When I was in first grade (we’re talking 1965-66 here), we did “word shape” exercises in which we would print a word, then trace its outline. My parents thought this was idiotic. I never saw the point of it myself until very recently. Now it seems to me that they were trying to train us to perceive words as units, rather than as groups of letters. I don’t know how effective it was (especially since I had learned to read three years earlier, thanks to attentive parents and the Sunday comics), but at least I understand the intent.
I’ve heard this many times, but I have never seen anything to back it up. I don’t buy it.
I’m dubious about all of the claims about Einstein (and about intelligence in general) in lbailey626’s post. I always suspect that someone is going by vague urban legends from long ago if they try to make a statement about what extremely smart people are like but have no examples to give other than Einstein. This suggests that they know little about very intelligent people other than having heard some cute stories about Einstein.
Bad spelling may not be linked to intelligence, but in some circumstances it can point to character.
As a f’rinstance, a few years ago during a general election, I received in the mailbox a circular from one of the people running/standing for office. It was littered with spelling mistakes and very poor grammar, so many errors it would have been laughable if the prospect of him winning election wasn’t so serious.
I phoned a number on the circular to make sure it was legit — not a competitor’s dirty trick. It wasn’t.
Why would I vote for that jerk? His ad made me think him lazy, careless and in the race only in the faint hope of finding work. By extension, his political party likely was no better for allowing that drek.
He came in dead last, by the way, way, way behind the person who came in second. I’d be willing to bet that even poor spellers spotted his clangers and connected the dots.
Bad spelling is more important than good spelling.
More than likely that’d be due to having the lowest budget and thus fewer editors and less chance of having a committee create the promotional material. Some of the most phenomenal writers I know require the eye of a gifted editor. I think Christopher Hitchens employs either Martin Amis or Ian McEwan for that role, I can’t remember which.
I think that the last US Congressional elections, 92% of all seats were awarded to the candidate that spent the most money on their election campaign. If the candidate you brought up had dyslexia, that doesn’t reflect on their capacity to represent the population in the least, really (though, they could be a false flag designed to split the vote, even if they denied that). The individual with the flashy brochure could be a demagogue receiving campaign funds from dubious sources.
If the guy with the lousy brochure had dyslexia, the chance that it hadn’t been discovered before the election is remote. And if he knew he has dyslexia, it would be all the more reason for someone to copy edit the “literature.”
The other campaign brochures were not especially flashy. Not even glossy.
Sorry Rowrrbazzle, didn’t notice your reply. Thought I had email notifications turned on.
Rather than list them I suggest you google “six intelligences” like I just did and consider the list to be my answer. However I take your point that this idea is contested by at least some psychologists - I may be somewhat out of date as the book I read it in is about ten years old now. Personally I still like the idea though.
The intelligence types all rely on mental ability. A first hand example: I recently started trampolining. After I make a mistake a common question from the coach is “what did you see as you came down?” or “where were your arms when you took off?” My answer to the first one might be “my life, flashing before my eyes” but what they’re looking for is the one that they can answer when it’s asked of them - which I would say relates to kinaesthetic intelligence.
I agree that this is rather a redefinition, but I don’t think the usefulness of the concept is diminished. Rather, by forcing one to define the type of intelligence they are talking about (the classic intelligence would be visiospatial/verbal/mathematical or some such) one is presenting these attributes in context. The only group for which the usefulness is reduced is for those with high “classical” intelligence, when we want to feel superior. I’m not sure we need the help 
I agree that classical intelligence is sadly undervalued in monetary terms - a look through the New Scientist jobs section will show this depressingly quickly.
Seriously guys: Try Opera!
The iPhone’s built-in autocorrect will automatically change single lowercase letter i to I for you. Additionally, if you want to capitalize it manually, you simply need to press the up arrow (located in the bottom-left corner of the keyboard) and then press the letter you want to capitalize. It is almost exactly as simple as holding down the Shift key and typing I.
Would you visit a doctor that *doesn’t *have many return customers?
Here’s another link that points out some misconceptions in this meme. And there’s a discussion on another board where some people point out that mixing up phonemes and digraphs makes it really hard to get comprehension.
For example, turhgoh for through.
I had a hard time figuring what you were talking about. I read the mispelled stuff so fast and clearly understood it and didn’t even realize it was screwed up. I must be a little messed up if I can’t tell if a whole sentence is spelled wrong. Or maybe since I can understand it, I don’t pay attention to the mispelled words.
Did you read the first link I listed? The sentence Senegoid quotes has been manipulated to deliberately make it easy to read, even though the words are misspelled. But misspellings in the wrong places in words can make sentences incomprehensible.
Tohguh we go turhgoh the wodos chugoing, nveer slahl we cenpamstoe egunoh for the itirneiccas of the lugganue.
Though we go through the woods coughing, never shall we compensate enough for the intricacies of the language.
How was that one? Apologies if there are a few errors, I just typed it myself quickly.
The faster it’s read, the easier it is I think. I misread “woods coughing” as “words changing” based on context though :p.
That last one was not automatic for some reason. I usually to do the “word scramble and celebrity cypher” puzzles in the paper everyday and they got very easy. I like challenges but not ones that are set up so I can’t win. Factions of our society stack the books against the success of others that are not of their kind. I’m deciphering the complex configurations that are being used so I can quickly identify real vs deceit.
I read this 3 times and have no idea what your point is. What is this an argument for?
It’s just a statement I made to show that I have moved on from deciphering words to deciphering the problems in our societies social structure on all fronts. If you know the problems it’s easier to find the answers. Just babbling I guess…
These questions are always phrased to provoke. Isn’t it reasonably clear that some poor spellers are that way because of dyslexia or similar disorders, which don’t affect their other cognitive skills, while most poor spellers are people who don’t read or write much and don’t pay close attention to what they do read and write?
Hear hear. As a child I did very well in school, except for in gym. I was raised by my parents to believe that I was smarter than the other kids and that my grades in gym simply didn’t matter. I’d love to be able to chalk that up to an attempt to raise my self-esteem, but my parents think self-esteem is a bunch of crap the only effect of which is to hold back those few with real ability. (I’ve never read Ayn Rand, and neither have they, but from what I understand of Rand’s philosophy it would be right up their alley.)
The reality, of course, is that physical skills are just as worthy of being addressed in school as classic intelligence is. And I would say in all fairness that the person who struggles in school, but can step onto a football field and instantly read the situation, possesses a form of intelligence that I, who would stand there in a state of pathetic perplexity, do not have and possibly never will.
Are we redefining the word “intelligence,” and is that a problem? I’d turn that around and ask this: what’s the point of saying that someone is “intelligent” or “stupid,” when it’s more productive to ask, “What abilities does this person have? What do they lack? How can they improve? How they can compensate?” Whatever your thoughts on “intelligent,” can we at least agree that “stupid” has outlived its utility?
As for spelling… I’m very good at it and, like someone else wrote up-thread, most of my spelling and grammatical errors result from either being in too much of a hurry or from editing and re-editing sentences*; either way, a final focused proofread would do a world of good. I know people who are as intelligent as I, if not moreso, with education and degrees beyond mine, who just can’t seem to spell. I try not to form any opinions of a person based on their spelling, and have long stopped pointing it out (unless it’s a friend and their misspelling is particularly funny** 
).
As a math teacher, when students question the relevance of their math classes, I tell them that they should learn math if, for no other reason, to prevent those who have learned it from taking advantage of them (q.v. “sub-prime mortgage”). Similarly, I think good written language skills are a societal passkey. Language is spoken first, written second, and what’s “correct English” is merely custom - “ain’t” is a word if the speaker and listener both agree that it is, and nobody would accuse Bugs Bunny of being stupid for using it - but “Standard Written English” is worth learning just the same: if I want people to take my ideas seriously, I don’t want them to have to decipher my writing to figure out what they are - much less give them ammunition to dismiss my thoughts out-of-hand.
*Although, in the past few years, I’ve started making some really uncharacteristic errors, like mixing up “your/you’re” or “their/they’re.” I never used to do that. My current conjecture is that years of insufficient sleep are finally taking their toll.
**My wife the LPN works at an assisted-living facility where this past Palm Sunday’s dinner menu included “mind jelly.” That gave us a giggle.
I’ve always thought it’s pattern recognition. Memorisation is part of that, sure, but it’s memorisation of patterns, and such memorisation is through exposure and frequent practice - by which I mean writing a lot, not copying out spelling words - not via anything intentional.
(For this thread, I should point out that I’m English. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are one or two typos in this post, however).
Being able to memorise something and the apply it in various situations is a pretty good definition of intelligence, at least in specific spheres.
The same goes for kinaesthetic intelligence. I do think it is a kind of intelligence, but a lot of it is memorisation and pattern recognition and focussing on the task at hand.
Nah. If they can afford to run for office, they can afford to have someone proofread their work. If they have sufficient support, someone will do it for free - there are a lot of people out there who can write well. This is either free or very low-cost.
If someone sends out a really badly-spelled leaflet (and I have seen some in some elections), I think they don’t actually care about details or what impression they give to people. Do I want someone like that representing me?
I’d also wonder if they might not be able to understand the huge amount of written material they’ll get as part of their job; if they can’t read unusual words perfectly and have someone trustworthy check for them, that’s OK, although a little worrisome, but if they can’t even be bothered to check? That’s not OK.
If reading and writing extremely well - and fact-checking - are part of the job, then someone who can read and write extremely well and employ fact-checkers will do the job better.
OTOH, some politicos might intentionally mis-spell the occasional word in order to seem like ‘the common man.’