Spelling: Classic or Dud?

*But I do love Tori.

But, people using the fact that someone spelt a word wrong to prove that the point they were making is also wrong is a mega-dud (I hate when people do that. ANSWER MY POINT NOT MY TYPING!)

POOR SPELLING ABETS ENTROPY AND CHAOS.

TAKE A STAND.

I am sure I have equally irritating habits, she probably opens my e-mails sees all the parenthasis and bad spelling and thinks "Oh for God's sake, get to the point."

(Hahaha juss jokin')

Are we talking the poor person's Elizabeth Berkey in Showgirls or what?

Straight-up spelling = unless I'm in an absolute rush to type something out, I will do my damnedest to spell everything on the dot, and that includes AIM conversations. Going back to correct an error derived through typing is second nature to me.

I prefer "greengrocer's apostrophe" as I imagine an idealised single greengrocer who can't spell for toffee.

More impenetrable analogies. Ok, antlers - sexual selection. 'Big' antlers = good chances. 'Antlers' = exclusive characteristic of male deer (or 'buck')*. Are you saying, N., that good spelling pulls in lots of lady 'deer'? Generally or just in your particular case?

*NB except in case of reindeer and caribou.

oh lookie, the sun just came up. perdy.

On the other hand, those who pride themselves on their "good" spelling, or worse, admonish those who do not pride themselves as such are completely bad. It's a clear sign of a need to feel superior. More so, it shows a shakey grip on reality. People who need to hold onto their "little rules" of "proper spelling" in order to stay sane.

Have you seen teh people who actually get mad when smething is spelled wrong? Why would they react this way. Because they are afraid. Anger is our natural self defense mechanism. Their anger is a sign of fear, a fear that they are not rught. That infact, you can spell something anyway you want, as long as the reader can understand it. Spelling and housekeeping are like religon, only less interesting.

I fear and pity good spellers...............................................

Acktshurlei eie fayvar prawpyr speleing beekauze iat iz sow mutch kleerar enned eessiar two unddarstanid wathoutt miszintarpredation.

If anything I fear that people who don't spell well are either (a) comprehending words and language completely differently than I am, or (b) just not all that interested or invested in it, hence my thing about it being unattractive, above (insofar as this is I suppose a root-level common-interest common-worldview thing for me).

*studies sentence* Do have a cathartic experience whenever looking in the mirror?

And Nabisco, you prove my point. I read your "bad spelling" post quite easily. Not as easily as if it weren't intetionally spelled poorly, but thats a whole nuther kettle o' fish. Point is, spelling phone-etically is good stuff. It's logic against tradition. Logic should win.

Regardless, it's good to live a life of tolerance towards others. I retract my harsh statements in relation to good spellers. I didn't mean any harm.

Though I think I did have point.

deux. The exaltation of form to the exclusion of content in the marketplace of ideas has driven me to seek solace in the sensible world of ba$ball.

III. Unintentionally humorous misspellings are classic!

(d) Everyone gets fatigued once in a while; it's nice to spell them when they do.

1) Proper spelling has a lot to do with context, and in the context of informal online communities, I like in-jokes such as "fite" or "brane."

2) I'm a certified (or certifiable?) copyeditor by trade, so outside of such communities, eye-catching spellings (not necessarily misspellings) can be a pain. And sometimes a typo can mean something very different, such as "ineffective" versus "infective," as I mistyped earlier this week.

3) Am I the only one who thinks that the more Courtney Love cleans up, the more she looks like Tori Spelling?

Whither dyslexia in all this?

Anyway, I've just looked on the net and this says that antlers aren't about mating at all - they're for asserting oneself to other males. Which makes it more worthwhile as an analogy, given that I appear to be a freak in the fancying good spellers thing.

bad spelling only matters when it's due to laziness. congenitally bad spellers don't annoy me nearly as much as people who are fully capable of spelling things correctly but just can't be arsed.

Anyway: I'm baffled by arguments against good spelling! I mean, there is a right way to spell words -- it is the "right" way by virtue of general agreement that that's what that sequence of letters means -- can't we all just, like, try to stick to that, when we're not violating it for effect? I could go around saying "cat" when I meant "dog" but it would be confusing and ridiculous, so I say "cat." (I was about to feel guilty about this claim and then I just checked and no no, Felicity, I used "normative" perfectly legitimately that one time.)

Also White Lotus, I think I see the issue here: if you really found that sentence simple to read, then we honestly do perceive language differently. So let me reframe my appeal: SOME OF US EMPLOY SOME LEVEL OF WHOLE-WORD RECOGNITION IN OUR READING. WHEN YOU SPELL POORLY YOU ARE FUCKING WITH US BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT USING WORDS.

Also: everytime you say "but if this is spelled / pronounced / used this way then it makes no sense that this is spelled / pronounced / used this way" you are most likely pointing up some irrational un-thought-out grass-roots variation of exactly this sort. Some good, e.g. "brid" becoming the much-better "bird," but I fear terrifically for the poor kids of the future asking "well you pay regard to something, so if you didn't, wouldn't you be regardless as opposed to irregardless, which should mean that you don't not pay regard?"

It corrodes the inner logic of the language, is what I think I'm saying here: we could reach some critical mass for writing "definately" but unless we go through and correct like every word with the "finis" root those poor future-kids are going to be might confused about why there are "I"s most places and an "A" in "definate."

And I agree, sometimes good spelling is a sign that someone is a really great person. But those who come down hard on bad spellers, or take offense to bad spelling, have problems.

I'm just speaking up for the underdog. I exagerated abit when I said that good spellers are as bad as religious people. I thought it would be funny to wirte that. I didn't mean any harm.

I have known very intollerant people who have been good spellers. I also have know dyslexics who will always have low self esteme because of the high priority put on spelling in our land. Soin that wya, I have been hurt in my past. But from pain, comes passion. And I have the passion it takes to take down the illusion of "proper" spelling over phonetic spelling. You'll see.

Nabisco, we will never see eye to eye on this. I respect your love of proper spelling, and wish you well in your future endovors towords a earth united under "whole word logic" (snicker).

"Oh baby, your correct spelling is really turning me on!"

Hmmm...I may have to think this one over.

My little nieces call my dog a cat. As you nitsuh knows, this is less ridiculous than one miight think. (I am sorry if I corrected your usage of normative -- that would have been very rude of me)

ain't it neat how we (or er I but I assume others) can read a phrase like that and not notice that it contains a mispelled word? whole word etc etc etc my ass

As a result of Sunset Beach alone Aaron Spelling = classic.
However, Randy Spelling = dud

The question I want to raise now, having just seen the documentary Spellbound, is "What makes someone a good speller?" What does it mean to have "whole word perception," and is it something one can really develop with practice, or is high-level visuospatial perception something you have to be born with?

This is one of those issues I hate getting into

is way funny

This is also way funny (sorry Martin). I can't even tell if you meant that or not.

that wasn't the issue i went into, though. i stated my case and moved on. i was gonna start my own thread but i knew some yutz would just link me back to this one.

I see artifacts of my brain's secret inner workings when, say, I can't quite remember someone's name. I'll remember the first letter, and the number of letters in the name: clearly I am trying to picture the word on a page. If the name has a couple of i's, I may underestimate the letter count, since i is a slender letter; m conversely.

I don't think I'm a particularly visuospatial person otherwise, though: no particular aptitude or appreciation for drawing, architecture, the "syntax of film," Web design, etc.

What really impresses me is my friends who are naturally poor spellers who LEARN to spell by memorizing rules and patterns and exceptions: that seems like tedious and difficult work, neverending and not particularly rewarding. And yet they are quite successful! Of the two people I'm thinking of in particular, neither one even considers it a possibility to just learn how words look in a reproducible way.

yr american, you spell everything wrong!!!

The big problem comes when I read a word wrong in the first instance, form an erroneous sound version of it, and then when I write it down am sure it's incorrect but can't work out how since it tallies with the version in my mind. "Egegrious", for example, which should be "egregious" but I can't stop thinking of it as 'e-ge-gri-ous', since I've always mentally pronounced it that way (possibly because of ending similarity with 'gre-gar-i-ous'). Even though it looks entirely wrong.

I had a roommate who was an English major but really annoyed me, and he ALWAYS without fail spelled the verb lose as "loose" no matter what the tense was. Clearly this is a word that everyone knows how to spell, right? And yet I never saw him spell it right. This bothered me to no end. Do I have "a need to feel superior"?

He was an ENGLISH major dammit!!

http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/historical_archives_m_websters

Spelling correctly is very modestly classic. for some very modest reasons, which I shall modestly set forth.

It should be remembered that for many centuries, writers of English didn't know how to spell "correctly", because no authority existed to establish standard spellings. Great literature was written with totally haphazard spelling. So, in many fundamental ways "correct" spelling is an arbitrary and superficial addition to English.

It is classic because it helps smooth the way for readers and writers. A block of text with correct spelling, when read by an experienced reader, connects the written words with their mental counterparts swiftly and with a minimum of effort. One doesn't have to painfully dig out the word from the rubble of treacherous orthography; it's there right away and one may easily move on to the next and the next, skimming the meaninglike an albatross skimming a mid-ocean wave.

It works out for the best. Therefore, classic, with a small 'c'.