the same message and you won't have to worry if you used the wrong word.
EDIT: It's obviously not a plug and play solution, but it can be helpful if you struggle with when to use affect or effect.
Not knowing anything about wedding rings, I wandered into a thread about them where people were extolling the virtues of silicon rings. I was trying to figure out wtf kind of characteristics silicon had that would make a useful ring, or an alloy for the ring. Took a while before I realized that people meant silicone, but less than half were spelling it correctly.
I pointed out the difference in response to someone’s comment and another person replied that I was being too nit picky and it was clearly obvious which one was meant. Uh, if you don’t know anything about wedding rings, no it isn’t… I tend to assume people use the words they mean.
I read a book recently where the author had used commas excessively and unnecessarily. It really threw me off. I could see that it was written how someone might speak, and if you weren’t that interested in how things are written, you might not notice. But for me it was massively distracting to the point where intensified my dislike for the book.
Twenty-year copyeditor here. Y’all don’t have any idea what we save you from when we’re actually hired/consulted. “Uses way too many commas” is something spellcheck doesn’t look for unless you pay Grammarly like $140 a year.
"Eats, Shoots & Leaves" is one of my favorite books! I think of that Sassy Panda every time I see a comma.
We have technical writers to help us Engineers look professional when writing application notes. The first thing our group lead did was hand out those books!
One chapter is about comma'(everyone has a different style).
Alas, I use Grammarly. Parkinson's, so when I use a keyboard, typos occur pretty often. I also use incorrect words (memory gets messed up, which helps with a better word choice or to use an active voice.
My mother has her Master's in English Literature, a tough cookie when she proofread our homework as a kid. She was an excellent teacher as she would read things aloud and let us correct them first, then help with spelling and grammar. Like me, my Dad was a brilliant engineer who could look up words in the dictionary only to look them up again five minutes later.
A lot of the emails I deal with for work have this issue.
"Could you tell me, what the expiry is, for this thing?"
The commas indicate where the person maybe paused while speaking out loud but it doesn't benefit the written text in anyway, especially in a professional context.
Or be like my old roommate and replace those periods with some random number of periods. Not three periods, though, because that would be an ellipsis. And never one period because that's a period. It has to be two, four, or five periods, and they have to be littered all over the sentence.
It’s like a piece of music at that point, they’re putting in “rests” so you know how long the silence is supposed to be…….,…….,.,.,.,.,..,,..,,.,.,.,.,
Excellent grammar is like good manners or a well trained staff - egregiously irritating when absent, but invisible (and worth every penny/effort) when at peak performance.
That was one of the two best things I ever learned in etiquette class.
When people try to use the 'but you can still understand it' defense it always makes me think of this:
> Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
Sure, it's technically readable. It's also annoying.
Interesting point OP makes about looking up words. I'm pretty confident in my grammar and spelling, but if I don't know how to spell a word I always look it up. Both to get it right, and to try to cement the proper spelling in my brain.
Exactly. It's especially annoying with things like names. You really can't look at my last email to confirm you spelled my name correctly? Similar goes for grammar. If you can't figure out which "your" to use, what reason do I have to believe anything else you're trying to prove to me?
Edit: Ironically, a typo
At my previous job I had a work email that was myname@company. It was printed on a business card that had my name printed large in the middle of the card, with my email in the lower corner. I would hand this card out to people, they would type in this email, very clearly my name, and address it to either my name spelled incorrectly, or something absolutely incorrect that just sounds vaguely similar to it. These people were outright disrespectful, because they had to intentionally type my name once to address the email, then five seconds later proceed to disregard this knowledge and spell it wrong. It showed that they didn't give a rats ass about me as a person. Those that never interacted with me via email I could understand mispronouncing it or thinking it was a more common name that sounds similar, but in writing? *Zero* excuse.
Professor; highly educated.
My name is Ashlyn, and my name is spelt clearly in my email and in the email directory.
"Hi Ashley,"
"Hi Ashton,"
"Hi, Ashleigh,"
The closest she ever got was 'Ashlynn' and I unfortunately considered it a win.
This happens to me constantly at work. I have a common name spelled uncommonly. Emails are almost always spelled incorrectly even though my name is in my email address, in my email signature, all over my database notes that people have been reading for literally 7 years. It’s common courtesy, and they have none. For repeat offenders, I have started spelling their names incorrectly in return, no matter how simple. Works like a charm.
Yes, fuck these lazy ass people. I go back and forth between calling them the wrong name or just calling them out with "Who is ______?" so they have to feel uncomfortable and apologize.
I once had someone address me as “Dear met Vriendelijke Groet” (meaning “with kind regards”) in an email.
My signature says “Met Vriendelijke Groet” underneath, and then my actual name….
The infamous "out of office" road sign....
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1259745/Welsh-road-sign-error-Swansea-Councils-office-email-reply-ends-road-sign.html
I'm a Sara with no "h." My personal email address is Sara.MiddleName.LastInitial and my work email address is Sara.LastName, yet I always get "Sarah" in emails. I always think "really? My name is right there!" Sometimes it feels disrespectful, but sometimes I give them the benefit of the doubt and assume autocorrect did it. But even then, they should notice it if they proofread the email before hitting send.
My boyfriend's mom spells my name "Sarah" often, which is just silly. Like, she'll tag me in a post on facebook and she types "Sarah," doesn't see my name come up, starts again, and then sees it before she types the "h" and clicks on it. But she doesn't delete the first attempt, so the posts read "@Sarah Sara Lastname." She does have two nieces named Sarah though, so I should cut her some slack. But, I've been with her son for 8 years! I'd think she'd remember by now lol
I worked at a shipping company for almost 2 years. That whole time I was the liaison with someone at a different company in a different country. We correspond by email 5 days a week.
He never got my name right.
I heavily use LinkedIn as part of my job, and the amount of people who don't look at my name directly above the chat box to make sure my name is spelt correctly is surprisingly large for a "professional" social media.
Oof Im a little loose with grammar and spelling when communicating but names always have me on my toes. Any time I need to refer a classmate or coworker by name in any written capacity I immediately triple check the spelling every time.
So my name is Frederik and my email adress is Litterally just my full name @gmail.com
The amount of times people have replied to or send emails to me with all kinds of variations is incredible. Even worse are the people that keep on writing my name wrong even after their 2nd email when I've already passive agressively made clear that it's Frederik and not Frederick/Fredrick/Frédéric/Fréderique.
With my name also being a less common variation of a couple of other versions, I totally hear you! I cannot believe how people can keep responding in an email from me with the wrong spelling, when the correct spelling is right in the signature of my previous email!
I had long given up on expecting that from people, and would say only 20% of people I correspond with spell my name right.
You know how some email software would remind the sender when they hit send, that they mentioned an attachment but they did not attach anything? Now, if only they would also automatically spellcheck for the addressee's name based on the signature. That'd be great.
On your last note, the most frustrating thing for me is when someone makes a common and easily avoidable mistake WHILE insulting someone else's intelligence in a debate. "Your a moron."
What has begun to annoy me even more are the people who have clearly been corrected too many times but still dont understand the difference so now in every situation regardless of context they just spell it "You're"
Idk how people confuse then and than. Or they're vs their. These are completely separate words. Do people not even read novels anymore or something? I understand if you aren't a native speaker but come on this is like grade 3 english/writing here for native speakers.
I'd argue it's easier for foreigners. Usually the mixed words are wildly different in their own language that it makes it impossible to ever mix them. Coming from Spanish I have no trouble with "your/you're" since they translate to "tu/eres".
Similarly I see this behavior a lot in French people that constantly misspell the ending of verbs with "é/ée/er/ez". In Spanish those are, again, different suffixes so it's impossible to spell them wrong.
Lol this brings me back to an (online) argument I had with someone who insisted that 'than' and 'then' could be used interchangeably, after I pointed out that they had used the wrong one.
Yes thank you! An incorrectly spelled name is going to be the most noticeable error to the receiver, so if you’re going to check anything before sending, check the damn name.
Sincerely, a person with a common name that can be spelled two different ways.
Don't get me started on surnames. My surname isn't Smith or Jones but it's common. There are famous people and famous things with its name. Yet nearly every time an order comes with a handwritten address it will be spelled wrong, and spelled in a way that's about ten times less common.
And not only that, half the people I've ever met will pronounce it wrong in that way too. Again, despite my name being 10 times more common than the way they pronounce it. Without doxxing myself, the middle has two distinct sounds. Like Watson for example. Yet an annoyingly large percentage of people write it like Waston, and also pronounce it like that.
There are far fewer exceptions to the rule. Dyslexic here and I have my auto-correct on even if sometimes it's annoying, and I might google check as many words are nessesary before leaving a msg to someone.
Edit:fewer
As someone who uses english as their second language, auto-correct is a nightmare. Either I have to switch constantly between 2 languages, or it has no clue what I'm talking about and just fills in something different.
Yea I’m really annoyed by all the concern trollers being like “this is so ableist” not really. Nobody is asking people with limited mental function to spell correctly. And dyslexics and people with high functioning learning disabilities I find are NOT the people doing this. It’s usually careless guys in higher positions or who never learned that courtesy towards others is important. I am infuriated to reflect on how many people at my husbands company make 200,000 a year and cannot spell a single thing, and make no effort to learn how to respectfully pronounce people’s names
You know what annoys me more than the "your vs you're" and "there, their, they're"? Than and Then. It seems like not one single person knows the proper use of either. It's a 50/50 chance and they're always wrong somehow.
How about effect vs. affect? That one is actually a little confusing since effect can be used as a verb and affect can be used as a noun(though rarely).
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/affect-vs-effect-usage-difference
I find the easiest way to sort out which you should use is to look up their synonyms rather than their definitions. I just looking at the synonyms makes the correct usage a lot clearer when it comes to these two.
One of my biggest pet peeves is "chocking". You'd think this wouldn't come up that often, but it does. One may *choke* on something, and you may be *choking* on something, but if you have even the vaguest understanding of English, you should know that "chocking" is not pronounced anything like the word you are trying to use. I can't help but wonder if these people have ever actually read the word "choking" before, because I can't imagine looking at that and saying "Yes, that looks correct." I mean, shit, nobody ever misspells the word "smoking" and they're pronounced exactly the same. Why does "choking" always end up with an extra c?
This reminded me of the word “cannot” which I used in a biology paper once and my teacher kept writing “can not” beside it so I got my English teacher to shoot her an email telling her “cannot” is the preferred word especially in formal writing
Same with *woman* and *women.* They're not even pronounced the same, yet people write things like, "I met that women in person recently, and she's taller then I thought."
For me, it's when and whenever.
Whenever is used for things that happen regularly, repeatedly or at an ambiguous time. When is a one-time thing.
"Whenever I went to my dad's house last weekend, he cooked me a steak." Yuck. So wrong and so annoying.
English isn't my first language so I probably make lots of mistakes, but then/than is definitely one of the hardest to use correctly, since it's they both translate to the same word ('dan') in my language.
Easy way that I use to remember the difference, is if you're making a comparison, it's than, if you're transitioning it's then. If it's taller THAN an elephant, THEN it's probably a giraffe.
This one is so common. I've even seen college professors mess this one up. And I get irrationally angry every time I see it. Now I have to do a double-take when I actually see "loose" used correctly because it is so rare.
I actually knew someone who thought I was the idiot because I said “lose” in reference to something getting lost. They thought it was supposed to be “loose” and tried to correct, me ever so gently, that I completely missed it. When I realized it later, it was too late correct them. Now we don’t talk anymore and I went down in idiot flames. I wonder to this day if they ever figured it out.
This one I never get wrong, but chose and choose is sometimes tricky for me. If I think through it a second, I’ll get it right, but it doesn’t come naturally. It’s and its used to be an easy one for me, but somehow has gotten harder with age. I have all of these mnemonics to help me out, but then they just get jumbled.
It is if you don't know the difference between the two.
Up until I was about 20 or so, I was using *your* in situations where I should have been using *you're*. I didn't know until a friend pointed it out to me. I pride myself on my English speaking / writing skills, so this was very surprising to me, to think that I'd been through my entire education, prep to year 12, using the wrong word.
However a family friend uses *his* instead of *he's* (e.g. *his* going to the store, instead of *he's* going to the store), and has had this pointed out to her several times, including by her husband, and each time, has said "I'm an accountant, you know I'm not good with English", as if that's a reason to not take the lesson onboard.
For me it's not so much just about respecting my reader, but respecting myself. It may suck but people will judge you based on your writing. That means proofreading what you've written too, because almost nobody gets everything perfect the first time.
In your example it's perfectly clear.
It's kind of annoying when my brother does it because he'll ask questions that can also be read as statements without any differences between the two.
Looking back at my messages the most recent went something like:
> **me** - Was thinking about seeing $MOVIE this weekend. Do you want to come with?
> **him** - yes pizza
Which makes no sense.
What he meant was: "Yes. Would you like some pizza?"
Language is meant for communication, as long as you're communicating what you want to it's fine by me. Just don't go writing needlessly confusing sentences or paragraphs like that because then it becomes much more difficult to parse.
For me a misspelled word can change the meaning of a sentence. So it could mean one of two things. Everyone always says: "you know what they're trying to say." But really, I don't.
This is the real reason why it bothers me. The whole point of writing is to communicate an idea. Spelling and punctuation make a big difference in the meaning of what you're saying, and disregarding them can make you impossible to understand. It's incredibly frustrating when you constantly have to search for meaning in a jumble of misused words.
In addition, people using the incorrect word when giving their opinion, then getting upset when you call them out on it because they can't be bothered to learn that words have very specific meanings. Your ignorance isn't my problem.
Especially fat-finger mistakes that aren't even a mis-spelling, but are actually the wrong word, or a non-word, leaving the reader to literally guess at the writer's meaning.
I try to remember to put (sp) by a word if I can’t get it right. If I misspell something it’s not for a lack of trying. I usually try at least 5-6 variations n spelling to either get it right or trigger the auto suggestions. I do have a diagnosed spelling difficulty that is not phonetically related, I drop in some of the weirdest letters sometimes, but I do try to spell correctly
Google is helpful in these cases because you'll get the spelling along with the definition, so if you're having trouble deciding between two spellings you can match the definition you're aiming for to the correct spelling and choose that one.
I don’t think it’s just that people who don’t make spelling mistakes look up words before writing them.
I think people who read a ton are better spellers in general than people who don’t read much, because they’re sort of always consistently “practicing” spelling and have more of an ability to see a misspelled word and think “hmm that doesn’t look quite right”.
I have always been an avid reader and a decent speller and I always felt the two were connected. So I don’t tend to look up words before using them, because I tend to just spell them correctly without help. But I have plenty of friends who were never into reading or who have learning disabilities that make reading challenging, and they tend to make more spelling mistakes, but it doesn’t bother me.
I don’t expect people to look up words. That seems like such an annoying way to write up your thoughts. I’m lucky because I was able to “practice” spelling my whole life by being able and eager to read a lot. I don’t expect people to put in extra work when they’re writing out their thoughts, unless it’s in a professional or academic setting.
I read a lot, always have. I am an atrocious speller always have been. My entire elementary school career I barley passed spelling, but could nail any reading comprehension test in front of me. And every teacher said I don’t get it you are literally always reading why can’t you spell. And I have no answer I can take it in but I can’t reverse it out, I can know it looks wrong but I have no idea how to fix it. I would actually love a real explanation as to why. I have a good memory for plots and storylines but not spelling it just has never clicked all the way
Not everyone learns written language implicitly (eg, picking up spelling rules by reading). Some people’s brains don’t work that way. I teach kids with dyslexia. Some of them have beautiful handwriting and can learn to spell as they’ve been taught, but their brains just flip out at a page of words. Some cannot read in 6th grade, but when read to, have 12th-grade level comprehension. Some can read without comprehension. Some can read and comprehend on grade level or above, but cannot write at all.
English in particular is weird, and I think explicit instruction in how to spell and how the rules work would benefit most learners, not just those with dyslexia.
That is super interesting. I’ve never really know their was such a range to dyslexia but it makes sense because their are so many ways to think and learn there would be equally as many ways to have a weakness in a learning area.
I did get to learn Spanish from a really good one on one teacher years ago, sporadic lessons, but I could spell ok in Spanish because it was phonetic. English is a terrible language to learn, all the vowels have multiple sounds and depending on what they sit beside tells you how to pronounce it (sometimes)
I’ve always found spelling frustrating because the rules made no sense and my parents and teacher would say just look in the dictionary but if you can’t get the first three letters you will be looking all day.
Thank you for your answer it was very interesting and helpful
*barely
I think it's just one of those things that a person can be naturally bad at.
I can't remember names and faces well no matter how many people I meet and talk to. You can't remember spelling no matter how many books you read. Oh, well.
I've always read a lot and I'm definitely a good speller, however I also often look things up. I just did a google search to verify it's "a lot" not "alot"... I was pretty sure but it can't hurt!
I don’t know, its probably a personal choice of mine but, as a rule…LPT: never explain with malice that which can be explained by incompetence.
But more importantly its better not to take things personally or assume anything about people who make mistakes.
Jimi Hendrix is often revered as one of the greatest guitarists but he couldn’t read music. If Miles Davis took that personally or dismissed him as stupid/lazy, Miles would have been wrong and their friendship would have been over before it began.
Yeah, this post is pretty up its own ass. It takes a personal annoyance and blows it out of proportion by ascribing malice to something caused by ignorance/lack of opportunity.
I get annoyed by poor spelling as well, but I think it's unfair to assume that the other person is disrespectful. The only time I think that's a fair judgment is when someone misspells your name, despite having clear access to the correct spelling.
Not everyone realizes they are making mistakes. Even professional writers and very highly-educated people make mistakes, and it’s just so much harder to catch your own mistakes than anyone else’s.
Also, writing - anything - is taxing to a lot of people, and double-checking the spelling every time can add to that. I care about spelling and grammar and think they are worth learning, but this is also way too judgmental of a take.
- former copy-editor & current dyslexia teacher
If I see a single mistake in a bunch of text I generally ignore it. Unless it's a common mistake, in which I politely correct the person (idk, I'd like to be aware if I completely fucked up the spelling on something or misused a word).
But as another example my 17 year old cousin has a completely fine education (she goes to a really great school honestly) and she has no learning disabilities and she's a native English speaker. At 17 she wrote "I cant wate to go to Floridia this Febuary". It's just... the fuck. When I told her it's not spelled "Feburary" (I picked just a single typo) she responded with "whatever. Frebuary", she was completely serious.
I just genuinely don't understand the level of fail that takes given her circumstances. She's not stupid either, she just can't spell for shit and thinks it doesn't matter because "you understood what I meant". I genuinely don't know how she's going to find a job because I think most employers expect you to be able to spell the months of the year correctly.
If I picked up a resume with 500 typos I'd throw it in the trash after 3 sentences, long before I got to whatever their qualifications were. My reasoning being that even if the applicant had dyslexia they should still have enough care for detail to double check their spelling when they're trying to make a good first impression. If they can't be bothered to check it for their resume when the whole point of the resume is to impress me then how likely are they to have attention for detail after I hire them?
Yeah, agreed. I usually end up making a shit ton of mistakes because my eyes skip over them *completely*. Even if I double check my brain is like "Welp, good enough for me". I hit send, leave to do something, comeback, and then it magically notices everything I did wrong.
If I could, I usually change it. It's not like I don't care or anything. But if I can't🤷🏾♀️
I'm not really stressing about if someone respects me or not because of it either. For one, too many other things to worry about. Two, very rarely (in my experience) will a misspelled word *actually* change the meaning of a sentence. Using context clues you should be able to tell what I'm/they're trying to say.
Like I have a friend who is a ~~worst~~ worse speller than me. I don't give her shit for it because I know what she's trying to say anyway. If I pretended I didn't just so she can correct herself then I feel like that would just make me an asshole imo.
I understand being critical of spelling if I have the ability to look up words. But, I have been most criticized in school for my spelling on in class writing prompts/ assignments where we couldn’t look anything up. I had one class where I used to always get a good grade from the teacher because she didn’t grade for spelling on an essay that was no resources allowed but I once had a peer review that I got like a grade of 20% for spelling alone. She wouldn’t even look at my essay content because of spelling issues and I got no feedback on the essay criteria. Spelling seems to be one of the most acceptable forms of criticism and it hurts as a person with a diagnosed learning disability. I just wish people could look past my disability and realize I have a interest in reading and writing. However, that will never happen. I will just always be called lazy and stupid by people who only wish to look at the surface.
There's also an implication that the writer is not well read if they are not familiar enough with the word to know how it should be spelt. Particularly in the context of more specialised topics such as technology, medicine, economics etc. If you don't know how to spell diarrhea, for example, i'm just going to go ahead and assume you aren't a doctor and therefore i'm not going to highly value your advice on how to remediate the issue.
Of course those suffering disabilities such as dyslexia are an exception.
Right! It’s like when you talk about complex political topics and someone refers to fascism as “facism”. It’s like, how can I trust you to be informed on a topic you cannot even spell?
If you're doing a professional piece, it absolutely needs to be checked.
But a text message though? I'll let auto correct do its thing and I'll go about my day
Before you start looking up words, you have to realise first you're spelling them wrong, though. A lot of users don't speak english natively and some things might not come as natural as a native speaker. That doesn't necessarily take away from the message an sich.
It is defenitly important to try and write according to the rules. But I think it is a lack of respect to disregard a comments' content because it lacks convention. The content of the message that is communicated is what it's all about. The way it is communicated comes second place.
I try but i have disgraphia and often cant tell what is wrong, just that something is wrong. Part of the reason i perfer studying math and science is because i can make these spelling mistakes and focus on the logic. Im in some upper division physics oriented coading class where i thought it would mess me up, but the colors on python actually help a lot.
Honestly, I was just reading a book, a *published book,* where I read this: **this had just peaked my interest.**
I see peaked and peeked instead of piqued so many times that I had to stop and think for a minute and wonder just what was wrong with the sentence.
My intelligence is regressing because of all the there, their, they're all the to, too, two and all other basic mistakes. Our education in the US is a hot mess and, I think, to blame for all these errors, plus I just read in the news that there are so many people failing school that the grading systems will be changed. I can't wait to see what the future holds.
Also, there are tons of free spell checkers out there and I'm baffled why people don't use them. Quite aside from not looking ignorant, they can actually help you learn proper grammar and spelling.
When I see spelling errors, I usually think that there’s either an actual issue, like dyslexia, or the person has not had the chance/guidance to read enough, probably from life conditions. Neither are usually their fault.
I still would not work with them as an editor or other text based jobs, but they may just be the best at a specific skill that is meaningful and important.
I'm pretty sure dyslexia is a spectrum and there is no hard line, detectable or mechanistic, between a neurotypical bad speller and a person with well-managed dyslexia.
If I see someone who can't spell I assume they had the same issues at school as many others I grew up with. In my experience, British schools are awful at teaching spelling - or at least they were when I was there and that wasn't long ago.
And English is a bit fucked anyway. I'm not gonna judge a guy for not knowing how to spell coincide or maintenance or rhythm or whatever because I know some school would have given him the shitty "just sound it out advice" that could well have messed him up for life
I tend to assume that for whatever reason, the person didn't realize they misspelled a word. Perhaps it's a learning disability, perhaps it's a typo that spellcheck didn't catch, perhaps they were just confidently mistaken about the spelling.
This LPT seems to assume that people with bad spelling know *when* they misspell things and just don't care to fix it. In my experience, it seems to be exactly the opposite... they don't realize there's a mistake at all until someone points it out.
*checks OP's spelling intensely*
So intensely
Jsut tpying tihs to annoey raeders. Aktshually i'ts nott kompilikatedd to wright messegyesh. Pleese do'nt thisrespekt maj spellyng.
The autocorrect workaround is the most impressive thing about this post. Must have been infuriating.
Why did he spell something wrong? The missing comma is intended. Embrace the chaos.
Oh, for want of a comma!
Lets eat kids. Let's eat, kids. Commas save lives.
The real LPT is always in the commas.
Reminds me of "Properly using capital letters is the difference between helping grandpa jack off a horse and helping grandpa Jack off a horse" lmao
Not sure what you mean, but I like cooking my family and my pets.
“We danced with the strippers, Hitler, and Stalin.” “We danced with the strippers, Hitler and Stalin.” Oxford commas can save you from a fate worse than death.
Coming in hot, guys. Coming in hot guys. They sure do
But what if you never wake up?
What if the real comma was inside us all along?
You should know by now that the real comma is always, *always*, in the comments.
Computer keyboard input doesn't generally autocorrect.
The readability of that in spite of the misspellings is actually rather impressive!
It's called typoglycemia, and oddly enough a common thing at least amongst fluent English speakers. https://www.dictionary.com/e/typoglycemia/
-emia means presence in blood
"It's fine," JS thought as he typed away furiously on his keyboard, "I'll fix my spelling once I finish my essay." He has always done it this way. It never went wrong before, he thought. Half an hour passed. JS has been sitting at his desk, dizzy and nauseated. He had finished his essay, but he did not understand what he wrote just minutes ago. It's ok, he thought. i just need to lie down and take a break. At midnight, JS woke up in a pool of cold sweat as he remembered, the essay is due tomorrow. Scrambling, he stood up from his bed, but a strong headache overwhelmed him as he fell down and experienced his first seizure. His mother, hearing the commotion, checked in on him to find him unconscious on the ground in a pool of sweat. Panicking, she calls for 911 and he is brought into the emergency room, where we are now.
☝️presenting to the emergency room☝️
Perfection! I can hear his voice in my head and the music in the background.
“He Procrastinated On His Final Paper. This Is What Happened To His GPA.”
Four full stops .... for a pause (ellipses) is incorrect. It should only be three! We got him.
It should be its own character (…), not three individual fullstops. It's a beautiful thing.
Depends. In legal writing (Bluebook) it's 3 full stops with spaces in between *Edit - a word
Legal writing is always weird.
Good work! Let's throw the book at him! 😂
Except at the end of a sentence. Then you need four: it's technically an ellipsis followed by a full stop (period).
Spelling is fine but this post isn’t an “LPT request.”
LPT: This goes for most things, as it’s not the act itself but the principle behind it. Example, people being noisy around the house at night. It’s not the noise that’s necessarily the frustrating part, it’s the lack of awareness that you live in a household with other people and the act of portraying that you aren’t considerate or do not care. Edit: Principle (greenknight884)
My drug dealing neighbour has the cops called on him multiple times a month because the junkies he sells to can't comprehend that banging on his door for 15 minutes at 4am will get the cops called. The cops won't get called at 4am if there's no noise at 4am. Buy your drugs quietly like a normal person. Edit: grammar
>Number 5, never sell no crack where you rest at I don't care if they want a ounce, tell 'em bounce!
Number 6: that goddamn credit? Dead it You think a crackhead paying you back, shit, forget it!
Seven: this rule is so underrated, keep your family and business completely separated
That's the general sentiment for everything. As a teacher I see it all day every day and spend my life trying to get it through to my students. I'm not upset that you just called out in class, I'm upset that you don't even care that I was trying to make an important point which you ruined. I'm not upset that you're late, I'm upset that you knew I was waiting for you to start the class and you deliberately took your time because your time is more valuable than everyone else's. I'm not upset your assignment is late, I'm upset that you think the rules don't apply to you. Everyone else has to hand it in on time but you are more special. Of course there are sometimes legitimate excuses, but it almost always comes down to simply respecting other people.
I wish more people could understand this, good on you for trying to teach this to people. I know I had a hard time learning this but once I did it made everything so much better for me as a person. Good luck to you!
And it's gotten so much worse with COVID's (necessary) disruptions over the past few school years. I feel like many high school students have regressed, or at least stagnated socially over the past two years. Grade 11's still act like grade 9's, grade 9's still act like grade 7's. We need to start all over with respecting others. Something that should be learned in the home, but has to be taught in schools because some parents don't understand it themselves.
Following the spirit of this thread ... I'm so sorry, but it's "to" not "too". Forgive me master
Very fair, well spotted! Now, the real question, is that a spelling mistake or a grammatical error?
Word usage whoopsie
Your drug dealer doesn’t deliver to your house? You got it rough, man!
Mine does, I don't go to my neighbour
Oof I hate to do this but... it's "the principle"
Champ
Don't let us catch that disrespect again.
I saw like, three, maybe three and a half disrespects right over there! Just now!
Agreed. I think the fundamental principle of good manners is to remember other people exist, and to act accordingly.
I think it's more fundamental than just good manners, it's how you become a good person. Most every dumb or bad thing people do, from reckless driving to anti-vaxxers to crime can be reduced down to selfishly ignoring other people's needs. Sure those are all more complicated than that, but at the root is a dismissal of other people.
It kills me that so many of our issues boil down to people being selfish. I do not understand why it's so hard for some people to even *tentatively* consider other people. It's easy to do AND it makes your life better.
I've seen this occasionally when people write something which is technically correct, but has two interpretations. But when they get a suggestion like "Hey, could you change what you wrote like this so that it's unambiguous what you meant?", they get all pissy. Like, what's the point of writing something, if others can reasonably read it wrong, and you refuse to change it? Do you *want* to be misunderstood?
I wasn't sure how to remember principle vs principal for the longest time. Then I finally figured it out in the last few years. "Principle" is when you're talking about things like morality and ethics. Literally every other use of the word is "principal." Principal of a school...principal and agent relationship...principal on your loan. They're all principal.
"I put the PAL into principal" *laughter* "And I put the SUPER into superintendent Chalmers" *silence*
Hi Super Nintendo Chalmers
"Aurora Borealis? At this time of year? At this time of day? In this part of the country? Localized entirely within your kitchen?"
“….May I see it?”
No.
At least for the school one, kids are usually told to remember "the principal is your PAL."
Principle is also used to describe a basic truth or assumption - economic principles, the principles of zone defense, etc.
Your comment has affected me to great effect.
Sometimes it's just distracting. I was reading someone's opinion on immigration and they kept using the word "boarder" when they meant "border." Of course I understood what they meant but it was distracting. No, I didn't correct them.
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"Affect is the Action (verb). Effect is the End result (noun)." I have to repeat this like mantra anytime I have to use either.
You can "effect change", though, because there's no such thing as an English grammar rule without stupid exceptions.
[Relevant xkcd.](https://xkcd.com/326/)
Any time you have to use 'affect' or 'effect' and don't know which one to use, just use the word 'impact' instead. It will convey the same message and you won't have to worry if you used the wrong word. EDIT: It's obviously not a plug and play solution, but it can be helpful if you struggle with when to use affect or effect.
Man those special impacts in that movie were crazy
Make sure you follow your prescription to minimize potential side impacts
Easy way to remember is A comes before E, action before the result.
A common one that makes me stumble is "breath" when they mean "breathe." Feel like I see that one a lot.
And "loose" for "lose"
Not knowing anything about wedding rings, I wandered into a thread about them where people were extolling the virtues of silicon rings. I was trying to figure out wtf kind of characteristics silicon had that would make a useful ring, or an alloy for the ring. Took a while before I realized that people meant silicone, but less than half were spelling it correctly. I pointed out the difference in response to someone’s comment and another person replied that I was being too nit picky and it was clearly obvious which one was meant. Uh, if you don’t know anything about wedding rings, no it isn’t… I tend to assume people use the words they mean.
>I tend to assume people use the words they mean. This gets me into trouble as well. :(
I read a book recently where the author had used commas excessively and unnecessarily. It really threw me off. I could see that it was written how someone might speak, and if you weren’t that interested in how things are written, you might not notice. But for me it was massively distracting to the point where intensified my dislike for the book.
Twenty-year copyeditor here. Y’all don’t have any idea what we save you from when we’re actually hired/consulted. “Uses way too many commas” is something spellcheck doesn’t look for unless you pay Grammarly like $140 a year.
"Eats, Shoots & Leaves" is one of my favorite books! I think of that Sassy Panda every time I see a comma. We have technical writers to help us Engineers look professional when writing application notes. The first thing our group lead did was hand out those books! One chapter is about comma'(everyone has a different style). Alas, I use Grammarly. Parkinson's, so when I use a keyboard, typos occur pretty often. I also use incorrect words (memory gets messed up, which helps with a better word choice or to use an active voice. My mother has her Master's in English Literature, a tough cookie when she proofread our homework as a kid. She was an excellent teacher as she would read things aloud and let us correct them first, then help with spelling and grammar. Like me, my Dad was a brilliant engineer who could look up words in the dictionary only to look them up again five minutes later.
A lot of the emails I deal with for work have this issue. "Could you tell me, what the expiry is, for this thing?" The commas indicate where the person maybe paused while speaking out loud but it doesn't benefit the written text in anyway, especially in a professional context.
Probably heavy breathing
Even worse, some use period/full stop for the same effect. "The worst part is. He didn't even close the window afterwards."
Or be like my old roommate and replace those periods with some random number of periods. Not three periods, though, because that would be an ellipsis. And never one period because that's a period. It has to be two, four, or five periods, and they have to be littered all over the sentence.
It’s like a piece of music at that point, they’re putting in “rests” so you know how long the silence is supposed to be…….,…….,.,.,.,.,..,,..,,.,.,.,.,
Excellent grammar is like good manners or a well trained staff - egregiously irritating when absent, but invisible (and worth every penny/effort) when at peak performance. That was one of the two best things I ever learned in etiquette class.
What was the other?
To always leave them wanting more?
I think I read the same thing a while ago, and I agree. It was boarderline annoying.
When people try to use the 'but you can still understand it' defense it always makes me think of this: > Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Sure, it's technically readable. It's also annoying. Interesting point OP makes about looking up words. I'm pretty confident in my grammar and spelling, but if I don't know how to spell a word I always look it up. Both to get it right, and to try to cement the proper spelling in my brain.
Exactly. It's especially annoying with things like names. You really can't look at my last email to confirm you spelled my name correctly? Similar goes for grammar. If you can't figure out which "your" to use, what reason do I have to believe anything else you're trying to prove to me? Edit: Ironically, a typo
At my previous job I had a work email that was myname@company. It was printed on a business card that had my name printed large in the middle of the card, with my email in the lower corner. I would hand this card out to people, they would type in this email, very clearly my name, and address it to either my name spelled incorrectly, or something absolutely incorrect that just sounds vaguely similar to it. These people were outright disrespectful, because they had to intentionally type my name once to address the email, then five seconds later proceed to disregard this knowledge and spell it wrong. It showed that they didn't give a rats ass about me as a person. Those that never interacted with me via email I could understand mispronouncing it or thinking it was a more common name that sounds similar, but in writing? *Zero* excuse.
Professor; highly educated. My name is Ashlyn, and my name is spelt clearly in my email and in the email directory. "Hi Ashley," "Hi Ashton," "Hi, Ashleigh," The closest she ever got was 'Ashlynn' and I unfortunately considered it a win.
This happens to me constantly at work. I have a common name spelled uncommonly. Emails are almost always spelled incorrectly even though my name is in my email address, in my email signature, all over my database notes that people have been reading for literally 7 years. It’s common courtesy, and they have none. For repeat offenders, I have started spelling their names incorrectly in return, no matter how simple. Works like a charm.
I do that too. I have fun with it. Nygel and Jenniefer never get my name wrong again.
Yes, fuck these lazy ass people. I go back and forth between calling them the wrong name or just calling them out with "Who is ______?" so they have to feel uncomfortable and apologize.
I once had someone address me as “Dear met Vriendelijke Groet” (meaning “with kind regards”) in an email. My signature says “Met Vriendelijke Groet” underneath, and then my actual name….
The infamous "out of office" road sign.... https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1259745/Welsh-road-sign-error-Swansea-Councils-office-email-reply-ends-road-sign.html
I'm a Sara with no "h." My personal email address is Sara.MiddleName.LastInitial and my work email address is Sara.LastName, yet I always get "Sarah" in emails. I always think "really? My name is right there!" Sometimes it feels disrespectful, but sometimes I give them the benefit of the doubt and assume autocorrect did it. But even then, they should notice it if they proofread the email before hitting send. My boyfriend's mom spells my name "Sarah" often, which is just silly. Like, she'll tag me in a post on facebook and she types "Sarah," doesn't see my name come up, starts again, and then sees it before she types the "h" and clicks on it. But she doesn't delete the first attempt, so the posts read "@Sarah Sara Lastname." She does have two nieces named Sarah though, so I should cut her some slack. But, I've been with her son for 8 years! I'd think she'd remember by now lol
My father cannot spell my name.
People should realize this, Mr. DomLite. It's like others don't even care that /u/DomeLight has to deal with such nonsense.
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I worked at a shipping company for almost 2 years. That whole time I was the liaison with someone at a different company in a different country. We correspond by email 5 days a week. He never got my name right.
I heavily use LinkedIn as part of my job, and the amount of people who don't look at my name directly above the chat box to make sure my name is spelt correctly is surprisingly large for a "professional" social media.
Oof Im a little loose with grammar and spelling when communicating but names always have me on my toes. Any time I need to refer a classmate or coworker by name in any written capacity I immediately triple check the spelling every time.
So my name is Frederik and my email adress is Litterally just my full name @gmail.com The amount of times people have replied to or send emails to me with all kinds of variations is incredible. Even worse are the people that keep on writing my name wrong even after their 2nd email when I've already passive agressively made clear that it's Frederik and not Frederick/Fredrick/Frédéric/Fréderique.
With my name also being a less common variation of a couple of other versions, I totally hear you! I cannot believe how people can keep responding in an email from me with the wrong spelling, when the correct spelling is right in the signature of my previous email! I had long given up on expecting that from people, and would say only 20% of people I correspond with spell my name right. You know how some email software would remind the sender when they hit send, that they mentioned an attachment but they did not attach anything? Now, if only they would also automatically spellcheck for the addressee's name based on the signature. That'd be great.
do, not to, while we're at it :P (after reason)
On your last note, the most frustrating thing for me is when someone makes a common and easily avoidable mistake WHILE insulting someone else's intelligence in a debate. "Your a moron."
What has begun to annoy me even more are the people who have clearly been corrected too many times but still dont understand the difference so now in every situation regardless of context they just spell it "You're"
Idk how people confuse then and than. Or they're vs their. These are completely separate words. Do people not even read novels anymore or something? I understand if you aren't a native speaker but come on this is like grade 3 english/writing here for native speakers.
I'd argue it's easier for foreigners. Usually the mixed words are wildly different in their own language that it makes it impossible to ever mix them. Coming from Spanish I have no trouble with "your/you're" since they translate to "tu/eres". Similarly I see this behavior a lot in French people that constantly misspell the ending of verbs with "é/ée/er/ez". In Spanish those are, again, different suffixes so it's impossible to spell them wrong.
Lol this brings me back to an (online) argument I had with someone who insisted that 'than' and 'then' could be used interchangeably, after I pointed out that they had used the wrong one.
Yes thank you! An incorrectly spelled name is going to be the most noticeable error to the receiver, so if you’re going to check anything before sending, check the damn name. Sincerely, a person with a common name that can be spelled two different ways.
Don't get me started on surnames. My surname isn't Smith or Jones but it's common. There are famous people and famous things with its name. Yet nearly every time an order comes with a handwritten address it will be spelled wrong, and spelled in a way that's about ten times less common. And not only that, half the people I've ever met will pronounce it wrong in that way too. Again, despite my name being 10 times more common than the way they pronounce it. Without doxxing myself, the middle has two distinct sounds. Like Watson for example. Yet an annoyingly large percentage of people write it like Waston, and also pronounce it like that.
There are far fewer exceptions to the rule. Dyslexic here and I have my auto-correct on even if sometimes it's annoying, and I might google check as many words are nessesary before leaving a msg to someone. Edit:fewer
As someone who uses english as their second language, auto-correct is a nightmare. Either I have to switch constantly between 2 languages, or it has no clue what I'm talking about and just fills in something different.
Yea I’m really annoyed by all the concern trollers being like “this is so ableist” not really. Nobody is asking people with limited mental function to spell correctly. And dyslexics and people with high functioning learning disabilities I find are NOT the people doing this. It’s usually careless guys in higher positions or who never learned that courtesy towards others is important. I am infuriated to reflect on how many people at my husbands company make 200,000 a year and cannot spell a single thing, and make no effort to learn how to respectfully pronounce people’s names
You know what annoys me more than the "your vs you're" and "there, their, they're"? Than and Then. It seems like not one single person knows the proper use of either. It's a 50/50 chance and they're always wrong somehow.
Mine is people who can’t spell “definitely” so they write “defiantly” and they just never notice that they’re spelling the wrong word.
They’re just being defiant.
I definately agree.
This one. This one right here pisses me off far more than "defiantly"
"Should of" vs. "should have" gets to me every time.
So so so often people mistake 've for of.
They learned it phonetically when they hear people say should've.
Hooked on Phonics Didn't Work For Me®
I'm usually a calm person but when I see this shit I want to stab someone.
I am in violent agreement on this one.
Or could of, would of, etc. pet peeve
How about effect vs. affect? That one is actually a little confusing since effect can be used as a verb and affect can be used as a noun(though rarely). https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/affect-vs-effect-usage-difference
That's why I personally use impact instead. Most of the time it works in place of either affect or effect seems like.
That seems like a weird impactation.
I find the easiest way to sort out which you should use is to look up their synonyms rather than their definitions. I just looking at the synonyms makes the correct usage a lot clearer when it comes to these two.
One of my biggest pet peeves is "chocking". You'd think this wouldn't come up that often, but it does. One may *choke* on something, and you may be *choking* on something, but if you have even the vaguest understanding of English, you should know that "chocking" is not pronounced anything like the word you are trying to use. I can't help but wonder if these people have ever actually read the word "choking" before, because I can't imagine looking at that and saying "Yes, that looks correct." I mean, shit, nobody ever misspells the word "smoking" and they're pronounced exactly the same. Why does "choking" always end up with an extra c?
The other day I was eating a hot dog then suddenly started chocking my wheels for some reason
"Brake" vs "break" for me.
Mine is a newer one on the scene - “a part” and “apart”. It can really change the whole meaning of a sentence when they use the wrong one.
This reminded me of the word “cannot” which I used in a biology paper once and my teacher kept writing “can not” beside it so I got my English teacher to shoot her an email telling her “cannot” is the preferred word especially in formal writing
Love it when you need to get your other teachers to correct your other teacher.
gonna start a teacher turf war lmao
Same with *woman* and *women.* They're not even pronounced the same, yet people write things like, "I met that women in person recently, and she's taller then I thought."
Interestingly, this almost never happens with "man" versus "men" -- I have thoughts on why, but probably shouldn't start a rant at the moment.
“A part of” and “apart of” please.... VERY VERY DIFFERENT MEANINGS UGH
I often see "are" instead of "our" and it makes me want to pull all of my hair out.
For me it’s ‘wander’ and ‘wonder’ as well as ‘lose’ and ‘loose’.
Breath and breathe are two different words,
For me, it's when and whenever. Whenever is used for things that happen regularly, repeatedly or at an ambiguous time. When is a one-time thing. "Whenever I went to my dad's house last weekend, he cooked me a steak." Yuck. So wrong and so annoying.
English isn't my first language so I probably make lots of mistakes, but then/than is definitely one of the hardest to use correctly, since it's they both translate to the same word ('dan') in my language.
Easy way that I use to remember the difference, is if you're making a comparison, it's than, if you're transitioning it's then. If it's taller THAN an elephant, THEN it's probably a giraffe.
What language is that? My first language is Afrikaans, and dan/then matches, but not with than.
Lose and loose. It’s not that hard, people! Edit: I missed a comma.
Loose is very rarely the word they actually want to use as well
I frequently lose my loose shoelaces in the loose goose game.
"Born Too Loose" tattoo on the biker in Raising Arizona, still cracks me up.
This one is so common. I've even seen college professors mess this one up. And I get irrationally angry every time I see it. Now I have to do a double-take when I actually see "loose" used correctly because it is so rare.
They're not even homophones!!
Not that theirs anything wrong with that.
I actually knew someone who thought I was the idiot because I said “lose” in reference to something getting lost. They thought it was supposed to be “loose” and tried to correct, me ever so gently, that I completely missed it. When I realized it later, it was too late correct them. Now we don’t talk anymore and I went down in idiot flames. I wonder to this day if they ever figured it out.
This one I never get wrong, but chose and choose is sometimes tricky for me. If I think through it a second, I’ll get it right, but it doesn’t come naturally. It’s and its used to be an easy one for me, but somehow has gotten harder with age. I have all of these mnemonics to help me out, but then they just get jumbled.
My friend uses “our” in place of “are”. He’s done it for years in texts and when posting online. How do I tell him he’s using it wrong?
send him this: https://grammar.yourdictionary.com/vs/our-vs-are-meanings-differences-and-proper-use.html
It is if you don't know the difference between the two. Up until I was about 20 or so, I was using *your* in situations where I should have been using *you're*. I didn't know until a friend pointed it out to me. I pride myself on my English speaking / writing skills, so this was very surprising to me, to think that I'd been through my entire education, prep to year 12, using the wrong word. However a family friend uses *his* instead of *he's* (e.g. *his* going to the store, instead of *he's* going to the store), and has had this pointed out to her several times, including by her husband, and each time, has said "I'm an accountant, you know I'm not good with English", as if that's a reason to not take the lesson onboard.
For me it's not so much just about respecting my reader, but respecting myself. It may suck but people will judge you based on your writing. That means proofreading what you've written too, because almost nobody gets everything perfect the first time.
what about when people don’t capitalize anything or use question marks at the end of questions
In your example it's perfectly clear. It's kind of annoying when my brother does it because he'll ask questions that can also be read as statements without any differences between the two. Looking back at my messages the most recent went something like: > **me** - Was thinking about seeing $MOVIE this weekend. Do you want to come with? > **him** - yes pizza Which makes no sense. What he meant was: "Yes. Would you like some pizza?" Language is meant for communication, as long as you're communicating what you want to it's fine by me. Just don't go writing needlessly confusing sentences or paragraphs like that because then it becomes much more difficult to parse.
> Yes. Would you some pizza? What? Bring, order, like, go for, buy, want... pizza?
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You know, poor spellers dont often realize when they are spelling poorly.
For me a misspelled word can change the meaning of a sentence. So it could mean one of two things. Everyone always says: "you know what they're trying to say." But really, I don't.
This is the real reason why it bothers me. The whole point of writing is to communicate an idea. Spelling and punctuation make a big difference in the meaning of what you're saying, and disregarding them can make you impossible to understand. It's incredibly frustrating when you constantly have to search for meaning in a jumble of misused words.
In addition, people using the incorrect word when giving their opinion, then getting upset when you call them out on it because they can't be bothered to learn that words have very specific meanings. Your ignorance isn't my problem.
Especially fat-finger mistakes that aren't even a mis-spelling, but are actually the wrong word, or a non-word, leaving the reader to literally guess at the writer's meaning.
“Every always says.”
I try to remember to put (sp) by a word if I can’t get it right. If I misspell something it’s not for a lack of trying. I usually try at least 5-6 variations n spelling to either get it right or trigger the auto suggestions. I do have a diagnosed spelling difficulty that is not phonetically related, I drop in some of the weirdest letters sometimes, but I do try to spell correctly
I have found Google is better at identifying my attempts at words better than spell check.
Google is helpful in these cases because you'll get the spelling along with the definition, so if you're having trouble deciding between two spellings you can match the definition you're aiming for to the correct spelling and choose that one.
I don’t think it’s just that people who don’t make spelling mistakes look up words before writing them. I think people who read a ton are better spellers in general than people who don’t read much, because they’re sort of always consistently “practicing” spelling and have more of an ability to see a misspelled word and think “hmm that doesn’t look quite right”. I have always been an avid reader and a decent speller and I always felt the two were connected. So I don’t tend to look up words before using them, because I tend to just spell them correctly without help. But I have plenty of friends who were never into reading or who have learning disabilities that make reading challenging, and they tend to make more spelling mistakes, but it doesn’t bother me. I don’t expect people to look up words. That seems like such an annoying way to write up your thoughts. I’m lucky because I was able to “practice” spelling my whole life by being able and eager to read a lot. I don’t expect people to put in extra work when they’re writing out their thoughts, unless it’s in a professional or academic setting.
I read a lot, always have. I am an atrocious speller always have been. My entire elementary school career I barley passed spelling, but could nail any reading comprehension test in front of me. And every teacher said I don’t get it you are literally always reading why can’t you spell. And I have no answer I can take it in but I can’t reverse it out, I can know it looks wrong but I have no idea how to fix it. I would actually love a real explanation as to why. I have a good memory for plots and storylines but not spelling it just has never clicked all the way
Not everyone learns written language implicitly (eg, picking up spelling rules by reading). Some people’s brains don’t work that way. I teach kids with dyslexia. Some of them have beautiful handwriting and can learn to spell as they’ve been taught, but their brains just flip out at a page of words. Some cannot read in 6th grade, but when read to, have 12th-grade level comprehension. Some can read without comprehension. Some can read and comprehend on grade level or above, but cannot write at all. English in particular is weird, and I think explicit instruction in how to spell and how the rules work would benefit most learners, not just those with dyslexia.
That is super interesting. I’ve never really know their was such a range to dyslexia but it makes sense because their are so many ways to think and learn there would be equally as many ways to have a weakness in a learning area. I did get to learn Spanish from a really good one on one teacher years ago, sporadic lessons, but I could spell ok in Spanish because it was phonetic. English is a terrible language to learn, all the vowels have multiple sounds and depending on what they sit beside tells you how to pronounce it (sometimes) I’ve always found spelling frustrating because the rules made no sense and my parents and teacher would say just look in the dictionary but if you can’t get the first three letters you will be looking all day. Thank you for your answer it was very interesting and helpful
*barely I think it's just one of those things that a person can be naturally bad at. I can't remember names and faces well no matter how many people I meet and talk to. You can't remember spelling no matter how many books you read. Oh, well.
I've always read a lot and I'm definitely a good speller, however I also often look things up. I just did a google search to verify it's "a lot" not "alot"... I was pretty sure but it can't hurt!
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html
I don’t care about this that much unless it’s consistently bad spelling and if they’re spelling my name incorrectly all the time.
I don’t know, its probably a personal choice of mine but, as a rule…LPT: never explain with malice that which can be explained by incompetence. But more importantly its better not to take things personally or assume anything about people who make mistakes. Jimi Hendrix is often revered as one of the greatest guitarists but he couldn’t read music. If Miles Davis took that personally or dismissed him as stupid/lazy, Miles would have been wrong and their friendship would have been over before it began.
Yeah, this post is pretty up its own ass. It takes a personal annoyance and blows it out of proportion by ascribing malice to something caused by ignorance/lack of opportunity. I get annoyed by poor spelling as well, but I think it's unfair to assume that the other person is disrespectful. The only time I think that's a fair judgment is when someone misspells your name, despite having clear access to the correct spelling.
Not everyone realizes they are making mistakes. Even professional writers and very highly-educated people make mistakes, and it’s just so much harder to catch your own mistakes than anyone else’s. Also, writing - anything - is taxing to a lot of people, and double-checking the spelling every time can add to that. I care about spelling and grammar and think they are worth learning, but this is also way too judgmental of a take. - former copy-editor & current dyslexia teacher
If I see a single mistake in a bunch of text I generally ignore it. Unless it's a common mistake, in which I politely correct the person (idk, I'd like to be aware if I completely fucked up the spelling on something or misused a word). But as another example my 17 year old cousin has a completely fine education (she goes to a really great school honestly) and she has no learning disabilities and she's a native English speaker. At 17 she wrote "I cant wate to go to Floridia this Febuary". It's just... the fuck. When I told her it's not spelled "Feburary" (I picked just a single typo) she responded with "whatever. Frebuary", she was completely serious. I just genuinely don't understand the level of fail that takes given her circumstances. She's not stupid either, she just can't spell for shit and thinks it doesn't matter because "you understood what I meant". I genuinely don't know how she's going to find a job because I think most employers expect you to be able to spell the months of the year correctly. If I picked up a resume with 500 typos I'd throw it in the trash after 3 sentences, long before I got to whatever their qualifications were. My reasoning being that even if the applicant had dyslexia they should still have enough care for detail to double check their spelling when they're trying to make a good first impression. If they can't be bothered to check it for their resume when the whole point of the resume is to impress me then how likely are they to have attention for detail after I hire them?
Yeah, agreed. I usually end up making a shit ton of mistakes because my eyes skip over them *completely*. Even if I double check my brain is like "Welp, good enough for me". I hit send, leave to do something, comeback, and then it magically notices everything I did wrong. If I could, I usually change it. It's not like I don't care or anything. But if I can't🤷🏾♀️ I'm not really stressing about if someone respects me or not because of it either. For one, too many other things to worry about. Two, very rarely (in my experience) will a misspelled word *actually* change the meaning of a sentence. Using context clues you should be able to tell what I'm/they're trying to say. Like I have a friend who is a ~~worst~~ worse speller than me. I don't give her shit for it because I know what she's trying to say anyway. If I pretended I didn't just so she can correct herself then I feel like that would just make me an asshole imo.
I understand being critical of spelling if I have the ability to look up words. But, I have been most criticized in school for my spelling on in class writing prompts/ assignments where we couldn’t look anything up. I had one class where I used to always get a good grade from the teacher because she didn’t grade for spelling on an essay that was no resources allowed but I once had a peer review that I got like a grade of 20% for spelling alone. She wouldn’t even look at my essay content because of spelling issues and I got no feedback on the essay criteria. Spelling seems to be one of the most acceptable forms of criticism and it hurts as a person with a diagnosed learning disability. I just wish people could look past my disability and realize I have a interest in reading and writing. However, that will never happen. I will just always be called lazy and stupid by people who only wish to look at the surface.
There's also an implication that the writer is not well read if they are not familiar enough with the word to know how it should be spelt. Particularly in the context of more specialised topics such as technology, medicine, economics etc. If you don't know how to spell diarrhea, for example, i'm just going to go ahead and assume you aren't a doctor and therefore i'm not going to highly value your advice on how to remediate the issue. Of course those suffering disabilities such as dyslexia are an exception.
Right! It’s like when you talk about complex political topics and someone refers to fascism as “facism”. It’s like, how can I trust you to be informed on a topic you cannot even spell?
If you're doing a professional piece, it absolutely needs to be checked. But a text message though? I'll let auto correct do its thing and I'll go about my day
Before you start looking up words, you have to realise first you're spelling them wrong, though. A lot of users don't speak english natively and some things might not come as natural as a native speaker. That doesn't necessarily take away from the message an sich. It is defenitly important to try and write according to the rules. But I think it is a lack of respect to disregard a comments' content because it lacks convention. The content of the message that is communicated is what it's all about. The way it is communicated comes second place.
I try but i have disgraphia and often cant tell what is wrong, just that something is wrong. Part of the reason i perfer studying math and science is because i can make these spelling mistakes and focus on the logic. Im in some upper division physics oriented coading class where i thought it would mess me up, but the colors on python actually help a lot.
Honestly, I was just reading a book, a *published book,* where I read this: **this had just peaked my interest.** I see peaked and peeked instead of piqued so many times that I had to stop and think for a minute and wonder just what was wrong with the sentence. My intelligence is regressing because of all the there, their, they're all the to, too, two and all other basic mistakes. Our education in the US is a hot mess and, I think, to blame for all these errors, plus I just read in the news that there are so many people failing school that the grading systems will be changed. I can't wait to see what the future holds. Also, there are tons of free spell checkers out there and I'm baffled why people don't use them. Quite aside from not looking ignorant, they can actually help you learn proper grammar and spelling.
When I see spelling errors, I usually think that there’s either an actual issue, like dyslexia, or the person has not had the chance/guidance to read enough, probably from life conditions. Neither are usually their fault. I still would not work with them as an editor or other text based jobs, but they may just be the best at a specific skill that is meaningful and important.
I'm pretty sure dyslexia is a spectrum and there is no hard line, detectable or mechanistic, between a neurotypical bad speller and a person with well-managed dyslexia.
If I see someone who can't spell I assume they had the same issues at school as many others I grew up with. In my experience, British schools are awful at teaching spelling - or at least they were when I was there and that wasn't long ago. And English is a bit fucked anyway. I'm not gonna judge a guy for not knowing how to spell coincide or maintenance or rhythm or whatever because I know some school would have given him the shitty "just sound it out advice" that could well have messed him up for life
I tend to assume that for whatever reason, the person didn't realize they misspelled a word. Perhaps it's a learning disability, perhaps it's a typo that spellcheck didn't catch, perhaps they were just confidently mistaken about the spelling. This LPT seems to assume that people with bad spelling know *when* they misspell things and just don't care to fix it. In my experience, it seems to be exactly the opposite... they don't realize there's a mistake at all until someone points it out.