Hello all,
I have a question I haven’t found here: What is going on with spelling? Why does it sometimes seem that people can’t put together a basic sentence? Just cruise the message board of your choice, and you’ll se exactly what I mean.
Is this something schools are no longer teaching? Are Instant Messengers killing our third-most basic form of communication (beyond, say non-verbal and verbal)?
How do these people get out of High School with a diploma?
What I’m starting to notice now, is a lot of these people are getting jobs that involve spelling skills, and as a result, we’re seeing more and more stupid mistakes in advertisements, and newspaper articles, even from reputable companies/publications.
There’s a billboard in town for Maggie’s Magic Muffin House, only it’s spelled “Maggies.” Maggies. With no apostrophe. It’s only a giant billboard, you’d think they might actually proof-read that. I get a little emotional over punctuation–not spelling so much, but punctuation. Oh, well…at least it was an apostrophe, and not a semi-colon that was being used improperly.
… I’m sure we can all “se” exactly what you mean (I believe this is referred to around here as “Gaudere’s law”? Perhaps a more veteran poster can verify that for me)
… and another problem is people who don’t know how to properly use commas …
I would say all of this is ironic, but I’m sure that would stir up a whole other hive of hornets willing to debate whether I would be properly using the term “ironic” or not.
(In the interest of furthering future knowledge and preventing other such horrible errors in the use of ellipses, I provide the following informative link: Ellipses)
Realhoops,
I tend to use commas because I stop writing to THINK about what I want to say, and each pause usually comes with a comma. (A bad habit, I guess).
Regardless, that point (nor the typo) are ironic since my post questioned spelling. (Release the Hornets!)
I think a lot of disciplines that were once front and center in schools are no longer emphasized the way they once were. I think spelling is one example and handwriting is another. The real problem is when spelling (and proofreading) errors begin to impact on the credibility of the author. This was the subject of a thread in Great Debates.
For what it’s worth, I didn’t mean to imply that you were unaware of how to spell “see.” I was, perhaps usuccessfully, trying to make a subtle point that mistakes are easy to make in “typed” discussions and that, as much as I personally dislike typos, spelling errors, and obvious grammar errors, somebody is always able to come along and point out the mistakes we make when trying to point out the mistakes others make. (My misuse of ellipses in that very post is a great example.)
As many people in the Great Debates thread cited above noted, I think it is a real problem when it impacts on credibility. When it’s clearly a simple typographical error and is not indicative of an entire lack of care or proofreading, it is not such a big deal. Advertisements and newspaper articles, on the other hand, should care more about their credibility and about the impact of such mistakes than the average internet message board poster.
Spelling mistakes don’t bother me as much as punctuation abuse. Not to pick on Merge, but I get irritated when people use multiples of punctuation to emphasize something. Two isn’t bad, but when it gets to four or five, it just looks silly. Anyone with me on this???
Another peeve is the excited typist! Because typing is so much fun, they get so excited! I’m just so happy I missed my period!
I don’t see that so much on this board, but some people seem to have their period key mixed up with the exclamation point key.
