The most serious problem facing this country isn’t taxes, or global warming, or the commies or whatever…
IT IS THAT 98% OF THE PEOPLE IN THIS COUNTRY ARE FUCKING MORONS!!
I have found 3 instances of just atrocious spelling on the internet in the past 5 minutes:
1-from a website I am going to rant about later on:
The principles in your book literally “blue my mind!”
2-In a classified ad:
Wanted: 2 bedroom apartment. Must except pets.
3-On a bulletin board:
I found the fix your looking for.
AUUUUGH!!!
I know that spelling errors will exist forever, but it is just my imagination, or are people just really dumb?
I seem to recall a sci-fi story about a girl who divided the world into “Brights” like herself, and “Stupids” for the other 98% of humanity. I feel like her now.
People are just really dumb. And lazy. Bastards. I feel your pain man. Some of your examples are what really pisses me off. Here on the message board, web or even in personal letters I can see not worrying too much about editing. On an advertisement or other published document I just can’t believe someone would be so careless. I don’t attribute that to laziness though; I think they just don’t know how to spell.
Also, it doesn’t seem to be emphasized in schools much anymore. A few years ago, I dated someone who had recently graduated high school. I found out she didn’t know what a verb or noun was, along with a host of other grammar-related things. Since then, I’ve made it a point to talk to as many high school graduates that I can and query them on it. Most have no idea. It’s sad, really.
“The advertisement for Ralph Lauren’s fragrance ‘Romance’ is in fact romantic. It displays a full page, black and white photograph of an attractive man, romantically but passionately lifting a beautiful girl up to hold her. The woman has her legs wrapped around the man’s waste.”
Some people, I believe, have learning disabilities, and have difficulty with spelling. I occasionally help my father proof-read his letters to the editor. For some reason spelling has always been an obstacle for him (he wasn’t taught phonics, but whether that matters or not is discussed at this thread).
He is aware, however, that he has a problem, and looks things up in the dictionary or asks for help with proofreading. Maybe people who misspell badly on the Internet are trying to keep up with the fast pace of some of the faster typists/better spellers, and can’t. Although I find this distracting, I usually can get past that if I am interested enough in what the other person has to say.
I tend to have a really snobbish attitude, not so much about spelling and typos, but about grammatical errors and miuse of words.
Whenever I see someone mix up “your” and “you’re”, or talks about “loosing touch”, I automatically tend to think that the person isn’t very intelligent.
There have been a few cases where this way of thinking was completely wrong, and I know that I make mistakes myself, but I still do it.
And now that I’ve posted this, I’m sure there will be no less than three errors. grins
This has chafed my ass as well. I can somewhat understand not knowing the proper way to use your or their, though it seems easy to me.
What I truly loathe is cutesy ‘respellings’ of words like d00d, cuz, or when people think that they are the artist formerly known as Princess and use numbers and letters for entire words.
If u continue, I will kick you 4 times in the ass.
I can’t defend the first two (Especially the first which is truly mindboggling), but the third is a simple mistake.
Something quick and informal as that seems to be gets, by me, a lot more lee-way than an ad or such. (The first can be argued to be informal, and was definitly quick, but it’s WAY past where I’d consider allowable.)
Recently seen on signs at the Maryland State Fair: No Smokeing
These were professionally printed signs, not hand-lettered signs. I just stood there in amazement.
I always see signs like “Lawn’s Cut. Call Mike.”
“Yard Sale. Household Good’s.”
I also hate the cutesy spellings and the upper and lower case typing.
I also hate “your and you’re” and the “their, there and they’re” and the “accept and except” mix-ups.
Maybe it bothers me cuz I gots a degree in English.
Or the fact that I is an teacher.
Whats you’re opinion?
I’m not sure how to make a link to a thread, but this was a thread that I recently read, and by the time I was half way through with it, I was disgusted. It got to the point where I could not understand what the OPer was talking about, because I was to busy deciphering his words. This is where it goes to far. It would have taken him a minute more to go over this and change the 50 times that he screwed up. This compared to you’re/your is comparing a bug bite to a mountain dropped on you, and though both are annoying, the more immediate problem is the mountain of crap that is being dropped on us.
Democritus and I were able to make sense of the OP through a few posts . . . Demo took care of the big things, I took care of the more . . . delicate changes that needed to be made.
The OP in that thread was about how jocks and preppies get what they want, at least in his weightlifting class, and people who are not J or P do not get what they want. IOW, another whiny Pit post.
Let’s face it. In this television / telephone generation just how important is the printed word anymore? The media predigests and spoon feeds us sound bites that are designed for a fruit fly’s attention span. Letter writing is a thing of the past (mea maxima culpa). Between the truncated lingo of modern “youthspeak” and the de-emphasis of the arts and letters in schools, what’s a pedant to do?
My last girlfriend had handwriting that made chickenscratch look like fine calligraphy. I was speculating upon this with a friend who finally hit upon the truth of the matter. This girl had never bothered to write very much in school, so why would she know how to write at all? A little too obvious for me I suppose. If everyone had to read aloud from their own writing, things might be different.
Along with the written word, story telling is fast becoming a lost art as well. So, what’s the big surprise here? We are now in a society that no longer values the ability to express oneself clearly and cogently. Is this really news to any of us that lament the current level of spelling in these threads? Fortunately, such a lack of letters is often a self limiting factor in these people getting anywhere in the world. Still, it is sad to see such butchering of something so marvelous as the English language.
