Bad spelling on forums

[willem]

It seems to some that good spelling and grammar have gone the same way as good manners.

What I can't understand is why some others, who acknowledge they are poor spellers for what ever reason, are so unwilling to learn the Language correctly. It is never too late to learn new things and that includes correct use of the English Language.

Personally I would not remain a member of a forum that rewarded poor spelling by artificial prohibitions or bans for commenting about it. It may say something about the forum owner's own spelling and grammar.

I have read through a fair part of this thread with a bit of a sense of wonder ... the things people get excited about ...

This is what I wonder at also - the unwillingness to learn. What causes people to close their minds to new things, including the right way to spell and to construct sentences?

If people misspell words it doesn't bother me a lot. My wife is not that good at spelling. We have fun with it - we call it 'creative English' and have a chuckle at the more humourous ones. But she is open to learning and wants to get it right, without stressing too much if she doesn't.

For my part I've learned to not be critical. I'm her husband, not her English teacher! Just the occasional gentle dig about 'creative English' is enough. Most often she asks me if she has spelled it correctly.

On this forum I reckon Ron's gentle humour WRT (apologies in advance for the txt English!) spelling is the way to go. Perhaps the spelling challenged people here could accept a little encouragement and make an effort to learn. Perhaps then we can have better English and better harmony ... at the same time!

Just as I was about to send this I got the following from my brother in an email. This is just part of what he sent but its on topic and it does illustrate the challenges of the English language:

* * * * *

Can you read these right the first time?

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture..

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present .

8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row .

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Willem

[lardy]

Who gives a toss?
And you should make allowances for peoples educational,social experiences that would impact their capabilities when it comes to the written word, and what happened to the psuedo Australian patriotic mentality of giving a bloke "a fair go" or as me fair dinkum pretendy working class-true blue-oka prime minister would have it "a fair shake of the sauce bottle.
We have been here before with people ripping the crap out of another forum user for spelling only to find out that they have a condition that does not allow them the ability to use concise English get over it.

[groucho]

I can't help it

I failed Recess ....... sorry.....

[clean32]

Some are just not as anal about it as others. Thinking that spelling reflects intelligence also reflects a lack of intelligence.

Although I suspect that the above is a flippant comment is it rather close to the bone.

Some people are rather natural writers this tends to indicate that they are not the most logical of people. Then you have others ( and these are the ones who get all upset about it) who are natural administrators and get all hung up on details’ with little thought or understanding of the message or big picture or usually life in general.
some of the smartest people ( in history) have struggled with the written English word either with the frustration of its illogical sentence structure or the ridicules way that phonetics are ignored some times.

The original poster I assume has excellent written skills themselves, some thing i appreciate and recognize as a skill. But on the other hand I speak to veering different levels 5 other languages, both guttural and tonal. But then I must be an illiterate monkey

[willem]

Who gives a toss?
And you should make allowances for peoples educational,social experiences that would impact their capabilities when it comes to the written word, and what happened to the psuedo Australian patriotic mentality of giving a bloke "a fair go" or as me fair dinkum pretendy working class-true blue-oka prime minister would have it "a fair shake of the sauce bottle.
We have been here before with people ripping the crap out of another forum user for spelling only to find out that they have a condition that does not allow them the ability to use concise English get over it.

Obviously you do! And by the length of this thread so do lots of other people.

I thought my post actually did make allowances for people's different gifts and abilities. As far as I'm concerned the issue is not one of how good a speller someone is, but about how open they are to learning. That was the point of my post.

I certainly would not go about 'ripping the crap' out of anybody, especially not for spelling. But that cuts both ways. None of us should 'rip the crap' out of anyone.

Willem

[clean32]

I know people rubbish English because of the problem of homonyms but, even so, one can easily decipher the poem above.

Whether that can be done with other languages, I am not so sure (the British comedy series 'Allo, 'Allo comes to mind).

Other languages, yes some as long as the first and last letter are the same.

Slavic languages no, unlike English where the last bit of a word can be singular or plural. or tense words are very similar, the Slavic languages have totally different words for tense, and different Acton words where we say will do, did or doing. Non first language English speakers have a hard time with tense.

Having said that, the cyclic and Sanskrit alphabets are a much better tonal system than the Latin alphabet. For example some thing written in Russian can be read by a Greek and be much closer than say if were trying to read French, that is if it was read by a Greek to a Russian the Russian would understand where I doubt a French speaker would understand you reading French to them.

English is really a bit of a dog of a language in many respects. BUT and this is the big But. its is easy to learn to a point where the message is understood but one of the hardest to learn to be good. The easy to learn to be able to get the message across is the reason English is taking over the world.

NB not all countries recognize Australia as an English speaking country

[willem]

Other languages, yes some as long as the first and last letter are the same.

Slavic languages no, unlike English where the last bit of a word can be singular or plural. or tense words are very similar, the Slavic languages have totally different words for tense, and different Acton words where we say will do, did or doing. Non first language English speakers have a hard time with tense.

Having said that, the cyclic and Sanskrit alphabets are a much better tonal system than the Latin alphabet. For example some thing written in Russian can be read by a Greek and be much closer than say if were trying to read French, that is if it was read by a Greek to a Russian the Russian would understand where I doubt a French speaker would understand you reading French to them.

English is really a bit of a dog of a language in many respects. BUT and this is the big But. its is easy to learn to a point where the message is understood but one of the hardest to learn to be good. The easy to learn to be able to get the message across is the reason English is taking over the world.

NB not all countries recognize Australia as an English speaking country

What do they make of the language spoken by the Kiwis, then?

Willem

[clean32]

What do they make of the language spoken by the Kiwis, then?

Willem

Kiwis like there passports are the easily accepted bunch of the lot. unfortunately aussies have gotten or are getting a bit of a bad rep overseas both socially and politically.

There are many countries that do not recognize NZ as well, but in practice this is taken as an over sight, there are plenty of ESL kiwis out there. Having said that there are many Pilipino ESL teachers as well.

[blitz]

Bad spellers of the world untie



Oh my goodness I crack myself up

My grammer, enunciation and pronounciation are probabably the biggest things that I continuously try to improve, for no other reason than I believe that the better you are with your communication levels the better you are able to communicate; on all levels.

That is apart from improving the landy

Blythe

[VladTepes]

Eye abor badd speeling it reely peeses mi of.