What to do about sloppy spelling?

[Katt in Hat]

...
V: Moron!
E: Vermin!
V: Abortion!
E: Morpion!
V: Sewer-rat!
E: Curate!
V: Cretin!
E: (with finality Crritic!
V: Oh! (He wilts, vanquished, and turns away.)

K: Pendant! (with apologies to Sam)

 

[Senator Jack]

I'm not following that line of thinking, Katt. Is that supposed to be a correction of pedant?

Regards,

Senator Jack

 

[matei]

Sounds to me as if someone has a bit too much time on their hands...

If you're referring to me and my slightly off-topic rant... I had lots of time on my hands today, and I was referring to the people at large - not just loungers....

 

[Katt in Hat]

Truncated:

Is that supposed to be a correction of pedant?
Regards,Senator Jack

So much more than that, Sir Grasshopper. Loose the bonds and let your mind soar. (If it suits you, that is.) :eusa_doh:

 

[Paisley]

Like Dale Carnegie, I've found that it's useless to scold people. My parents have horrible English, even though they are native speakers; I prefer to use good English. I endlessly tried to correct them when I was a kid. But my parents are, as they put it, "common as an old shoe" and proud of it.

Now that I have a job that includes proofreading, and I have taken proofreading classes, it's hard not to see mistakes. If the mistakes bothered me much, I'd be a nervous wreck. I've come to see spelling and grammatical errors as mildly amusing. If the spelling is bad enough, I don't even try to read the message.

I suppose a person could type his message in Word, spell-check it, and paste it onto the message pad; even I don't do this, though. Of course, I make mistakes sometimes when posting to the Internet, since I tend to invert letters when I type. But nobody has ever corrected me, and the only people whose English I will correct are the ones I am paid to correct.

 

[jamespowers]

the only people whose English I will correct are the ones I am paid to correct.

That is my philosophy as well. :arated:

Regards,

J

 

[jake_fink]

Can of worms opened by Jake Fink:

But of course you meant to write: "...two days UNTIL St. Patrick's [Day]

I stand by the correct form till, and not until, as backed up by Fowler himself:

till, until - The early history of the two words in medE, as set down with great thoroughness in the OED, is complicated. It is not true, for example, that till is a shortened form of until: in fact till is the earlier of the two. The present distribution is no less complicated. One can declare, with the COD, that 'Until is used, especially at the beginning of a sentence', but that doesn't take us far. One can also assert with reasonable accuracy that until is fractionally more formal that till : this might account for the fact that until occurs much more frequently in edited prose (including fiction). In practice until is six times more likely than till to turn up in such work.

Believing until a bit pompous, Kingsley Amis favored till in his own work; I certainly I favor it in mine, for I think the 'un' part is quite unnecessary. Of course, 'til is right out.

Regards,

Senator Jack

My editors want until and nothing but until, so I guess their till intolerance (in-till-erance) has rubbed off on me. I won't use till myself, but you, Fowler and Kingsley can go to town with it and I'll quietly gaze at my shoes.

PS: I promise not to leave that open can of worms in your refrigerator.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

Set the can of worms out for the pigeons, among which we're about to put the cat which will imminently emerge from the bag.

bk

 

[scotrace]

What I hate to see are spelling and grammatical mistakes in professional works, such as advertisements, books, newspapers, and their ilk. I don't know how many times I've read books where the author ended his/her sentences with a preposition, and it was not corrected by the editor.
Brad

Example: An otherwise excellent piece of marketing, the "Golden Book of Vintage Flight Apparel" published by Eastman Leather Clothing Co. of UK.

Numerous grammatical errors (not just UK-US versions of the same language), and obvious typographical hiccups.

S

 

[Marc Chevalier]

If anyone wishes to, they can read my my belated response to this little thread of mine in another thread, entitled "What to do about sloppy dress?"

 

[Senator Jack]

With all the real problems of the world, yes, it does seem trivial to argue grammar, and, thus, I don't go about correcting it. But I will defend the right to not be happy about incorrect usage.

For instance, I recall Safire wrote a column about until once, and it seems he didn't even check his Fowler's. He claimed 'til is perfectly acceptable. But to my thinking - why use 'til when we have till? This is the sort of idiocy, coming from a supposed expert int he field, that irks me just a wee bit. (Actually, Safire irks me a whole lot - it seems most of his examples these days come from Harry Potter books.)

I don't know. If people can argue about a Roger Maris asterisk or World Cup goal (Germany - U.K. Do I have that right, lads?) some 40 years after the fact, then why not grammar?

Regards,

Senator Jack

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Don't get me wrong: I loathe sloppy spelling. But who am I to stare down at others? Misspelling is like smoking: we all know it's not healthy, but it's our own bloody beeswax.


.

 

[GA Wildlifer]

Pet peeves and humility

The mistake that offends my sensibility is using the possessive for plural, but I treat forum threads and replies as conversation rather than literature.

Once, I poked fun at a well educated friend who ended a sentence with at; he responded with "Where is the movie theater at ASSHOLE." I would still correct his usage in writing but conversation is much more fluid. Plus, I type horribly.

 

[Doh!]

Using Word to catch spelling errors will certainly clean up a lot of writing, but it won't help catch things like mistaking "fiend" for "friend" ("My friend Dracula can be quite the fiend.")

I will say this, though: of the various forums I've seen, this one contains the most grammatically accurate writing of them all.

Forum pet peeves (again, not this one):

--Using "LOL" to, in essence, laugh at your own jokes ("That two-toned pimp hat looks like something a pimp would wear "LOL"!)

--not bothering to use the shift key, so every word is in lowercase letters. even if you start a new sentence. see how ignorant this looks? i don't like it one bit. no american nor european should have to endure such laziness.

 

[PutALidOnIt]

...and typos don't count!

I believe that forums such as our beloved Lounge should be held in the spirit of casual enjoyment rather than practice what you preach. We should err toward tolerance and separate the wheat from the chaff as in any social intercourse. I constantly critique the local newspaper writers for being less literate than many citizens who submit their letters to the Opinions page!

One of my duties at work is proofing ad copy and technical manuals. I see enough "its" vs. "it's" and "effect" vs. "affect" to numb me to "which" vs. "that". I take pride in having a basic command of my native language, but I certainly do not want to enforce such discipline on this venue. Basic internet courtesy dictates that we learn to use the shift key and, to a lesser extent, navigate around characters that are operands in html and other code.

Oh WTH, IMHO we should just have a drink and chat! :cheers1:

 

[Zach R.]

Now, ignoring the "shift" button DOES bother me, moreso than mistakes in spelling. Just because it is the internet, that doesn't mean that you can ignore the rules of the English language.

 

[The Wolf]

Since this thread has on a life of its own, I'll add my 4 cents

It's funny, I do have dyslexia and I'm the better speller of my associates.
I do think that the way we write affects how people think of us, at least subconsciously. It is like our appearance, taking care in how we look or how we write shows we make an effort, doing things slap-dash shows we are not worth the effort.
That said, I judge blogs like notes or conversation as being colloquial. At times we write not in the Queen's English for effect, like Mark Twain would.
Speaking of the Queen, forget British and American differences. It isn't just the spelling but also meanings of words. English is a living language and sometimes I think American is becomin seperate from English like English seperated from German. I think American only has three tenses for verbs.
I'm more frustrated by a beautifully designed web site or magazine that has typos, incorrect usage or abysmal spelling.
I'm annoyed that texts from the internet don't indent paragraphs.
Monsieur Chevalier, what do you think of the e. e. cummings school of eschewing capital letters?

Long windedly,
The Wolf

 

[Baron Kurtz]

For some wierd psychological reason i ignore the shift key for everything referring to "i". My signature has no capitals, and my web identity "bk" is lower case, though "the Baroness" is always capitalised. I follow the rules for beginning a sentence (even when it begins with "i"). Strange psychology, as i say. Something to do with rejecting myself, i'm told.

bk

 

[Johnnysan]

If you're referring to me and my slightly off-topic rant... I had lots of time on my hands today, and I was referring to the people at large - not just loungers....

Actually, I was referring to the original post that began this thread (which I now realize may have been posted in jest!) So, in the same vein, from now on, I will call out every instance of a lack of clarity that I catch in the Lounge...beginning with my own!

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Monsieur Chevalier, what do you think of the e. e. cummings school of eschewing capital letters?

i think that e.e. cummings knew how to get away with it im not sure that others can though especially not me dont you agree