Bad spelling should be accepted

[n01]

Being an ex-grammar nazi and speller, I've come to believe that it doesn't matter if you can't spell very well or if you fuck up grammar now and then.

Syntax exists just so we can communicate properly - being pedantic really isn't necessary. If I spell a few words incorrectly, but you can make out what words they are, what does it matter? Everyone makes mistakes - we should be tolerant.

If writing succumbs to nonsensical babbling, then we should be concerned - but most of what you are talking about seems to be pure Sinner pedantry.

Being able to spell every word in existence correctly doesn't make you intelligent. I have to lookup spellings quite often, and sometimes I just can't be bothered. It really isn't worth the effort because I'd rather worry about other things.

That being said, habits and mistakes are two different things.

[Jono]

First Point: "Lets blame the education system"

I've administered spelling tests for an infants school. There are a couple of outstanding kids who never put a foot wrong, and one or two who have serious literacy problems. But most of the kids are somewhere in the middle. Consider that all these children, for better or for worse, are required to attend schooling until the age of 16 by law. Thats hardly the same situation from 1895. back then, only the tiny percentage at the top of the pile got any kind of formal education, with an even smaller group going to university. Most of those average students who nowadays do have the chance at further education would never have seen schooling. As for the children with severe learning difficulties; do you think most Edwardian schools would have bothered with them?

Its only in the last hundred years that everyone in this country has had access to primary education, and only in the last 60 years that secondary education was thrown in. You're comparing a system where schools only had to deal with a tiny number of pupils, and could drum out all the dyslexics and slow-learners. The education system these days has to deal with everyone; not just the best and the brightest!

Second Point: Mr Smith is not suggesting we purge the written word with fire (judging by some of the responses, this seems to be the impression). Rather, he is recognizing the bleeding obvious; that there is a difference between spelling mistakes where the intention is obvious, and spelling mistakes that leave a piece completely incomprehensible. Lets be frank; If this university held its students to rigid SPAG requirements, most of us wouldn't have made it through first year. But it doesn't. Firstly, because misplacing a vowel does *NOT* equate to being a complete illiterate (in the same way passing a driving test does not make you a racing driver). Second, Because a working knowledge of your subject is and always has been more important than the spelling.

Perfect spelling and grammar is desirable and admirable. But managers not going to say "Outstanding employee; Smart; insightful; hard working. But oh shit, he put a comma in the wrong place in his last report; FIRE THAT NONCE!" I can't help but draw parallels between this debate, and the old-issues surrounding provincial accents. Its fair to say that Scots don't need elocution lessons anymore to be taken seriously in the world of business. As long as you can communicate with the written word in a way other people understand, then a degree of misspelling is perfectly forgivable.

[hr]

I disagree with you in principle.

[exnihilo]

Just one little point. Universal education in this country dates from the end of the C19th, so your assertion about tiny minorities is so much ignorant nonsense. As for how people with severe learning difficulties were dealt with in the Edwardian age, I assume you have some evidence for them being "drummed out" or is that just assertion too?

Literacy rates in the country have been more or less the same for the lat century, 90%+, only in the last ten have we developed a situation in which 75% is a government target - and one which they are not reaching.

The rest of the post is just reductio ad absurdam, nobody has even remotely suggested a misplaced vowel equates to illiteracy or that a missing comma should result in dismissal.

[kn83]

Quoting exnihilo from 11:22, 25th Aug 2008
The rest of the post is just reductio ad absurdam

It's actually spelt 'reductio ad absurdum'...

(Not that it matters anyway as you clearly have no idea what it means)

[exnihilo]

A simple typo, but one for which I am most contrite. I assure you I know what it means, both as a philosophical concept and as an every day expression. But thanks for the contribution, I expect you feel tremendously clever.

[n01]

Quoting kn83 from 15:16, 25th Aug 2008

Quoting exnihilo from 11:22, 25th Aug 2008
The rest of the post is just reductio ad absurdam

It's actually spelt 'reductio ad absurdum'...

(Not that it matters anyway as you clearly have no idea what it means)

This is exactly the type of shit that I'm talking about. Does it matter? No. Everyone knows what ex was talking about. (Well, those that know what 'reductio...' means - I don't)

[eagle]

I bet you could deductio what it means...

[Anon.]

Collins think incorrect spelling is because people know the rules too well:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... spell.html

[nutzdiemachtluke]

I feel entertained. I am procrastinating and rereading over work due at the end of the week, so clearly the sinner holds more attraction than my nascent dissertation. i find it intriguing that so many people have pointed towards foreign language teaching as a way of improving spelling: interestingly enough, if you spend any time with non-native English speakers you soon realise that their grammar and spelling is probably better than your own (or mine anyway). My personal tuppence on the matter is that if you're explicitly taught the rules of grammar, sound-change and spelling, you're much less likely to cock up the language with which you're working. The problem is that while reading is taught in UK schools, people are expected to 'catch' the rules of spelling and writing by analogy, when in fact they're two completely different skills. Minimal research has been carried out on the correlation between IQ levels and ability to spell - mainly because it's complete hogwash that only the brightest 15% of the population can manage complete accuracy in written English. It's entirely due to how the rules are taught at lower levels of education, and the answer to that isn't to formalise acceptance of a lower standard of written English, but to improve the skills and awareness of those tasked to teach the language to future generations. I remember being particularly horrified when a primary school teaching acquaintance asked me to proof-read an essay she wrote on child development which failed to distinguish accurately between 'to' and 'too'. For shame, Scotland, for shame!

AND to a former poster (you know who you are!) I'd be amazed if your department lets you away with serious spelling mistakes. I've had corrected papers back that flag up such issues as split infinitives with strokes of red pen(when the split infinitive is supposedly redundant in the modern age due to Murphy's re-branding of the same as a collocation) and explanations of the difference between 'with regard to' and 'with regards to' as essay phrases. spend more time in the faculty of arts and divinity and see how readily you are allowed to escape with sloppy English...

[Drew]

no.

[kn83]

Quoting exnihilo from 17:13, 25th Aug 2008
A simple typo, but one for which I am most contrite. I assure you I know what it means, both as a philosophical concept and as an every day expression. But thanks for the contribution, I expect you feel tremendously clever.

The irony of pointlessly commenting on a spelling error in this thread was clearly too subtle.

Please excuse the spiteful tone of my post before, it just annoys me to see people being dismissive of other people's arguments ("The rest of the post is just reductio ad absurdam") when they themselves aren't correct.

'Reductio ad absurdum' doesn't mean a silly argument, as your post appeared to suggest. It's a style of argument which demonstrates that an initial premise is false, by showing that the premise gives rise to some contradiction. The term doesn't refer to an argument which uses silly premises.

[exnihilo]

See above where I said I knew what the term meant. You will find, however, that in addition to its strict philosophical meaning it is also a perfectly common Latin tag which can be used to mean reducing something to the absurd: e.g. the suggestion that people would be dismissed from their job for misplacing a comma.

[Anon.]

Quoting exnihilo from 22:32, 26th Aug 2008
You will find, however, that in addition to its strict philosophical meaning it is also a perfectly common Latin tag which can be used...

Misused, I would have said. Like people saying "the hoi polloi".

[Biitchboy]

Phrases borrowed from other languages are often reanalyzed in English as single words. For example, a number of Arabic noun phrases were borrowed into English as simple nouns. The Arabic element al- means "the," and appears in English nouns such as alcohol and alchemy. Thus, since no one would consider a phrase such as "the alcohol" to be redundant, criticizing the hoi polloi on similar grounds seems pedantic.

[eagle]

Arabic for 'springy/stretchy' is 'astic'.

Elastic is simply 'the stretchy'.

[WashingtonIrving]

This thread has reduced to absurdity.



[hr]

"I said farewell honey, I'll see you Judgment Day"

[UanarchyK]

Wy haz no wun sugjestid that we shud just spel fonetiklee?