Thread: Embarrassed by your spelling?

Originally Posted by disco2hse

I saw an interview with him recently, on one of those BBC rock history doco's. He said the reports of his suicide had been greatly exaggerated.

I';ll take that as a no then

Originally Posted by vnx205

I am both fascinated and impressed by your story.
You should be proud of the effort you have made and what you have achieved.

It does make you wonder though about some of those other people who just throw up their hands and say, "I'm not a good speller and I never will be, so I'm not even going to try."

Can you set up a diff, rebuild a gearbox, do 100 pushups, run 10km??

All these things above take miniscul amounts of time to learn/train for in comparison to good spelling

Originally Posted by rovercare

Can you set up a diff, rebuild a gearbox, do 100 pushups, run 10km??

All these things above take miniscul amounts of time to learn/train for in comparison to good spelling

I agree.
That's why I'm impressed.

Spelling mistakes don't bother me much. I can spell well enough to do a personal edit on other people's meaning. I do have to laugh at grammar, though.

eg. there/they're/their, to/two/too, piece/peace, we're/where/wear, hear/here/hair/heir, and many more. They may be spelled correctly, but using the wrong one changes the meaning of the whole conversation.

An excellent example is the NT News - a few weeks ago, their front page headline read: "Pet Owners to be Weary of Cane Toads." No kidding. Spelled right, wrong word... That goes to prove, I guess, that you don't need to know your grammar to get a good job.

Another funny thing that I see is the inclusion or exclusion of letters in words. Like "laughter." Adding an "s" turns it into a bloodbath. And "defecting" with a gratuitous "a" can put you in the sh...

Take heart, though. I was once told that, of all the languages in the world today, English is the hardest to learn. I can never hope to get anything I say completely right, but hopefully I'm coherent enough in my efforts for you all to follow my meaning...

Dan.

Originally Posted by rovercare

Can you set up a diff, rebuild a gearbox, do 100 pushups, run 10km??

All these things above take miniscul amounts of time to learn/train for in comparison to good spelling

Originally Posted by vnx205

I agree.
That's why I'm impressed.

I would like to expand a little on my previous reply.

I remain impressed by George130's determination.

I would, however like to qualify my response to rovercare's comment about the relative levels of difficulty of spelling and mechanical maintenance.

As I see it, the situation is that for some people, spelling is harder than rebuilding a gearbox.
For someone with a certain level of experience and expertise, rebuilding a gearbox is a doddle because they know from experience which way the lip on an oil seal faces and what is an acceptable amount of play in a bearing or bush.
Others find it a struggle because they have to look everything up in the manual and double check that they have got it right. They probably also don't have that magic tool on hand that makes fitting the parts easy.

The same thing applies to spelling.
Some people automatically know that "dissatisfied" has a double "s" and "disapprove" has only one. The reason they know this is not that they are clever enough to remember it, but because they know that the prefix "dis" has been used on the front of both words.
In the first case it is added to "satisfied", hence the double s and in the second case it is added to "approve", so only one "s".

Learning to spell does not involve (as some people like to pretend) learning to spell every word you need to use.
It is more about understanding connections between words and things like that.
If you can spell "difference", you can do a pretty good job of spelling "differential".

One reason some people find it hard to learn spelling is that they are trying to learn it the wrong way.

I know your original questions were rhetorical, but I will answer them anyway.
I have never set up a diff,
I have partially rebuilt a Series III gearbox,
The most pushups I have ever been able to do without a break is 50.
I have always struggled to run 10km, but on more than one occasion I have paddled 160km in about 24hours and four times I have paddled 111km overnight with just two brief stops.

My post last night might have been a bit hard but it was a red flag to a bull. I had a few highschool teachers decide the best way to make me spell correctly was to take 1 mark of for each spelling error. Suffice to say from that day on I usually would get an F in history and georgraphy. By the end of year 10 I had already decided to just write those classes and teachers off as I could get the same marks without handing anything in and even told them so.
Correct spelling and the use of grammar is worthwhile and it does hurt your prospects if you can't. I have just learn't to side step it in my working life.
Different people have different skills.
I also was told english is the hardest language to learn.

Can you set up a diff, rebuild a gearbox, do 100 pushups, run 10km??

All these things above take miniscul amounts of time to learn/train for in comparison to good spelling

My 11 yr old daughter can't do any of the above, yet she can write a 2 page assignment without an error. In other words it is something learnt as a child not an adult. The examples above are a case of expertise and knowledge or a pretty good fitness regime. Things I would love to know how to do but alas cannot, though in my 20's could easily do the latter 2 things. I take my hat off to those that can do the first 2,

Regards

Stevo

Originally Posted by vnx205

I have never set up a diff,
I have partially rebuilt a Series III gearbox,
The most pushups I have ever been able to do without a break is 50.
I have always struggled to run 10km, but on more than one occasion I have paddled 160km in about 24hours and four times I have paddled 111km overnight with just two brief stops.

Wow, that's alot of rowing

I personally find that alot of the spelling issues, are kinda like, haha, "I can spell, you can't, dummy" type things, It'd be like me laughing picking on you because you can;t set up a diff

Your dead right, experiance in a particular field makes things easy, I failed year 10 then left, all my learning was done in trade school, I've been called pragmatic, omnipident and all sorts of crazy words by linqual people and then they laugh because I don;t know what they mean until I look them up, (yes I see the irony), but how often do I use the weathers, there they're theyeyriel, or big words in general, it is not often

Everybody has talents, just some aren;t spelling, I just don;t think badgering someone about spelling, or expecting them to occupy more time useing a spell checker is really warranted

And some people are just stupid, i work with them every day, some of these people stand at machines for years and still have no idea how they operate, seriously, you drive a car, everyday, one day it doesn;t want to move, you get a mechanic to check it out, only to find you've left the handbrake on..........seriously, that's what its like, some can't write, let alone spell

By the way, I'm NOT a mechanic Iza Lektrishan