Thread: To Spell or not to Spell :-)

Originally Posted by stevo68

In this day and age, if one is genuinely "illiterate" that is most likely by choice. Otherwise it will generally be due to lazyiness, as it really isn't that hard to spell correctly.

Regards

Stevo

Hey Stevo,

Mate, now I'm not trying to have a go at all in this response please understand. I would however like to let readers of this thread know the other side of the coin so to speak...

Among other things that I do I am a youth support worker... The last young lad who I was working with was 15, he had a life that was very hard - mum and dad split up... mum couldn't handle him and gave him to a relative to look after... relative abused him for many years... he ran away and lived where ever he could to survive.

Now he couldn't read (not even enough to play X-Box) due to a lack of education.

To make matters worse, as his bail conditions stated I had to take him to a special education school that deal with youth like him. They gave him the choice of what subjects to take (talk about lack of discipline ) so he of course took only one module of Literacy and Numeracy and all the rest were fun and worthless modules!!!

Now with a life of no boundaries, that is all he knew. How is he ever to have victory over his circumstances in a system that doesn't provide any discipline???

There are 1000's of people similar to him!

Chosen

Originally Posted by stevo68

G'day All,

Rather than take over someone else's thread, it would seem I was mildy chastised for making comment that it annoy's me when I have to read through threads where, I feel, people are generally lazy when it comes to spelling and grammar. In fact that I even maybe discriminatory. Now I'm not talking the odd error made in speed, we all do that. What I am talking about is the likes of this:



Now if someone can tell me that is OK, and that perhaps I should feel "sorry" for someone who obviously hasn't taken the time to spell correctly, well come and lash me alive

Regards

Stevo

Hey stevo
I didn't realise you were going to get this fired up about it,in relation to txt speak ,it has become a part of life as has phonetics.these days it seems that you don't have to teach the correct way first up ! .the important thing in todays world is to teach the easy way first then worry about correct spelling and grammar later {unfortunately}

Hey Stevo,

Mate, now I'm not trying to have a go at all in this response please understand. I would however like to let readers of this thread know the other side of the coin so to speak...

Among other things that I do I am a youth support worker... The last young lad who I was working with was 15, he had a life that was very hard - mum and dad split up... mum couldn't handle him and gave him to a relative to look after... relative abused him for many years... he ran away and lived where ever he could to survive.

Now he couldn't read (not even enough to play X-Box) due to a lack of education.

To make matters worse, as his bail conditions stated I had to take him to a special education school that deal with youth like him. They gave him the choice of what subjects to take (talk about lack of discipline ) so he of course took only one module of Literacy and Numeracy and all the rest were fun and worthless modules!!!

Now with a life of no boundaries, that is all he knew. How is he ever to have victory over his circumstances in a system that doesn't provide any discipline???

There are 1000's of people similar to him!

Chosen

Good point and again a) there will be variances and Im not talking about those and b) when one gets to a certain age i.e adult then yes it is about choice. Quick example: many yrs ago I employed a young bloke ( as long as he wore long shirt to cover tatts and got a hair cut). One time found the bloke in tears ( unexpected, guy was as tough as they come). He had lived on streets, been abused, couldnt get access to his daughter. My response was "Yes...and??" What I got through to him was that where he was right now was choice. Yes his past sucked, yes he had gone through stuff I couldn't imagine, but as of right now, as an adult he had choices. He could let his past, lack of education etc keep him down for the rest of his life, or he could suck it in, stop crapping on about the past and look at right now and to the future. He did the latter. I moved on from the business and a year later got a letter from him, in much improved writing, telling me about his new job, had access to his daughter, was living in a house opposed to a caravan and thanked me. I responded, great but no thanks need, your the one who did it, your the one who decided your choices and well done.

And yes Outback you were my inspiration , though it was never just about txt speak, but spelling/ grammar in general...........again not about the minority of situations,

Regards

Stevo

Here's a nice book that lives in my library,
been very helpful over the years...

Cheers, GQ

If you are able to spell and use grammar and choose not to and instead let loose with a load of unreadable drivel, that is laziness.

I

could give you my whole resume, more than happy to PM it to you, but I run my own successful finance brokerage business hence why I get to drive a D3........anything else??

Caffeine problems? Or just drivel...

Originally Posted by Quiggers

Here's a nice book that lives in my library,
been very helpful over the years...

Cheers, GQ

so abusage is a word

Originally Posted by RonMcGr

Well, it is all in the mind.
You can write anything you like and your brain will pick it up, providing the first and last letter are correct

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Actually that is true, and it's not. The statement makes sense because all the letters there, just jumbled up, and the grammar and punctuation are correct. The brain needs certain cues with which to establish its relative meaning and the example simply demonstrates that if one or two of those cues are missing we can still interpret the meaning of the statement - in this case the jumbled up letters represent the missing cue called Correct Spelling.

In the case Stevo cited there is more missing than the one cue, Correct Spelling. The spelling and the grammar were equally munged and there was a random use of punctuation. Together they make the process of understanding that statement very difficult (actually I couldn't be bothered wasting my time trying to understand it - I gave up after the second or third line).

There is nothing that wrong with txting, provided it is used in a context inside of which it can be understood. Indeed there is no such thing as right or wrong spelling, grammar or punctuation, but there are agreed social requirements for what we take as acceptable practice or otherwise - I think this is what most of this discussion has been about, people's differing levels of acceptance.

There is another issue with this. Not every one writes to be understood, just take a look at the graffiti scrawled on buildings. Often I see posts on forums (fora?), not this one thank goodness, in which people are using it to exercise their online version of graffiti, or unreadable garbage that is best consigned to the scroll down bar. I enjoy being able to scan what people have to say and get their meaning. People are interesting, and often they have interesting things to say. But I'm not interested in working hard at trying to decipher unintelligible scrawl.

And for those that say "oh this is sooo boooring". Well, there are other threads.

Eric Partridge is (was) a fascinating person, this book first appeared in 1947.

His motto was: ABUSUS NON TOLLIT USUM

So 'abusage' may have had a Latin root... given Latin is a fixed language...

...but he may (have been) having 'some fun' with such...

Great book!

I'd like to comment about this entire thread, from my point of view as professional writer.

Everyone has an ability, some can work with words, some can work with mechanical devices, some can heal the wounded, some can create building and bridges, some can lead, some can follow...

The gift is the ability to communicate, as we do here. Personally, I'd like to see everyone write correctly, but
that's never going to happen. Usage of language has much to do with personal interest; it happens to be mine,
but I do entirely understand the reasons for those who have other interests and priorities.

Everyone has certain skills, the brain of every individual is different, thankfully.
That's why we have a smorgasbord of wonderful individuals here.

GQ