I’m peering out from behind the whipping pole. Hoping no one is too harsh. I laid the switch made of holly down and am waiting for the thrashing.
Recently I have been horribly abused through no fault of anyone really, and prompted from my generally dispicable spelling prowess, or lack there of.
My name is Phlosphr and I am a bad speller. I use too many apostrophie’s and I can not distinguish between laying down, getting laid, laying around or any other such terrible use of the word.
I’m a psychologist, and a teacher. I should know how to spell correctly 99% of the time. I am very scatter brained, ADD maybe, I thrive in chaos. Yet I can not spell to save my life. Not even all the years of latin in HS prepared me. I’ve coauthored text books, I’ve written countless articles, and produced copious amounts survey reports and publishable data, all with the shadow of a terrible speller on my back, resting like the cute little monkey it is.
I do not blame the weasel’s, or badger’s, [<-- see I did it again] I can only blame myself. Ergo, I hope people still continue to read and participate in my posts even though I’m afflicted with this terrible psyco-social-non-combative-semi-seasonal-affective disorder.
Grammar. (I’ll leave the question of “apostrophie’s” to other members of the jury. Hint: the death sentence has been deemed too soft-hearted in similar cases).
And a holly switch is not good enough. We need something with spines to scourge you into proper respect for the language.
You may be surprised how many Ph.D.s and other academic “elite” can’t spell (or write) to save their damn lives. As an undergrad in Computer Science, I used to earn a little bit of money by editing research papers submitted to a scholarly journal. These people were researchers, writing research papers, and couldn’t construct a coherent fucking sentence if their life depended on it. Made up example (not exaggerating), “Water usage, in Southern california, has exceeded demand, by 20%, every year for 20 years since 1983, which has resulted in the need, urgently, to borrow or buy water from nieghboring comunities at a record pace, which outstrips even those comunities to supply water both for themselves and for the communities they supply water to.” My job was to break these sorts of things down into actual sentences and correct spelling and grammar, etc. As long as you don’t write 150-page posts on the SDMB with sentences like that, I won’t have flashbacks that would force me to have to hunt you down .
Genius need not be able to spell. For spelling matters we have the lowly grunts known as proofreaders. Content is what it’s about. The proofreader and the editor exist for a reason. Of course, do to the tedious nature of the work and the attention to detail required they can command a fairly decent wage. For the genius who cannot afford a proofreader I offer my empathy. It’s like a Dj without a Roadie. I can still get the job done, but it isn’t nearly as fun or painless. I’m not saying spelling is not important, just that a gifted writer should not have to waste his time playing proofreader. Unfortunately, I am not in a position to pay someone to proofread my posts before I post them. But in a perfect world . . .
dalovindj, you may have a point there. Spelling is one thing, though, and grammar is another. Do you not agree that the oh-so-precious content of a genius’ ramblings may be warped by communicating said ramblings in a confused, steaming heap of jumbled words and comma splices? Spelling errors are generally fixable and fogivable, as they may occur by accident or by hurriedness of thought. . .egregious grammatical and syntactical messes, however, often make the entire meaning of the sentence totally unclear or ambiguous.
You offer empathy to the genius who can’t afford a proofreader. What do you offer to the genius who doesn’t need a proofreader? (that’s me, by the way ) Huh? What do I get?
I guess I just offer to fogive them when they make spelling errors while claiming they haven’t any need for a proofreader. Proper grammar is important, but again, a skilled editor and a proofreader goes a long way in helping a writer clean up the mechanics. However, given a lack of inspiration, a lack of a proper muse, all the proper grammar in th world aint gonna help a writer. Plus, verbing wierds language.
The Mark Twain quote is actually:
Similarly, Andrew Jackson once said:
Eve, at my temp agency the rate for a proofreader starts at around $18/hour and can go as high as $28/hour depending on which shift you work. Not exactly gonna set you up to buy mansions and yachts, but it beats minimum wage by a pretty good measure.
Open up Word, or some other word processing program that has a spellchecker. Type up your stuff, run the spellchecker, copy and paste it into the post reply box.
The world will never know your terrible secret. Well, those who read this thread will. But we won’t tell.
Making you a proofreader. A true artist would delegate any spelling related re-reads to a proper grunt. Particularly if it is important.
No judgement is intended here. It takes all kinds. We need proofreaders. I love 'em. I’ve actually done a bit of it myself many years ago. I work at an Investment Bank for almost 10 years now. Most of the time I have done Operator work. When I did do a little proofreading, not only did I start to feel homicidal urges brought on by the incredibly BORING work, I felt like I was ratting out my co-workers. We have a system. The Operator types up the document in question. The proofer marks it all to hell and returns it to the operator who makes the corrections. If the operator turns in a second version, and any marked corrections are not made, then you get a mark against your name. 3 Strikes and you are pretty close to fired. Still, between the Operator and the Proofreader, the Banker need not worry about how to operate the software, grammar, or spelling issues. He/she is free to focus on content and the accuracy of the data in the presentation. Similarly, in a perfect world, a writer would have a proofreader and an editor so that grammar and spelling issues would not fill up time which could be better spent on the creative end.
And spellcheckers are good, but they are no substitute for a real person. Particularly when it comes to grammar issues. And the writer whouldn’t have to run it through the spellchecker themselves.
Well the wonderful weasels gobbled up my Oh So Eloquent post. So here is an abbreviated version. Let’s just call it Devine Providence.
Proofreading is one thing, spell checker is another. I agree completely with dalovindj, proof reading is truly an art. The proofreaders we have at this college i.e grad students do not get paid. However, they get something much more valuable to them. The possibility of having their names in print. My school is a prime hunting ground for farming some of the best talent in several specialities, Botany, Environmental Psychology, and Dance. Many students who leave here have their name attached to one or more projects affilitated with our school. I take much pride in what I do, and truly love teaching. I have met many genii who have been scatterbrained. Down right odd in some cases. Yet I have met none who were not willing to postulate as to why they were the way they were. Some went on, an on.
Those who are gifted with the art of the written word I salute you!
[sub]Why do I get the eerie feeling people are dissecting everyone elses grammar and spelling in this thread…[/sub]
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