I am beginning to think that one thing that annoys me more than spelling and grammar errors is the way some people react to even the most lighthearted comment about poor spelling and grammar.
At the risk of repeating things that have been said several times before in the last couple of years, I would like to make the following comments.
- I don't regard myself as being in any way superior to people who don't spell as well as I like to think I can. In the same way, I hope that people who can remember, without consulting a workshop manual, the correct points gap for a Series I, the appropriate tappet clearance on a Morris Minor 1000 and what constitutes an acceptable amount of backlash in a Salisbury differential, don't think that is a reason to look down on me just because I don't instinctively know those things . It is a fact of life that some of us are better at some things than others. It doesn't necessarily make us a better person.
- I am aware of the fact that a hastily typed response on a forum is probably not the best indication of how well a person can spell. The need to get your response posted before someone else beats you to it can often take precedence over ensuring that the post contains no errors.
- I realise that some people who are trying to cope with a language that is not their native tongue or who have problems like dyslexia, would have to spend an unacceptable amount of time trying to remove all or even most of their errors.
- However, in spite of all that, it is still the case that it is worth making a bit of an effort. Otherwise there is the risk that the reader will not understand the post or will not bother to read the post because it just becomes too much of an effort. The fact that some very badly spelled writing is perfectly clear, does not alter the fact that some spelling or grammatical errors can change the meaning dramatically.
- I like to believe that if people think their contribution is worth publishing, that they have a responsibility to make the task of the reader easy. I want to read other people's posts. I want to understand other people's posts. Is it too much to ask that people at least appear to be making an effort to make that easy for me? At times I get the feeling, when presented with some almost indecipherable text that the writer is treating me with contempt. I know that is probably just as irrational as the way some people seems to automatically assume that correcting spelling is a sign of arrogance. I guess I will just have to live with that.
- I cannot remember ever having seen a spelling correction on this forum where my first reaction was to assume that its purpose was to ridicule to writer. It has certainly never been my intention. If that is the way some people choose to interpret my comments then I regard that as more your problem than mine.
I am now searching for an emoticon that will reduce the chances of anyone being upset by this post. I am conscious of the fact that the tone started as reasonably conciliatory and began, in spite of my best efforts to avoid it, to appear a bit intolerant towards the end.
Maybe these will do the job.![]()



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