Poll: Does bad spelling on the internet bother you?

[NitehawkFury]

Just had to say, that was one of the most epic-ally hilarious videos I've ever seen. Seriously should be placed as the Holy Grail of examples of just plain bad writing on internet message boards. Awesome find.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

I frequently refer to myself as "super pedant", often ending posts in which I've done little else besides point out grammatical errors or spelling mistakes with the phrase "Super Pedant away!", a phrase which intentionally calls to mind the mental image of a caped crusader whose superpower is to be the exemplar of pedantry, having meted out pedantic corrections upon the deserving, now soaring off into the sky until he is once more summoned by the specter of incorrect spelling and/or grammar usage.

What do you think my stance on the atrocious excuse for proper spelling and grammar that the internet generally practices would be exactly? Blase acceptance?!

None of the above is in any way an exaggeration for comedic effect, I actually end posts with the "Super Pedant away!" line (often followed by the onomatopoeia "whoosh") and I frequently appear in threads for the sole purpose of correcting other people, as if their errors have in fact summoned me. "Bad spelling" is very much my natural enemy, against which I fight an eternal, thankless crusade.

But then I'm a superhero whose power is pedantry, so that kind of comes with the territory.

 

[Dan Steele]

Bad spelling annoys me because it can destroy an otherwise convincing argument

 

[genericusername64]

knope, speling dosent bawthur mea at all

 

[LordLundar]

Bad spelling? No, not really. Everyone makes mistakes. And some "errors" are just a regional difference (UK english for example has u in a number of words like colour and flavour)

Intentional bad spelling and supposedly excused (very poorly in fact) for the sake of saving time on the other hand gets on my nerves. And I don't just mean examples such as 2 for to, too, or two and u for you (though I'm not crazy about that either) but ones like "OMG!!!111eleventy11!!1". Explain to me how that's brief.

 

[AssassinFisH]

Raping words, by using spellings such as "wot", "Dis", "Sumfink" etc, drives me nuts!

 

[Ickorus]

I don't have much of a problem with bad spelling normally as it could just be a typo, the only time I do take issue with it though is when the person makes many mistakes, especially if you know they're speaking their mother tongue.

I do get rather annoyed hen people use words in the wrong way however, for instance with 'then' and 'than' I don't understand how people mix these two words up so much because they mean completely different things.

-----

I Also Really Hate When People Type Like This Because It Makes Me Read Every Word Seperately And There Is Nothing I Can Do To Stop Myself, Believe Me When I Tell You I've Tried.

Half of the time when I see the same person who doesn't bother using the EDIT button for his/her post.

For some people, including myself, I let that slide. But for myself, I would take the time to edit anything misspelled on the day I made that post and it boters me.

I see what you did there.

 

[XHolySmokesX]

As long as I can make out what it's supposed to say that's all good, if I can't I just don't bother figuring out what it's meant to say and move onto the next post, which hardly ever happens.

You can make out a work using the first and last letter as well as the length anyways, it's just a natural thing people can do with words.

epasicst, i bet you instantly realise what that word is =P

 

[PUR3_GAM3R33]

not in the slightest.

 

[Arafiro]

Whilst I personally will spellcheck anything that I'm not sure about, I generally don't mind the odd spelling error. Even a misplaced you're/your can be forgiven as a slip of the mind. However, I simply cannot stand for people blatantly putting no effort into their typing, throwing random spaces before commas or full stops, not capitalising at the start of new sentences, or even foregoing punctuation and/or sentence structure at all at all.

Intentionally lazy grammar makes you seem like a particularly lazy, and particularly unintelligent person. That's how I perceive posts that are written in such a manner.

 

[Elijah Ball]

if i wasnt afraid of getting a warning i would have just said "nop" =]

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

No it doesn't bother me, I quite like seeing other people spell words incorrectly because I then know that my spelling is superior.

Twat senses tingling.

*internet high five sense tingling*

"someone..somewhere..just did something awesome. and i approve"

 

[Krinku]

Doesn't matter to me too much, I tend to make grammatical mistakes here and there so I'm not exactly one to judge...I do care if it's like one giant wall of text with no spaces, commas, and no clear thought whatsoever.

 

[Blow_Pop]

I tend to be a bit of a spelling/grammar nazi. Bad spelling bugs the hell out of me. It might just be because I hold people to higher standards. Then again my standards for myself are ridiculously higher. Anyways though, I do tend to nitpick at people who don't use proper spelling or grammar. Including in text messages. I have a full keyboard and can manage to properly spell I don't understand why others can't.

 

[AngryNerd]

It really bothers me when people type using "ur" and "plz".

 

[Ticonderoga77]

I understand the whole typo thing, it happens to me all the time.

But you know what pisses me off? People who switch up lose and loose, not by accident, but because they don't understand basic grammar and it would take too much brain capacity to use a dictionary.

Lose: to fucking misplace something

Loose: Something that isn't goddamned secure.

 

[Liudeius]

It depens waht tey r doign.

Usually, I hate it. When it is clearly just someone being illiterate or not even trying to type properly, I ignore them and go on my way.

If it is somewhere in which corrections are difficult to make and speed is necessary (MMO's), I let minor mistakes slide (such as misplacde letters or hitting the wronh key).

And I have no tolerance for net-speak other than a couple select acronyms. Using u for you and r for are causes me to instantly lose any respect for you.

 

[yohlazy]

Doesn't really bug me I misspell a lot myself as long as I can make out what is [suppost] to be said I don't care.

[]=Can't figure out if this is spelled right (sad face)

 

[AlAaraaf74]

I'm kind of a grammer Nazi, so when I see somebody spell - wit letrz lik dis - it irritates me greatly.

 

[Farther than stars]

Bad spelling and punctuation annoys me yes. It all depends though. If the person writing is dyslexic, tired, not a native speaker, drunk - then I understand why their spelling is all over the place.

As others have pointed out, language is not static; it's a living thing. It changes and grows and nitpicking over things like American vs British spelling is pointless. Both are correct. Makes me wonder if European Spanish and South American Spanish have the same fight going on. I prefer British spelling, but I'm not going to penalise an American for spelling colour "wrong".

Texting abbreviations are fine to use if used sparingly, and in MMOs I totally understand why you can't write everything out all the time - I'm a slow typer myself =P - and I'm not that bothered with the occasional 1337 speak. I use it myself sometimes for the lulz.

However, I do think you can make a bloody effort in making yourself understandable. If you're bothering to make a post you obviously want people to hear you, listen to you and, in a sense, see you. If your post looks like this:

Spoiler: (I'm not very good at writing like this btw)

hi guys i saw this graet game today i think your giong too laik it y not clik teh link and cheek it out its the best gaem ever srsly i had so much fun to play it and its so gross but its hilareous

(et cetera)

... then why on earth would I want to play this game that you're promoting? Or whatever it is you're writing about.

Typos happen even with a spell checker (they're not perfect). But if you're obviously putting as little effort as possible in your communication with the rest of us, then personally, 8 times out of 10, I can't be arsed to care about what you have to say.

What's that saying? "70 percent of what people react to is how you look; 20 percent is how you sound; and only 10 percent is what you say." There's probably an equivalent to writing; something like, "70 percent is your grammar and punctuation; 20 percent is how you spell; and only 10 percent is what you write." Or something like that.

TL;DR: Yes, I find it annoying with a few exceptions.

Well, I promised I'd come back to read your post properly, so I did. I very much value your input. You seem to have brought some interesting thoughts to the conversation. That percentage thing is of course only an indication of how communication works and not an exact science, but if I would make an equivalent I'd probably say it's 70% spelling (and punctuation), 20% grammar and 10% your message.
After all, although grammar is important, it does tend to come more naturally than spelling. And when someone has perfect grammar, but ignores their spelling completely, their typing looks a lot less professional than someone who uses perfect spelling, but ends their sentence in a preposition (just to give an example).