Platonic thinking, how depressing. Why not address the content of my posts using citations from a modern linguistic work rather than dismiss them based on incorrect assumptions about a trivial aspect of them?
It’s not surprising that you’re an opponent of political correctness.
Definition of “Political Correctness” IMHO. 
"Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end. "
I’m willing to call a spade a spade: the minority referred to here are blacks. Good to see you’ve kept your dog-whistle wet.
I’m afraid you’ve lost me. I didn’t realize this was about ‘race’. :dubious:
Frankly, I don’t see what someone’s ‘color’ has to do with it. My post certainly didn’t refer to ‘color’ or race, in any way, form or fashion. 
To alter a quote in quote box is a violation of our rules – what people say should be quoted verbatim without your edits/changes.
Do not do this again.
As for “correctness,” well, that’s another whole argument altogether. Or should be. It has no place in this thread, go start a new thread.
Whoa!
First off, this is a hijack of the existing thread and has no place in this conversation.
If you want to open another thread taking someone to task for what you perceive as their attitude, go start another thread in the Pit. Do not do it here.
If you want to open another thread on what you perceive to be an attack on minorities, that’s fine too. Again, don’t do it here.
Stay on track here, which is about Cecil’s column on poor spelling and poor spellers in general.
gamerunknown, I am cutting you a break here because I perceive you to be new to the board. Please go look at the FAQ for our rules of the road. And read in each forum that you visit to see what the specific rules of that area might be, there are differences area to area. Learn and do better.
Mods, I apologize for continuing the ‘hijack’ but I felt that a clarification and response was called for.
First off, the ‘minority’ referred to was most definitely NOT ‘blacks’, nor of any particular race. :mad:
The ‘minority’ (in the context of the statement) are those that insist on everything needing to be ‘politically correct’. And for that matter, the statement itself was meant as ‘snarky’ humor.
And what are you trying to imply with, “Good to see you’ve kept your dog-whistle wet.”?
On a written document, bad spelling makes the author appear mentally challenged. You can’t change the way things look in print, folks. Couple bad spelling with lousy grammar and then looks as though the author has had less than a 3rd grade education (I’m not talking about typo’s–you can tell typo’s vs. someone who can’t spell like a grown-up can). These bad spellers may even have high IQ’s. It’s just that it LOOKS so pathetic that the first reaction to reading some narrative with bad spelling is that the person who wrote it can’t even tie his own shoelace. If you know you are a bad speller, you should be ashamed of it, and at least have someone help you with it before you send it or print it out (unless it’s your best friend who won’t judge you). Otherwise, your audience reading it is just going to laugh at you (and get annoyed at trying to decipher what you are trying to say) and assume you’re from Appalachia. How about LEARNING to spell? Now, there’s an idea! If you’re an adult, and can’t spell or use grammar correctly, your co-workers will laugh at you behind your back, and your superiors will not think much of your abilities. Bad spelling makes you LOOK like a “dummy” (even if you’re not, as you “claim” so profoundly). Period.
Welcome to the Straight Dope. I have the same sort of reaction to people who use apostrophes incorrectly. (Hint: you don’t use them to make a noun plural.)
But you do use them to indicate where letters have been left out. Since “typo” and “IQ” are abbreviations, I see the logic in the use of apostrophes, though I don’t know what the official rule is in a case like that.
What is “typo” an abbreviation for? I can agree with IQ as some stylebooks permit the use of apostrophes after anagrams or even things like “in the 1970’s” although I think those stylebooks are wrong. But “typo” is a word and you can use it in Scrabble.
Yes, that is a legitimate use of them, though pretty darned rare in everyday usage.
Typo is, of course, a shortening of (though, I’d argue, not an abbreviation for) “typographical error”, but it is a word of its own now. (Note: that’s a link to the OED, which may be behind a paywall.)
I’ll grant you that there is not universal agreement on not using an apostrophe to make an abbreviation or acronym plural, though the majority view looks to be “no apostrophe”.
Yes, I agree; and I wouldn’t have used the apostrophe; but I thought there was room for cutting socalbearman some slack (especially since he wasn’t guilty of the random apostrophizing you sometimes see).
I have a pretty good visual memory, when I was younger I used to memorize extremely long square roots out of boredom. I’ve also always been an excellent speller. I think I am an intelligent person but when someone asks me how to spell a word, I don’t feel like I’m really using my intelligence. It’s more some automatic thing like a computer searching for the data and then regurgitating it mindlessly. I’ll make typos online sometimes but it’s usually because I unknowingly hit the wrong key.
Spelting is overratted …
What distinction are you making between an abbreviation and a shortening? As I use the term, an abbreviation is a shortening of words.
Is it merely the fact that it’s a word in its own right now? That people don’t think “typographical error” when they see “typo”? Because I would argue the same is true of many abbreviations, like “ATM,” “ZIP,” “PIN/pin,” “ID/id,” “NASA,” and so on.
While technically correct in formal writing, common parlance has long since moved to using the plural pronoun as a stand in for the cumbersome “his/her” formulations.
Maybe you’ve learned in the intervening years, but a dog whistle in this context is a phrase or statement that is loaded in such a way to carry a hidden message, typically a racist agenda remark, but mask it with plausible deniability and subterfuge. It has just enough there for the insiders to get your “real meaning”, so you are whistling where only the “dogs” can hear you, i.e. the racists.
(All remarks in brackets are my own additions, and, I believe, follow board norms for what may be changed within a quote).
In almost four years nobody’s made a certain key point that explains many of my typos and, based on comments, errors of some other Dopers.
I am very aware of the difference between its and it’s or between they’re, their and there. Yet I often type them wrong anyway. My posts would be very difficult to read if I didn’t Preview and proofread. (Due to fat fingers flitting too fast I need to Preview/proofread for other reasons as well.)
I didn’t have this problem when younger; is it a sign of old age? It seems like one part of my mind thinks “their” but in an audio format, then another part of my brain transcribes it into “they’re.” Many many word combinations, even if only vaguely homophonic, give a similar problem; one specific example I remember is writing vowels when I meant values.
Although it’s just “my word against yours,” I’m not as stupid as I may seem. I’ve scored over 99.99 percentile on at least three standard tests (and won my junior high school Spelling Medal 
). … But just now wrote “one” instead of “won” and went back to correct it. Am I getting stupid in old age? Perhaps, but I still often do well in Internet recreational math contests. (Though fast fingers make me write Interent more often than Internet; again I just went back to correct.)
(I can offer definitive evidence that I am stupid: My Chrome browser no longer has spell-checker; I have to do all my spell-checking manually. Why? I assume it’s my stupid obstinance: Chrome has been begging me to update Chrome for two years or so, but I’ve refused throughout.)
I have a high IQ, for what it’s worth. Read a lot, everyday. Average and technical writing. I sometimes write documentation, as well as comments to sites. Yet I still have trouble with some spelling. There are words that I have to often stop to consider if they are correct. The exceptions to the rules. Sometimes I use the spell checker, or look up the word elsewhere. Some still look incorrect. Some make no sense. They must be memorized by rote. When I see spelling mistakes, I don’t consider the writer stupid. The content of the writing will often make that judgement. Even if it is spelled perfectly and with impeccable ( Used spell check on impeccable, I was wrong. ) grammar.
One thing I have trouble with is spelling / writing ahead of myself. Especially when hand writing. I will write a letter that is further along in the word that I am writing. It happens far less when typing. Odd.