See, this is what I like about the SDMB. Unlike most (all?) other boards I’ve experienced, many members are big enough to admit when they’re wrong, or agree to disagree, arrive at a compromise, or at any rate do something other than tediously and incessantly argue the same points over and over.
Thankfully, there are posters like partly_warmer out there, even on this MB, to remind me that nothing can be perfect, and that there will always be those who prefer picking fights to fighting ignorance.
I don’t think I’m amused. I might even say I’m saddened. At the very least, irritated.
Tha’s funny Prima - I’ve always said that irritating things “nerk” me. Maybe I just made it up aged five and noone’s ever had the guts to call me on it before.
I shall look it up in my Big-Ass-Dictionary[sup]TM[/sup] when I get home.
So apparently you were too busy checking for spelling mistakes instead of reading my post? You made a statement that (sp?) in written messages bothers you. So I told you why it bothers you. There wasn’t really any debate there. Remember which message board you’re in.
Also, I think that if you’re going to type in (sp?) in your messages, you should try sneaking them in after words that you know are spelled correctly. Just to keep everybody on their toes.
Finally, on the subject of (sp?) affecting the flow of a sentence, I’d say that’s BS. If anything, (sp?) is telling the reader: This could very possibly be spelled incorrectly, but don’t fret. Just keep your mind on what I’m trying to say. I don’t want you losing concentration on me.
Oooh dear. He still hasn’t grasped it, as he boys and girls? You did NOT tell me why the aforementioned collection of characters bothers me. You IGNORED why it bothers me and ASSUMED that it must be because I was a grammarian. Wrong! A review of this thread will show that it is NOTHING TO DO with your ability to actually spell or otherwise! This had already been made painstakingly clear long before your attempt to contribute.
**Which message board? The Straight Dope Message Board, as I recall. And reading comprehension is generally appreciated here.
Ah. Humour. Very droll.
No, it’s telling the reader “Look! Here’s a word that may be spelled incorrectly! Please let me distract you from my message so that I may inform you how lazy I am!”
But hey - if you want to use “(sp?)” then knock yourself out! I’ve enumerated the reasons why I don’t like it now more than enough times.
Or maybe not. Let’s try once more (sing along boys and girls!):[list=1][li]If you want to use “(sp?)” some people will have a kneejerk response; to whit that you are lazy and don’t care enough to want to improve your knowledge.[/li]
[li]This is nothing to do with the misspelling! It is because you have DEMONSTRATED that you KNOW your word is spelled in a dodgy fashion but that you don’t have the politeness to spend the 30 seconds it takes to c&p your dodgy word into a spellchecker.[/li]
[li]Furthermore it disrupts flow by drawing a big red circle around words that are unreliable.[/li]
[li]We’ll say it again: fill your posts with badly spelled words, typos and grammar errors if you so wish. Really. Just don’t demonstrate to us that you KNOW that they are incorrect, or we shall proceed to label you an ignoramus who has no desire to better him- or herself[/list=1]There. Now do we need to sing it again?[/li]
pan
If I know I can’t spell a word, I usually look it up. Certain words give me problems all the time.
Odyssey is one I have to look up everytime I use it. Strangely enough, when I looked it up for this post, I got back “ODESY” as the correct spelling. I had to go to a second online dictionary. I would use my paper dictionary, but all attempts to keep it by the computer have been stymied by my children.
In defense of (sp?), I do use it occasionally, generally as a time saving device because I am sometimes in a big hurry to get my post through (very rarely), or I am so clueless on how to spell the word, I can’t even get dictionary or spell checker to come up with the word I want. Solution? Spell it phonetically, add a (sp?) and hope that meaning gets through.
Personally, I tend to be rather casual about my posts, unless I’m debating something fiercely. I generally write the way I would speak, instead of writing the way I might for an essay (grammar, spelling, sentence structure, etc). If everything had to be written in a formal style and get graded by fellow dopers, it’s unlikely I would bother to post at all.
“But there really is no excuse for being too lazy to spellcheck a normal everyday word that you know is not spelled correctly.”
“The kneejerk is specifically in response to “(sp?)” That tells me that you can spell well enough to realise that there is an error but that you can’t be bothered to do anything about it.”
Also, I’ve heard this usage that you describe…
“Tha’s funny Prima - I’ve always said that irritating things “nerk” me. Maybe I just made it up aged five and noone’s ever had the guts to call me on it before.”
… and I’d defend your right to use it to the hilt. And … oh, no … but … “noone” is a not a word. It’s a common misspelling. I take it one of my points is safely made?
Wipe Lightening
What I particularly note is your post’s lack of substance. It seems to me you made virtually the same comment to someone else who’s post you didn’t agree with/like/understand-further-than-a-hog-can-trampoline on the previous page.
You: “I don’t think I’m amused. I might even say I’m saddened. At the very least, irritated.”
No, what you are is unamusing, sad, and irritating.
Also, I think it’s fair to warn you that you might have trouble voting in Florida.
Kabbes, I suppose that it’s my fault in that I gave you a little too much credit. I thought that you would recognize the connection I was making. Then again, perhaps I could have been a little clearer. And in fairness to you, you were probably replying back to several people at once.
But my initial point was that, while you claim to be bothered only by the use of the (sp?), you’re actually bothered by spelling mistakes in general. And judging by your recent posts, you clearly demonstrate the characteristics of those that I’ve outlined in the 3rd paragraph of my initial post.
I suppose you’ll ask for evidence, although I’m sure its already evident to most. But here it goes:
These are quotes from you:
-“Misspellings due to oversight, typos or ignorance I can deal with.”
-“Consider that by inserting ‘(sp)’, you’re missing the chance to better yourself.”
-“I have kneejerk that thinks ‘a bit dumb/lazy/discourteous’.” (When you see the (sp) being used)
-“I don’t think dumb/lazy/discourteous if the word is spelled incorrectly.”
-“And it is the fact that you can’t be bothered to do anything about it that I consider dumb…”.
So, very simply, you would think that a person who already knows that he is probably spelling something incorrectly is probably dumb. But if he has no clue that he is spelling something incorrectly, then he has less of a chance of being dumb. Well, smart guy, this just isn’t logical. That would be like saying somebody who thinks that the capital of England is Timbuktu is smarter than somebody who knows that it isn’t Timbuktu, but just doesn’t feel like looking it up.
So, to repeat, while you say that spelling mistakes don’t bother you, I suspect that they do. And you do place an intelligence value on someone else’s ability to spell. As you said: “you’re missing the chance to better yourself”. And its people like you that force some of the others to have to use the (sp). Ironic, isn’t it?
Oh good grief. I think the people who are getting upset about the use of (sp?) should consider the context. In general, a post on a message board is in a pretty informal context. It’s not a doctoral thesis. It’s not a job resume. It’s somewhere between a letter to a good friend and a note left in the ice box to the person who keeps stealing your lunch.
Very little that is said on the message board has archival value. Most of it is fluff contributed during lunch hour or while waiting for a program to compile. But the bottom line is that the writer has made a judgement about how much effort it’s worth investing in the topic. If the user uses (sp?), this indicates that there is probably an error in the spelling, but for this particular ephemera, it’s just not worth walking upstairs for a dictionary, or spawning another browser to do a word check. The reader is free to decide if this usage affects the value of the information being transmitted.
I would argue that valuable information is being transmitted by the use of (sp?). If I saw it in General Questions, I would realize that the information, while quite likely accurate, was being contributed by someone (maybe even an expert) off the top of their head. They’re trying to be helpful, but you’re getting just what you paid for – free information. The poster isn’t heavily invested in the answer. Caveat lector.
Now if I was trying to sway someone’s firmly established moral and ethical values in Great Debates (and we know that this happens all the time), I would be more leery of the use of the (sp?), simply because it would make my closely reasoned and devastatingly logical arguments seem potentially flawed.
Am I saying that spelling isn’t important? Heck no. A correctly spelled and grammatically correct post not only conveys respect for the reader, but indicates something about the educational and emotional level of the writer (specifically, that’s he’s not a Warez D00d). But it is permissible, every now and then, in the message board context, to give a meta-level indication that the writer has declined to interrupt the flow of reasoned discourse in order to achieve a level of correctness of importance only to pedants.
I don’t care if somebody can’t spell.
I don’t care if somebody makes typographical errors
I don’t care if somebody’s grammar is up shit creek.
I don’t care if somebody uses non-existant words that they thought were real.
If somebody types “(sp?)”, I don’t care that they don’t know how to spell the word.
What bothers me is that they don’t want to know.
There. I am done. I started with the flesh of the argument and have reduced it to the bones. I feel that the flesh is a better representation, but clearly some just like to chew for a bit.
Preface: This is a long post. I apologize. partly_warmer seems to be unable to keep track of what’s being said, so I’m going to try to be very thorough and lay it all out very clearly here. pw, please don’t make any complaints or whine about the length of this missive. Just read it. Or don’t. But if you choose the latter, please also choose not to post any response whatsoever.
First things. I assume you are referring to this:
I will say that you do appear to have read this entire thread, as this is not the first time you have referenced a previous post from it,and you have already asserted that you have read it. But I am shocked to see that you seem to have managed to have read the entire thread without understanding a single argument that was made in it. Or maybe your short-term memory is just really, really bad. But don’t you dare tell me I was unable to respond to an argument that I didn’t understand when you didn’t have the courtesy to try to familiarize yourself with either side of the debate.
Let me try to spell this out for you. My post’s alleged “lack of substance” was due to the facts that 1) I had nothing more to add to the debate, and 2) neither did you. I felt it was a waste of my time, and of everyone else’s, to respond to your post, as it contained nothing that hadn’t already been debated in this very same thread.
The same is true of my previous post in regard to Drastic’s arguments. He made a thoughtful, well-reasoned post which responded clearly and succinctly to what appeared to me to be the relevant points of the discussion, including a clear-headed rebuttal to Tengu’s hyperbole. And then everyone else continued the debate as if he had not done that. I felt like pointing this out. So I did.
Then, the thread seems to start getting wrapped up, as people’s positions begin to crystallize and we began to see that none of us really disagreed too much at all. Even such a sweet line as this:
Discussion over, right?
Guess not. Here comes partly_warmer to ruin the day. Here’s your first post to this thread.
Let’s examine this post, shall we?
It’s quite hostile. Why? No one knows. There’s been little hostility in this thread to date, and none whatsoever directed at you, since this is your first appearance here.
It’s hyperbolic and rhetorical, as opposed to logical and/or reasonable. You make no actual arguments (speaking of “lack of substance”), electing instead to direct some sort of vague, very lame attack on a rigidly regulated society with an extrememly tenuous (at best) connection to any of kabbes’ posts.
You indulge yourself in a ridiculous straw-man construction of kabbes’ argument; i.e. “hold spelling rules higher in regard than the worth of human beings…” etc. This is not what he’s saying, and everyone else who has posted to or read this thread is aware of that.
Except, apparently, for you. In fact, in the very first post after your triumphant entrance, Miller asked you the question
and you had the NERVE to actually quote this very post and then conspicuously fail to respond to any of the questions that it raised. How is this possible? I don’t think I could have done it. You’re a real pro. Here are your “arguments,” and now my responses.
You assert that you have read the thread. Fine.
You nitpick Miller’s diction. Asshole.
You say some words take longer than 28 seconds to look up, and name-drop the OED (oh boy!). Irrelevant.
You try to score some pity with some crap about the way you were raised, then you make your first argument since you arrived in this thread. Sadly, it’s cleverly camouflaged with the rest of your bullshit so it seems to have been lost in the shuffle.
You say: “I occasionally get into a situation where the spell-checker can’t guess what word I’m trying to write. If I’m at the point where I want to communicate, but the spelling is being a barrier, then yes, I might do (sp).” Personally, I would probably accept this usage of ‘(sp).’ It’s hard for me to imagine a situation where with some trial and error you couldn’t get the spell-checker on the right track, unless it falls under circumstances similar to those described earlier in the thread (you remember, about the demons, and Hannukah, etc.), but that’s me. You could also pick a different word to express yourself, but I wouldn’t want you to put yourself out just to make yourself understood.
and finally, 5) You resume the steady stream of horseshit, flinging the name ‘anal’ at those who would correct your ‘alternate’ spelling. You also posit that you can ‘vividly hear’ some idiots arguing with you about a British spelling. Let me save you a quarter and give you a FREE clue: here on the SDMB, you’re supposed to respond to the other posters, not the voices you hear in your head.
So, now that I’m done with what you’ve said in this thread, I’m also going to say that I agree with your strategic decision. You chose to respond to my post because you thought you could identify a “lack of substance,” and I guess maybe you thought I might just back down, or not check back into the thread, and you’d have yourself an easy way out. The alternative, of course, was to actually expand upon or defend your argumentation, of which there is pathetically little to amplify, much less defend. You spout some nonsense at kabbes about a point being safely made. We can come back to this later, if you really want to get into it, for now I’ll just say that it’s been reiterated multiple times already that a spelling TYPO or MISTAKE is not what is being discussed. What IS being discussed is the use of ‘(sp)’ to identify a word that you know you are spelling incorrectly. In fact, kabbes has already stated that “When it comes to typos and fragmented words due to editing, I’m as bad as anyone.” Did you read that? So the fact that you caught kabbes leaving the space out of ‘no one’ proves only one thing: that you are (let’s say it again) either not paying attention or making tangential (and spiteful, in this case) comments for the sole purpose of inciting more debate about this silly topic.
And lastly, I’d like to respond to your attempts at attacking me personally.
-I am not trying to amuse you, or anyone.
-I am indeed sad, as I said I was. I am sad that there are people like you who prefer picking fights to fighting ignorance. I’m sad that I’ve just wasted this much time responding to you.
-If I am irritating you, please, by all means, feel free to absent yourself from these proceedings and to not bother me, or anyone else on the SDMB, ever again. Be my guest. Because I wouldn’t want to irritate you.
Finally, as far as your editorializing on my handle goes, as well as your sparkling gemdrop of wit regarding the Florida elections, well, yo’ mama’s so hairy she look like she got Don King in a headlock. If you’d like to continue this discussion at this level of intellectual engagement, please start another thread.
Appendix:
For clarification purposes, here are a couple of quotes from this very thread that you may find edifying:
Now that you are aware of the nature of the issue, and its percieved impact, if you actually have anything to say regarding these concerns, now would be the time. I give you a free pass on answering any of the other things I have said in this post. Ignore it all. I invite you to start anew in your response to this debate, given the above appended clarification. I’m interested to see if you in fact have anything to contribute. If you do have contributions to make, and you take me up on my offer to ignore your presence in this thread to date and wipe the slate clean, I will defend your right to do so.
The point’s simple: I disagee with the conclusion reached in the thread. Examples were supplied, you don’t want to accept them. Fine.
Other than that, your lenghty prose doesn’t address the issues. Your reasoning, besides being by turns rude and then affecting to be dispassionate and rational, suggests you could use a basic class in logic.
Sound advice - everybody should study logic. As a mathematician, I certainly did. A refresher is always in order though - perhaps you could run over the basics for us partly_patronizing?
Personally, I am a horrible speller. Although, it has always bothered me when people put the (sp?) there repeatedly. Yeah once or twice on some weird word or someones sn is fine (I’ve done that myself) but to put it on a simple word that you can very easily type into Word and it will underline if its wrong and tell you exactly how to fix is absurd (yes I had to spell check that). If you don’t know how to spell the word, but know that its wrong, do one of two things: 1. forget about it or 2. make a note of it and FIX IT at the end. The one thing I ask is that if it is NOT a difficult word to spell but you don’t want to spell check dont use (sp?) it does get irritating for some of us anyway.
A side note for Kabbes- Thankyou really should be used with a space between the two words. Its not a spelling thing as much as a grammar thing. Not to be picky or anything.
From now on, this is going to be my response to everything. Every time someone disagrees with me, I’ll do it just like p_w. Short and sweet. “Essentially, I disagree with you. And, by the by, I’m right and you’re wrong. Oh yeah, and also you’re stupid.” It’s gonna save me so much effort.
Jesus Christ. Conciliatory. I commend your typo-spotting skills, but I have to point out once again that typos have nothing to do with the OP! Now that that’s cleared up, lets move on to your claim that you’ve provided some form of “evidence” in this debate.
First Post: White Lightning already covered this one:
Second Post: We get admissions of a lack of read-comprehension, lack of spelling ability (not at all relevant, as has been discussed to death), and paranoid delusions about a British F. Scott Fitzgeral marking up your first dictionary. Or something. This part was kinda weird.
Third Post: You start with some qoutes that adequately sum up kabbes position. But the only comment you make is another pointless swipe at a typo. So even the stuff that you take the time to qoute, you don’t understand. This is followed by a particularly weak crack about White Lightning’s screenname, a confusing analogy involving pigs and trampolines (huh?) and a few replies to WL that amount to saying, “N’uh, YOU are!”
Fourth Post: Bizarre poetry reference. You are appearing to highlight virtues that you manifestly do not possess. I am confused.
Fifth Post: After receiving one of the most thorough reamings I’ve ever seen at the hands of White Lightning, you suddenly pull a bullshit “Let’s agree to disagree” position, claim that you’ve supplied examples to support your position (you haven’t), baselessly criticize WL’s logic (an example please?), and call him stupid.
Five posts so far, and not one coherent argument. Basically, you’ve added nothing to this discussion except an unnecessarily extended lifespan. You wouldn’t get the point of this thread if it were pounded into your head like a rail-road tie. You’re so fucking dense NASA uses you as radiation shielding on the space shuttle. If ignorance is bliss, your life must be a permanent orgasm. Now go crawl back under your rock, worm.
PS As per my position that purposeful inattention to proper spelling is an insult to the reader, I have deliberatly resisted proofread this beyond making sure the vB code works. Take that, partly!
