My Stupid Rant of the Day: Spelling

[Macgyvercas]

Thank you!

Seriously, spelling errors are a pet peeve of mine, and though I'm by no means perfect, it drives me up the wall to see the really basic grammar errors that you should stop making around the 5th grade.

 

[Shio]

Go cry about something that matters?

I can write in not only grammatically correct English, but I'm also decent at writing artistically and I was fairly competent at writing short paragraphs in iambic pentameter back in my school days. Am I going to do it on a gaming forum.... fuck to the no.

(Oh no, I used a conjunctive adverb after a comma, I also gave my ellipsis an extra period for the lulz and didn't capitalise the F in fuck directly after said ellipsis. Am I in your bad books now?)

Just because people make simple mistakes, typo's or even purposefully flout the rules of linguistics to make their narrative voice appear more relaxed and conversational, as opposed to formal and fully considered. Does not mean they are incapable of writing correctly when it is required.

People who get uppity over spelling and grammar in a freakin internet forum are the lowest of the pseudo intellectuals as far as I'm concerned.

Wid dat... aym OUT!

*rolls on floor laughing*

OT: i to prfer wen people spel things the wright way. wenever someone doesnt i get most dissplezed becose english is a beutiful dialect.

 

[Shio]

Grammar nazis annoy me...


One measly little typo on your resume is not going to cost you the job...well okay it might if you type "Hard dicks" instead of "Hard disks", but hell there's a 50/50 that cracks the boss up instead. My point is only elitists absolutely insist on grammatical perfection at all times. As for me, well, if I can understand it, it's fine.

Okay, that "hard dicks" bit made me laugh out loud.

*one cookie for you*

 

[Random Argument Man]

Can I still post this? I wish that my english grammar was better! My computer and Internet is set with french. My spelling in french is impeccable.

 

[JezebelinHell]

-Referenced-

You're not Obsessive Compulsive. You're correct on this. However, a single slip-up which gets by you is natural. I've had it happen before, usually when I'm rushing to get out a forum RP post here. (Thankfully, the Edit button is nearby.)

What is really worrisome is, as you said, someone doesn't take the time to correct their work when they have the tools available to them; IE, Firefox, and Chrome all have spell checkers. Plus, let's not forget that %40 of the emotional impact of your work is lost through posts since there's no voice to accompany them.

However, I think it's also good to try and correct the misspelling yourself sometimes when you have those checkers turned on.

IE does not come with a built in spell checker. Not even version 8, it appears. They do make an add on one but they may not have the version for 8 out yet. I don't use IE, I was just curious if the major browsers had spell check and found another reason to continue avoiding IE.

OT
Seriously, if you have a built in spell checker, how hard is it to right click on the red underlined word and click to correct it? That is just being incredibly lazy and pretty much lets me know how important you thought your post was. If you don't have a spell checker, because you are using IE, they have at least 2 you can add on.

My punctuation and grammar are questionable at best. I can over look a lot of those issues but with built in spell checking, yea, that is just lazy to me.

 

[Shio]

Grammar nazis annoy me...


One measly little typo on your resume is not going to cost you the job...well okay it might if you type "Hard dicks" instead of "Hard disks", but hell there's a 50/50 that cracks the boss up instead. My point is only elitists absolutely insist on grammatical perfection at all times. As for me, well, if I can understand it, it's fine.

Okay, that "hard dicks" bit made me laugh out loud.

*one cookie for you*

I did it once. It was positively hilarious, everyone in the chat cracked up.

"I need a new hard dick. This one ins't working too well lately."

 

[lord.jeff]

I due prefer proper spelling and I have no issue with bad spelling being corrected unless that's all your adding to the conversation, it greatly annoys me to see a good point dismissed just because they have a poor grasp of language.

 

[ezeroast]

Snip

Might want to check your punctuation b4 getting too high and mighty.

 

[infohippie]

and nobody is going through posts and grading them for spelling,

Oh, I am. I may not post about it, but just remember, Escapists, when you use "your" instead of "you're" or "where" instead of "we're"... I'll be there, watching, noting. Judging.

Lies. Spelling doesn't matter for shit. There is no job that being able to spell will assist you in.

Editor? English teacher? Crossword puzzle designer? Even librarian?

Thing is, you're right. Most jobs doesn't require perfect grammar.

However, if you don't take the time to properly prepare your submitted work, it speaks highly of your conduct in other matters. It screams: "I'm a lazy bastard! Hire me please!".

That's not a signal you should, in any way, be interested in broadcasting.

Exactly. If you can't get your spelling perfect in an important document that you can take all the time in the world to prepare, it says you either don't care or you're not very thorough. It's going to count against you.

 

[NightRavenGSA]

I conquer fin sur (I'm just kidding around but I honestly do agree with the point you make, and I make it a point to use correct spelling and grammar when ever I have something important to say)

PS: Is it sad that I actually made sure that I spelled conquer correctly or what?

 

[shrekfan246]

I conquer fin sur (I'm just kidding around but I honestly do agree with the point you make, and I make it a point to use correct spelling and grammar when ever I have something important to say)

PS: Is it sad that I actually made sure that I spelled conquer correctly or what?

Only for the fact that with the context of what you were saying, it would have been "Concur".
EDIT: >.> Which I'm sure was part of the joke.

OT: I think my first sentence pretty much sums my feelings up. Although I don't typically let myself be bothered by people with poor grammar skills; I've spent plenty of time in World of Warcraft, where people who speak English as a first language are notorious for not caring about how intelligent they appear.

My own grammar is far from perfect, as well.

 

[BoredDragon]

Dude, trust me, I have seen much worse than the grammar on the escapist. I too am a grammar Nazi, but if I can understand what someone is saying without a second thought I usually let it slide. However, I think my friends are deliberately trying to upset me when they send me texts. Sometimes I have to text them back and ask them what the hell they are saying.

Just a rule of thumb, if you can understand what they're saying then it's probably ok.

 

[FamoFunk]

I try my hardest to spell, sometimes it's typos that make the word wrong, sometimes it's just an accident.
If I'm really stuck on a word, I will Google it, rather than guessing and getting it completely wrong.
I honestly think you need to get off your high horse, if it's a little error and not taking the piss spelling, just get over it?

 

[solidstatemind]

Go cry about something that matters?

I can write in not only grammatically correct English, but I'm also decent at writing artistically and I was fairly competent at writing short paragraphs in iambic pentameter back in my school days. Am I going to do it on a gaming forum.... fuck to the no.

(Oh no, I used a conjunctive adverb after a comma, I also gave my ellipsis an extra period for the lulz and didn't capitalise the F in fuck directly after said ellipsis. Am I in your bad books now?)

Just because people make simple mistakes, typo's or even purposefully flout the rules of linguistics to make their narrative voice appear more relaxed and conversational, as opposed to formal and fully considered. Does not mean they are incapable of writing correctly when it is required.

People who get uppity over spelling and grammar in a freakin internet forum are the lowest of the pseudo intellectuals as far as I'm concerned.

Wid dat... aym OUT!

First- the name of the post is my STUPID rant of the day, isn't it? Did I anywhere say that I considered it a matter of utmost importance? No-- but I did argue that habits perhaps reach beyond just these forums.

Purposefully flouting convention is fine, but a large number of 'simple mistakes' are not; at least, not to me, particularly in light of how easy it is to get a browser or an add-on that spell-checks for you. Frankly, it just seems lazy, and if you're too lazy to use a spell-checker, why should I be bothered to try to figure out what you're trying to say?

I'll admit that harping on every tiny mistake is silly, but too often lately I have seen instances where poor spelling or grammar actually were an impediment to understanding what the poster was trying to express. Perhaps this wouldn't be a big deal on just 'a freakin Internet forum', but as I mentioned, habits carry over. (But personally, I don't like to be thought of as being inarticulate or ineloquent regardless of the medium I'm communicating in, but I freely admit that's a personal quirk of mine. If that makes me a 'pseudo-intellectual', so be it.)

It doesn't matter what your preface to the post was.

You feel a sense of superiority over people who don't bother to obsess over spelling in a forum. Missing a typo on here doesn't mean people are incapable of proof reading when it's necessary.

Yes, the preface to the post does matter: it sets the tone for the post, and specifically lets people know that I recognize that I'm being somewhat silly. Do you just ignore the first paragraph of other documents? If you choose to overlook that very relevant information, that's a 'you' problem.

And personally, I'd really like to know where the fuck you got that I 'feel a sense of superiority'; that's one hell of a bit of assumption on your part. Frustration, yes. Irritation, yes. Superiority? I don't see anything other than perhaps my mention of having an unconscious tendency to discount poorly spelled posts as being less compelling that would suggest I feel 'superior'. Perhaps you have some issues in regards to that? I don't assume that I'm 'better' than people who spell poorly- less lazy, perhaps, since I care to use a spell-checker and do some editing before I hit the post button- but there are plenty of people out there who have poor spelling skills (or perhaps dyslexia) and are way smarter than me.

And for the Nth time: I'm not referring to someone 'missing a typo'. Lord knows I make mistakes all the time (see below)-- frankly, I'd be in trouble without spell-check. I'm talking about consistently poor spelling and grammar to the extent where it inhibits the reader's ability to even understand the message that the author is trying to convey. I apologize if I didn't make that clear enough.

Snip

Might want to check your punctuation b4 getting too high and mighty.

I often make punctuation mistakes. I never said that I was perfect, so I don't see how I was being 'high and mighty'. However, that said, they almost never prevent someone from understanding what I'm trying to say... which, again, was the entire point of this.

And I'm going to guess that you were shooting for irony by using 'b4', because the alternative is just... ugh. (Oh, and pro-tip: quoting somebody, removing all the text from the quote, and then calling out their spelling really isn't effective.)

Grammar nazis annoy me...


One measly little typo on your resume is not going to cost you the job...well okay it might if you type "Hard dicks" instead of "Hard disks", but hell there's a 50/50 that cracks the boss up instead. My point is only elitists absolutely insist on grammatical perfection at all times. As for me, well, if I can understand it, it's fine.

Actually, I'm going to have to disagree with you on this: misspellings absolutely will cost you a job-- even if you make the hiring manager laugh. Yes, this it matters more when there is a lot of competition for a position, but it always matters. Most of the time, they chalk it up to 'attention to detail'.

And I say this as someone who has been in the workforce for 22 years now, and has been on both sides of the equation. If I had more than 10 resumes for a single position, the very first thing I did was parse them for misspellings and toss those that had them. But ultimately, I will say just this: why risk it? I'm guessing you want the job if you submitted a resume. Why take the chance that it won't even get looked at because you wrote 'good communcaton skills' on it?

 

[Katana314]

In the real world, spelling matters. A LOT.

Lies. Spelling doesn't matter for shit. There is no job that being able to spell will assist you in.

Does that mean that spelling errors in resumés, papers or general arguments you are trying to put forward doesn't decrease your credibility? God no.
It's as you said in the OP - Spell Checker's are everywhere. Handwriting, spelling, all that crap is useless now. Word Processors and Browser's in-built spell checks make it all obsolete.

OP was right to say that there is a bias that people have against poorly spelled things. And it's true - When you are communicating via text and thus have no facial expressions or emphasis to get your point across, your tone is very easily altered. For me, the "tone" of anything - A message, post, e-mail, comment, et cetera - is really affected by the spelling. If the spelling is horrible to the point where it is clearly more than a few understandable mistakes then I just get this idea of the person on the other end of the screen is an idiot. I'm not saying I act on it, or presume that they are, it's just the image I get. But yeah, point is - Spelling is damn easy, especially with everything around today to help you in it.
If you don't have a problematic condition, and English is your first language, then poor spelling just mean you didn't bother putting any effort into the message. All well and good if you don't want to, but it doesn't encourage me to listen to what you have to say.

(And now to find out I made several spelling errors in this post >_>)

Should be means.

Though I'm not saying that just to be a nazi. You see, on my browser, that's showing up as a proper word. So it's not just spelling, it's grammar too; and for a lot of people, there's a twinge in the head when grammar doesn't strike through either. At worst, your E-mail comes back saying "I'm sorry, your grammar was so bad I couldn't understand your message." Computers can try to help with that, but A) They suck at it, B) People often ignore the green underline in Word.

I think those properly educated in the use of logic would realize that it is fallacious to dismiss most arguments based on spelling alone... =/

But you see, people don't make the case logically, they make it unconsciously. Like when a woman decides that a guy she's met is attractive wholely based on first impressions, disregarding the logic. "He has a wedding ring and is hitting on me; maybe he doesn't like committing to people?" That thought doesn't come up, it's all an internal thought process in the head.

Actually, I DO dismiss arguments logically, based on spelling alone, because I feel like if someone were passionate about what they believe, they would try to ensure it's readable to other people. Besides, I don't bother reading things that are made difficult through poor spelling and grammar.