My Stupid Rant of the Day: Spelling

[Coraxian]

For me personally there's a difference between posts with the odd typo and posts with almost deliberate spelling errors.

As for spelling not being important in most jobs, I beg to differ.

Back when I was in middle management at a car factory, a process engineer had put "route course" in one of his mails to Jaguar U.K., when he meant to write "root cause". This was one of the reasons why he was moved to another, to him far less interesting position.

With globalisation and global companies, communication can be hard enough as it is. When you have the luck to be able to communicate with someone who can speak English, you don't go making that communication more difficult by using bad spelling. Trust me, communication with Eastern Europe, India, China and the likes is hard enough as it is. This can be in all kinds of fields, not just industry.

Of course, if someone's planning on working in retail for the rest of his or her life, spelling isn't that big a deal. But in my experience, people who consistently spell badly in their communication get frowned upon by their peers and raise their superiors' eyebrows.

And now for the obligatory "excuse me for possible typo's and grammatical errors, but the spell checker of my Firefox is currently set to Dutch"

P.s. to that previous long winded argument: that wasn't ad hominem in my perception. Contrary to what experience may have taught you, not every internet discussion veers straight into ad hominem territory.

 

[Adam28]

So basically if someone can't spell, their opinion doesn't matter. Dismissing an argument based on spelling/grammar seems like something a coward would do to win an argument.

Can't say I agree with this post entirely. I'll agree with what an above poster said about it being important depending on the medium it is posted in.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

Now, I'm not trying to be some sort of spelling/grammar fascist here, and I recognize this is kind of silly to get worked up about, but I've noticed that more and more, it appears as if the spelling here on the Escapist has been degrading steadily.

I understand that we're not in an academic environment here, and nobody is going through posts and grading them for spelling, but I can't help but be concerned.

Why?

In the real world, spelling matters. A LOT. You misspell one word- just one- on a résumé and you likely will not get the job you submitted it for if there is any competition whatsoever.

Another way it matters? If you don't know the proper usage of your and you're, or its and it's, (to provide just two examples) it undermines the credibility of any statement or argument you are trying to make. Basically: if you're not 'smart enough' to use proper English, why should any weight be given to your words? I'm not being a snob here; this is just an unconscious bias that most educated people have. I will freely admit that I have read posts and found myself wondering how old the person was.

I suppose somebody can argue that they're just rushing through it, but if you're really going to expect me to take the time to read your post, shouldn't you take the time to spell properly?

It's particularly vexing to me because the Chrome browser includes a spell-checker. If you know you're a particularly poor speller, why wouldn't you give it a try?

You may blow it off as 'just posting on a web forum', but people get into habits, and habits carry over from medium to medium. If you consistently misspell 'definately' (pro-tip: it's de-finite-ly) on forums, you're probably going to misspell it in an email to somebody important, or some other way that undermines you.

So, do I need to just increase the dosage of my OCD medication, or are other people seeing this/thinking this?

(Oh, and for the record, I'm not referring to people for whom English is a secondary language, but usually those folks are fairly easy to identify.)

>_<.......I...Agree.

However, I would like to say something. I HATE SPELLING.

I hate spelling because not only am I not a very good speller, but also I am so worried about being judged on it that if I can't spell the word I don't even try to write it, and then I have to change what I was going to say(write/type). I don't really know anything about this Chrome browser spell-checker (other than the obvious), but I do know I don't have it. If I wan to find out how to spell something I have to "find" it using the google search bar, or more low teck methods. This all of obviously means if I want to write a lot, * >_> _<

I understand your anger. If I see someone who(dose without a doubt) speak english spelling terribly, I get mad. Not so much because I hate bad spelling, but because I make myself spell right.

I agree with you to the point that people should at least TRY to spell right.

Also I would like to say to spelling directly; F@#k you spelling. You go to HELL! You go to hell and you DIE!

p.s. I'm am not to big a fan of grammar either.

 

[Tallim]

I wouldn't mind the spelling so much if it didn't creep into my subconscious without me noticing it. There are some words that I have seen poorly spelt on forums so often that I have now started making the same mistakes.

I don't even think about it, these are words I have been spelling perfectly correctly for most of my life but the errors just sneak in and I get the wiggly red underline of failure on my screen.

I find it very frustrating. I actually have to physically stop and think how to spell "separate" simply because I've read the incorrect version so many times.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

There's just no way around it - the quality of your writing and the public perception of your intelligence are directly linked. It's one thing if you have a typo or two in a lengthy post that were simply overlooked. Sure, I'm certainly going to notice them, because that's what I do, but I wouldn't hold it against you (even if I appear in a puff of smoke to do little else than point out your typos before disappearing once more).

But if you keep on using the same word incorrectly, or it's harder to find words that aren't being misspelled or misused in your writing than words you've used correctly, there are really only two conclusions most people are ever going to draw:

• Conclusion #1: You're an excruciatingly poor typist who's extremely lazy and inconsiderate and can't be arsed to use the bloody spellcheck feature that comes built into all modern web browsers.
  
  Conclusion #2: You simply can't communicate coherently because you're an idiot.

So which is it going to be fellow internet strangers, the inconsiderate asshole in a rush, or the sub-literate troglodyte? Neither of those really puts strangers with no obligation to decipher the underlying message beneath the impenetrable web of errors you've spun in the frame of mind to take you seriously.

Maybe you feel you have valid points and keen insight, and perhaps you actually do, but if you cannot communicate those points clearly then you might as well have never tried to make them. We can't help it! I see a post just chock riddled with typos, I start taking you less and less seriously for each one I notice, until a certain threshold is reached and you're mentally filed away in the "no hope for meaningful discourse there!" bin. Sure, you're just posting random bullshit on an internet forum, but humans are creatures of habits - try to form good ones; no one ever found themselves impeded later in life thanks to their crippling inability to write badly.

I wouldn't mind the spelling so much if it didn't creep into my subconscious without me noticing it. There are some words that I have seen poorly spelt on forums so often that I have now started making the same mistakes.

I don't even think about it, these are words I have been spelling perfectly correctly for most of my life but the errors just sneak in and I get the wiggly red underline of failure on my screen.

I find it very frustrating. I actually have to physically stop and think how to spell "separate" simply because I've read the incorrect version so many times.

Annoyingly enough the collected ignorance of the internet has also rendered me all but incapable of typing that word in a hurry, I have to second guess and correct myself just about every time I go to use it.

Also, what the hell is it with people and their apparent inability to spell "weird"? I swear that 90% of the time I see it used online it's someone spelling it "wierd", which is wrong and not a word. If it was just a common typo I could understand that, but I've noticed hundreds of people on these forums alone who type it that way each and every time - how can so many people not know how to spell "weird"?!