I hate knocking people, but wouldn't you TRY to spell things right?

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Originally Posted by dm_td5

Reading through all this and Ron's comments about clarity of text got me thinking:

The perfect way to cut down on web traffic and speed up the forum would be for all posts to be done strictly in an SMS shorthand style :twisted:

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It used to be, before spam and streaming video.

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."
-- James D. Nicoll

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Originally Posted by Panda

Very true. I think that was the main reason it was never adopted. It was particularly difficult owing to the fact that the system was developed during the depression. The cost of new typewriters (which in those days, were made to last), was too overwhelming. Despite his marketing, unfortunately, it just never took off.

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That is an extra reason that I hadn't thought about.

I temporarily forgot that there was a time when things were made to last.:p

Some very old tripewriters are still working perfectly.

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Originally Posted by vnx205

I suspect that the comment about needing to be able to spell to use a dictionary is one of those glib throw away lines that sounds good and is heard so often that people have begun to believe it is true.

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Not necessarily true. One of our members yesterday used the word "redic" in another thread. It was, I assume, an abbreviation (why is the word abbreviation so long when it refers to a shortened form of a word? :D) for "ridiculous". Had he looked up a dictionary, he wouldn't have found it even if he had typed a longer form. The second letter places his version well away from the correct spelling.

I am very fortunate to be able to look at a misspelled English word and see that it is incorrectly spelled - even if I don't recall ever having seen it before (names of drugs excepted!). Maybe I have seen it when reading but not thought about it. On a related issue, how many of us look up a new word we see in book or article - a word we don't know the meaning of? I do. If I don't have a dictionary at hand, I'll ask my wife who also has an excellent vocabulary.

BTW, English was my worst subject at school so I'm not the best when it comes to grammar.

I hit the submit button too soon.
The next post has the full version.

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Originally Posted by p38arover

Not necessarily true. One of our members yesterday used the word "redic" in another thread. It was, I assume, an abbreviation (why is the word abbreviation so long when it refers to a shortened form of a word? :D) for "ridiculous". Had he looked up a dictionary, he wouldn't have found it even if he had typed a longer form. The second letter places his version well away from the correct spelling.

I am very fortunate to be able to look at a misspelled English word and see that it is incorrectly spelled - even if I don't recall ever having seen it before (names of drugs excepted!). Maybe I have seen it when reading but not thought about it. On a related issue, how many of us look up a new word we see in book or article - a word we don't know the meaning of? I do. If I don't have a dictionary at hand, I'll ask my wife who also has an excellent vocabulary.

BTW, English was my worst subject at school so I'm not the best when it comes to grammar.

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Even with this example it would only take two or three attempts to find the word.
The indeterminate "e" sound following the first letter has to be a vowel. So any one who looks up "rad- -", "red- -", "rid- -", "rod- -", "rud- -" will find the word fairly quickly and easily.
I agree that anyone who thinks it is spelled "rhid- -" will struggle a bit.

While I accept that sometimes people will have difficulty finding a word, there will be enough occasions when the word will be found easily enough to make it worthwhile trying.
That applies whether using a printed dictionary or something like Google.

I don't accept that it is so seldom possible to find the word that it is never worth making the attempt.

If I use a block of text from the example that started this thread, Google immediately gave the correct spelling for "awsom", "costom", "flears", "wepon", "pritty", "driviabel", "powerfull", "ecomoical", "disel", "engin", "stero", "disconeted", and "reciver".

It missed "gard" which apparently is an acronym for something and "requier" for which it offered "requiem".

I think 13 out of 15 is a pretty good success rate. A printed dictionary would have given a success rate almost as good as that.

Surely that makes it worth making the little bit of effort required!

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Originally Posted by vnx205

Surely that makes it worth making the little bit of effort required!

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I think so but if Panda thinks using the ampersand is quicker than using "and", what hope is there? As noted earlier, using such abbreviations slows comprehension.

Those who use Firefox have the US dictionary built in but it's easy to add the Australian dictionary - so there is no real excuse for poor spelling on line. Firefox flags the misspelling immediately. However, I don't know how one can find the correct spelling within Firefox.

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Originally Posted by p38arover

I think so but if Panda thinks using the ampersand is quicker than using "and", what hope is there? As noted earlier, using such abbreviations slows comprehension.

Those who use Firefox have the US dictionary built in but it's easy to add the Australian dictionary - so there is no real excuse for poor spelling on line. Firefox flags the misspelling immediately. However, I don't know how one can find the correct spelling within Firefox.

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I agree.

Surely the purpose of the post is to communicate.

I think speed and accuracy of comprehension should have a higher priority than speed of typing.

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Originally Posted by p38arover

BTW, English was my worst subject at school so I'm not the best when it comes to grammar.

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I find it your use of "BTW" quite intriguing, especially within this post.

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Originally Posted by vnx205

I agree.

Surely the purpose of the post is to communicate.

I think speed and accuracy of comprehension should have a higher priority than speed of typing.

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I fail to see how my posts, with the use of "&", instead of "and" would be ineffective communication.

With regard to your second paragraph, I'm afraid it doesn't really make much sense.

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Originally Posted by JDNSW

Getting a bit off topic, but the Qwerty keyboard is one of many innovations that seemed like a good idea at the time. It was deliberately designed to slow down typists so as to avoid jammed mechanism in early typewriters.

Like many 'standards' where the reason for them no longer applies, replacement of the Qwerty keyboard will be very difficult, simply because there are too many people that are more or less capable of using it. And very few of these are likely to want to change, even if they know there is a better system, because the process of change is too hard compared to the expected improvement. Same as with Windows, for example.

John

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Isn't it extraordinary to think something was actually designed to be slower to avoid jamming mechanisms. How things have changed!