# Did you mean p-l-a-g-i-a-r-i-s-m? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 23, 2006, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-mean-p-l-a-g-i-a-r-i-s-m/353841 "2006-04-23T07:50:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-mean-p-l-a-g-i-a-r-i-s-m/353841/1 "2006-04-23T07:50:20Z")
For fuck’s sake, people. I do not understand how this word gets misspelled so stunningly often on this board. It has to be THE most inadvertently misspelled word on the SDMB. I am charitably assuming that “teh” is intentional. (But just for the record, it looks stupid.) Anybody who’s posting on this board has the internet resources to look up the correct spelling. What I really don’t understand is how people misspell it in their reply to a post in which it was _spelled correctly._ I mean sure, you’re too lazy to go to the dictionary. But you–yeah, the one who wrote it as “plagerism”–did you think all the previous posters got it wrong? Or maybe you took a wild stab and spelled it “plajarism.” Again, in a thread where it had been spelled correctly? Perhaps you wanted to assert your individuality? If you thought the previous poster got it wrong, maybe you could Google it. Okay, we don’t need a pukey smiley. Maybe we need an automatic spell check where incorrectly spelled words are highlighted. This would not merely alert the composer of the post to the error but, in case the poster didn’t want to bother correcting it, would warn those of us who prefer to employ language correctly to the best of our abilities, so we won’t get some alternate wrong spelling stuck in our heads because of somebody’s ignorance. Searching reveals at least 350 threads with “plagiarism” in them. The misspelled “plagarism” appears _in 102 threads_. “Plagerism” appears in 46 threads. "Plagairism appears in 12 posts. Oh, sure–the statisticians among the membership can easily say this means the word is right most of the time, and some of those were probably typos. If so, it’s an awfully pervasive typo. And it is okay to fix typos. Really. Even on a message board where things are pretty informal. It’s done all the time. _Especially on a message board where people are likely to claim they are intelligent and literate._ I know people don’t like to see nitpicks about spelling and grammar but WTF, why is poor spelling considered less ignorant and less worthy of being corrected than, for instance, the thing about a duck’s quack not echoing, or which words end in _-gry_? It is not less worthy. So listen up. The copyright notice on the dictionary is for the compilation and presentation and does not apply to the individual words. Spelling a word as it appears in said dictionary is _not plagiarism._ ---
**Author:** ![movingfinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@movingfinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/movingfinger)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-mean-p-l-a-g-i-a-r-i-s-m/353841/2 "2006-04-23T08:12:23Z")
But…you are stifling our creativity! How can we grow and flourish if we allow the dead hand of the past to control our writing? So…Phlaijiarisme…take that! ---
**Author:** ![choosybeggar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@choosybeggar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choosybeggar)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-mean-p-l-a-g-i-a-r-i-s-m/353841/3 "2006-04-23T08:13:18Z")
This thread is [wierd](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/search.php?searchid=1605650) 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Mac\_Guffin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2bfe46/32.png) [@Mac\_Guffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mac_Guffin)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-mean-p-l-a-g-i-a-r-i-s-m/353841/4 "2006-04-23T08:32:49Z")
Hmm. I ran the entire OP through spell check, and the only word I found that came up misspelled other than the examples was “pukey”. Could this be a first? Did **Hilarity** manage to avoid Gaudere’s Law? ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-mean-p-l-a-g-i-a-r-i-s-m/353841/5 "2006-04-23T08:36:00Z")
> [@Hilarity N. Suze](#): > > For fuck’s sake, people. I do not understand how this word gets misspelled so stunningly often on this board. It has to be THE most inadvertently misspelled word on the SDMB. Nope. That honor goes to “atheist.” ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-mean-p-l-a-g-i-a-r-i-s-m/353841/6 "2006-04-23T10:06:50Z")
Hitler! How many ‘laws’ can we reference? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Caught\_Work](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/919ad9/32.png) [@Caught\_Work](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caught_Work)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-mean-p-l-a-g-i-a-r-i-s-m/353841/7 "2006-04-23T10:27:11Z")
> [@Mac Guffin](#): > > Hmm. I ran the entire OP through spell check, and the only word I found that came up misspelled other than the examples was “pukey”. Could this be a first? Did **Hilarity** manage to avoid Gaudere’s Law? Maybe, but I would never start a sentence with the word and. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-mean-p-l-a-g-i-a-r-i-s-m/353841/8 "2006-04-23T11:10:17Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > Nope. That honor goes to “atheist.” I’d say it actually goes to “than”. I’m more athiest then you. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-mean-p-l-a-g-i-a-r-i-s-m/353841/9 "2006-04-23T12:59:57Z")
> [@Hilarity N. Suze](#): > > I am charitably assuming that “teh” is intentional. I think you can accurately assume just the opposite. It’s what we call a “typo” in the biz. You don’t spend any more time in purgatory for a typo, only for ignorant misspellings. > [@Mark Twain](#): > > I don’t give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way. BTW, I’m a pretty good speller, typos aside, but grammar and punctuation errors grate on me in a way that spelling errors do not. Not sure why, since both are symptoms of a diseased mind. 😉 And if there’s anything in this post reflective of Gaudere’s Law, it was intentional, I swear. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-mean-p-l-a-g-i-a-r-i-s-m/353841/10 "2006-04-23T14:15:39Z")
> [@](#): > > I know people don’t like to see nitpicks about spelling and grammar but WTF, why is poor spelling considered less ignorant and less worthy of being corrected than, for instance, the thing about a duck’s quack not echoing, or which words end in -gry? Maybe it’s because wrong information is wrong information and bad spelling is just bad spelling? I love the English language. I devour books like they’re deep fried and smothered in cheese AND gravy. I love polished, refined speech and am conscientious about my verbal skills. And in formal situations, I detest spelling and grammar errors, especially when they are mine. This message board is NOT a formal situation. True, we aren’t a teeny-bopper chatroom. We have relatively high standards for communication. But the nitpickers take the fun out of being here. I should be able to get away with a typo (or even a run of them) without worrying about how ignorant or "less worthy"comes across. Especially when I only have two minutes during a pause at work to compose a post. It seems to me that there are posters on this board who’s sole purpose is to grab posts that have mistakes in them and say, “HA!” No one CARES if using “data” in the singular gets under your got-damn skin. No one CARES if you flip out whenever people misplace apostrophes. Get a life, grammar marms. It is easy to criticize a post because of the superficial errors in it. A more superior mind can criticize a post’s content no matter how it’s dressed up. I think ignorant information is what this board is supposedly dedicated to fighting, not the picyuane (ooh, I hope didn’t goof on that one!) ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-mean-p-l-a-g-i-a-r-i-s-m/353841/11 "2006-04-23T14:20:05Z")
Another vote for either _atheist_. (I wondered about _deity_, but “diety” only gets 597 hits while “athiest” runs past the search return limit of 750 hits.) Even “athiesm,” with 130 hits, beats “plagerism.” (Perhaps this thread could be moved to a **Mindless, Pointless Stuff I Must Say Peevishly** Forum?) 😉 ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-mean-p-l-a-g-i-a-r-i-s-m/353841/12 "2006-04-23T14:24:27Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > But the nitpickers take the fun out of being here. **[…]** I think ignorant information is what this board is supposedly dedicated to fighting, not the picyuane (ooh, I hope didn’t goof on that one!) werd ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-mean-p-l-a-g-i-a-r-i-s-m/353841/13 "2006-04-23T14:50:23Z")
> [@Caught@Work](#): > > Maybe, but I would never start a sentence with the word and. The authors of the King James Version of the Bible would beg to differ with you. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-mean-p-l-a-g-i-a-r-i-s-m/353841/14 "2006-04-23T15:05:05Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > The authors of the King James Version of the Bible would beg to differ with you. If early 17th century English (including rules of grammar) was good enough for Jesus, then by God … ---
**Author:** ![NicePete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ee7513/32.png) [@NicePete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NicePete)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-mean-p-l-a-g-i-a-r-i-s-m/353841/15 "2006-04-23T15:20:32Z")
You know how I make sure that I always spell “plagiarism” correctly? I copy off someone else. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-mean-p-l-a-g-i-a-r-i-s-m/353841/16 "2006-04-23T15:23:17Z")
That was nice, Pete! Congratulations! ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-mean-p-l-a-g-i-a-r-i-s-m/353841/17 "2006-04-23T15:44:10Z")
[Google toolbar](http://www.google.com/tools/toolbar/T4/index.html) has a very nice spellchecker you can use for any online writing. ---
**Author:** ![wisernow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/13edae/32.png) [@wisernow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wisernow)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-mean-p-l-a-g-i-a-r-i-s-m/353841/18 "2006-04-23T15:54:13Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Another vote for either _atheist_. (I wondered about _deity_, but “diety” only gets 597 hits while “athiest” runs past the search return limit of 750 hits.) What about ‘defin **a** tely’? What is more surprising is that I don’t even remember anyone pointing this out either. The word is ‘defin **i** tely’ with an **i** and not an **a**. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-mean-p-l-a-g-i-a-r-i-s-m/353841/19 "2006-04-23T17:46:07Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > It seems to me that there are posters on this board **who’s** sole purpose is to grab posts that have mistakes in them and say, “HA!” No one CARES if using “data” in the singular gets under your got-damn skin. No one CARES if you flip out whenever people misplace apostrophes. Get a life, grammar marms. > > It is easy to criticize a post because of the superficial errors in it. A more superior mind can criticize a post’s content no matter how it’s dressed up. I think ignorant information is what this board is supposedly dedicated to fighting, not the **picyuane** (ooh, I hope didn’t goof on that one!) whose picayune Go right ahead, just hold that knife to my throat. Under my got-am skin indeed. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_Wright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Steve\_Wright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_Wright)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-mean-p-l-a-g-i-a-r-i-s-m/353841/20 "2006-04-23T20:21:40Z")
I suspect “hypocrisy” is a strong contender in the most-misspelled word stakes. I really can’t be arsed to search for all the variants I’ve seen of this one, but will note that my favourite is “hypocracy” - to me, that means “government by hype”, (_looks pointedly in the direction of “New” Labour ::_), which is pretty much what we’ve got in this country. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-mean-p-l-a-g-i-a-r-i-s-m/353841.md?page=2)