While spelling and grammer errors, and the like, are usually “venal” sins, there are two "mortal sins:
Even though English is a constantly evolving medium, I find that numerous grammatical errors, “cutesy” spellings, and so on distract me from what the author is saying. Unless the author is a master (like Mark Twain), each “could of” and “l33t” draws my eye from the subject to the word.
Amen. I shouldn’t need to keep doing double takes while I’m reading.
What, no hyphen? That’s incorrect?
Not too well. It’s Q.E.D., as I’m sure you’re well aware upon preview.
Whenever I hear people do that sort of thing, I think bit of autobiographical colour that James Joyce added to one of his stories. (Can’t quite remember if it was Ulysses or Dubliners…)
The protagonist is amused by his wife’s description of a man that she sings duets with as a “base barrel-tone.”
It seems like a common thing for people to do-- transmogrify a term into some sort of homophonic approximation that has some loose connection to the way that they (mis)understand the concept.
It’s old, but funny:
Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.
Now the only thing I correct is:
How are you?
I am good.
No, you are well.
But me don’t let it bother I.
It’s old, but funny:
Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.
Now the only thing I correct is:
How are you?
I am good.
No, you are well.
But me don’t let it bother I.
Joe K
QED wasn’t so much a typo, as laziness, but I’ll give you that one. Sorry Q.E.D., for taking liberties with your screen name.
The correct form is “nonplussed” - no hyphen.
I noticed that “bared” thing, but missed putting it in the post.
There’s a thread in itself.
And am I the first here to say “cow-orkers”?
I hate spelling mistakes, but I must confess to being a terrible speller. Ever since 2nd grade, I was always the kid who got held in during recess to practice spelling. Up through high school I always got As in everything, except spelling. I suppose I have an undiagnosed form of dyslexia or something. I don’t know. When I have to write formally, I have to read every word individualy, and sometimes read sentances backwords in order to make sure I haven’t missed something.
Point being, have some pity on those who cannot spell, sometimes they can’t help it. (Though I concur completely with the attacks on netspeak and all that gibberish)
That’s right, no hyphen.
Nonplussed.
Garner’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage also says that it is occasionally spelled “nonplused” in the United States.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, i get it.
There’s no natural relationship between the signifier and the signified. Saussurean Linguistics 101.
So what? A key apsect of Saussure’s argument was specifically that we are not born on an island with two or three other people, but that we live in a society in which particular conventions are established in order to facilitate social interaction.
Your use of the singular “you” in the last sentence quoted implies that “correct” usage is some sort of individual whim, thrown out just to make your life more difficult. This is not the case.
I hate it when people don’t understand the difference between “Leet” speak and “luser” speak. Leet is written by people who are having fun with the language, and who know better. Luser is written by people who do not have a clue.
Most of “leet” speak is a substitution cypher, coupled with a few standardized misspellings (j00 for you, for example). There is also some latitude generally taken with plural forms; for example boxes may become boxen, or Viruses viri. Leet takes longer to read and to write well, but it is considered to be a kind of puzzle or intellectual joke in many circles.
Luser is generally written in one case, without punctuation. Misspellings are common, mostly phonetic. Syntax forms are frequently flouted or outright dismissed. Abbreviations or contractions are used incorrectly, and possessives and plurals are routinely confused. Most writers of Luser tend to defend it’s use by saying that it is easier to write, and they do not have computer skills to properly express themselves.
So far, all the examples of Leet and netspeak given are actually luser. There is a difference between:
2b 0r -2b? 7|-|47 15 7|-|3 qu35710n. wh37h3r '715 n08l3r 1n 7h3 m1n|) 70 5uff3r / 7h3 5l1n65 4nd 4rr0w5 0f 0u7r4630u5 ph0rtun3, 0r 2 7ak3 4rm5 4g4in57 4 534 0f 7r0u8l3s, 4nd 8y 0pp051n6 3nd 7h3m?
and
ya mah homeies an me was thinkn bout goen to da movies yuanta go
According to one school of thought, that’s what it should be. “Fucken” is supposedly an archaic past participle of fuck (analogous to break/broken or write/written), corrupted to fuckin’/fucking in modern speech. So when we say “that fucken thing,” we don’t mean that it is engaged in the act of fucking, but that it is fucked.
I make no claims whatsoever for the validity of this argument.
Yes, there is a difference, but they both still look like “loser” to me.
YMMV
Heh. That leet speak has really peaked my interest. Heh.
From Edwin Newman (I think)
“Born in Chicago, Illinois, I get damned tired of non-sequiters.”
I was recently on a scholarship selection committee, and each of 32 applicants had to submit three essays. I was appalled at the grammar and spelling mistakes, and at the general lack of the sense of what was appropriate in a formal essay. I read one girl’s essay, and she said, “I had only been to, like, one funeral in my life.” I read the sentence three times before I realized that she had, in fact, written “like” in a piece of formal writing. That was one of the milder errors I ran across. There was a surprising misuse of homophones, and “could of” and its ilk were rampant. It looked like most of the kids hadn’t even proofread their essays, or had anyone else read them.
Then I’d get to the letter of recommendation from the kid’s English teacher, and it wouldn’t be much better. It’s hard to blame kids for bad grammar when their English teachers don’t know the difference between “it’s” and “its” (another pet peeve of mine). That didn’t make it any less appalling–I think it’s a sad, sad thing that we let people who have only the dimmest idea of the rules of grammar teach English to our children.