"definately"...the importance of spelling

[Abaddon]

Please, please, please, explain why, Owen. I don't understand.

Beth ditto

 

[Smellincoffee]

A friend of mine who happens to be a retired schoolteacher once corrected my spelling of definitely, reminding me that its root is "finite". Ever since then, no problems.

 

[Clement]

Arappelnty the hamun brian can raed msot wrods fialry wlel as lnog the frist and lsat lttrees are in the crorcet oderr, so bad sepllnig can relaly get qiute bad idneed bfeor bceomnig too borken too uedrtsnad!

Could you read that? hehe

 

[Bill3000]

Writing isn't a fundamental part of language, anyway. In addition, the English orthographical system is an inferior one and 500 years out of date.

 

[Quintillus]

The misspelling of "definitely" seems to have become the most common in the English language, according to something I was reading a while ago.

This misspelling has been a pet peeve of mine for ages. It's like acid to my eyes when someone writes "definately". Yet when I correct them I can tell that many don't seem to care much.

It seems that the society we live in places less and less importance on good spelling and grammar as days go by. I'm not a grammar Nazi myself, but I think that correct English is very important to establishing credibility, am I right?

This sort of thing also sheds light on our educational system. Even if you are an English learner and don't live in America, you should be able to avoid spellings like "dieing" or "restraunt", right?

Discuss.

"Definitely" is definitely one of the words I used to misspell the most, and I consider myself a pretty good speller. And, usually, as definately. I just spelled it phonetically, and it didn't look blatantly wrong to me. But then I realized that "finite" was part of "definitely" and ever since then I've been able to spell it.

I remember in French class in 7th grade, people had a lot of trouble spelling "le restaurant". Then our teacher pointed out the irony as the word is spelled identically in both French and English. I don't know if that helped the spelling rate at all, but I still remember that misspelling.

The word I missed in the sixth grade spelling bee was "ludicrous". Ever since then, I've known how to spell it .

If anyone is looking for a good laugh, Wikipedia the Cupertino effect and read the cited sites. The Cupertino effect is what happens when you tell a spell checker to auto-correct all your spelling errors, and can lead to some pretty funny unintended consequences.

Please, please, please, explain why, Owen. I don't understand.

Mise improperly wrote that he, '[tries] to spell and write English proper', when there is no such thing as English proper. Rather, he most likely meant that he, '[tries] to spell and write English properly', but couldn't be bothered to type the two extra letters.

But I could be wrong. If so, the joke's on me.

 

[Earthling]

Your right but their's alot more than that your missing. However, could of used a dangling participle and he failed to split the infinitive; probably should have done "to correctly use".

edit - fourth grade spelling bee I mispelled mayonnaise I believe. Made me so angry, I also remained convinced it was unexplicably harder than the words other kids were getting at the same time. Several rounds later when the difficulty supposedly continues to get harder kids were still missing words like "leopard"

 

[Brighteye]

I've said it before, and I'll write it again:
spelling and grammar are not important because a person can't read what you write, but because he can't read what you write as easily.
For example, Clement posted a sentence that took me 12 seconds to read, but written out correctly it takes maybe 2 seconds to read.
Every time you make a spelling mistake or a grammatical error, you force every reader to waste his time working out your meaning. If you write clearly and correctly, you actually communicate what you mean, which is the purpose of writing. If you turn your writing into a puzzle, you should expect people not to solve it.

 

[bathsheba666]

Mise improperly wrote that he, '[tries] to spell and write English proper', when there is no such thing as English proper. Rather, he most likely meant that he, '[tries] to spell and write English properly', but couldn't be bothered to type the two extra letters.

But I could be wrong. If so, the joke's on me.

The joke is probably on you.

I have no particular window into Mise's soul, but he appears well educated.

So, I assume "English proper" could well mean "strictly accurate English".

In fact, I would say educated people would use "incorrectly" in the place you use "improperly", and would regard your usage as imprecise bordering on inaccurate.
Proper, and improper, have a raft of meanings that are not adequately represented by correct and incorrect.

Your right but their's alot more than that your missing. However, could of used a dangling participle and he failed to split the infinitive; probably should have done "to correctly use".

edit - fourth grade spelling bee I mispelled mayonnaise I believe. Made me so angry, I also remained convinced it was unexplicably harder than the words other kids were getting at the same time. Several rounds later when the difficulty supposedly continues to get harder kids were still missing words like "leopard"

Is it inexplicable how words change over time? Creativity versus degradation ?

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Writing isn't a fundamental part of language, anyway. In addition, the English orthographical system is an inferior one and 500 years out of date.

How so?

 

[Fuzzz]

How so?

I guess what Bill3000 is trying to say is that written language is not as important as spoken language or just communication (non verbal) in general. Most of your communication is non verbal.

The English spelling has not as many orthographic rules like French, Spanish, German... A good example is the written word ghoti which can be pronounced as fish.

 

[JollyRoger]

edit - fourth grade spelling bee I mispelled mayonnaise I believe. Made me so angry, I also remained convinced it was unexplicably harder than the words other kids were getting at the same time. Several rounds later when the difficulty supposedly continues to get harder kids were still missing words like "leopard"

A kid from my junior high made it all the way to the National Spelling Bee as a 7th grader. As an 8th grader, in the first round of the school competition (the very first step towards making another run at it), he missed "biscuit", spelling it "bisquit" - it was so shocking that we practically had a moment of silence for him.

 

[Shekwan]

Yeah spelling is important and makes me think of people as less credible in a professional sense, not personal.

However people who correct others' spelling are scum. They always come across as arrogant tools.

 

[bathsheba666]

However people who correct others' spelling are scum. They always come across as arrogant tools.

Do you feel this way about teachers ?

 

[Shekwan]

Of course!

I'm an English teacher and I self identify as scum.

Serious answer: no.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I guess what Bill3000 is trying to say is that written language is not as important as spoken language or just communication (non verbal) in general. Most of your communication is non verbal.

The English spelling has not as many orthographic rules like French, Spanish, German... A good example is the written word ghoti which can be pronounced as fish.

I was only referring to"English orthography is 500 years out of date", my bad. What orthographic rules are you referring to? Are you referring to grammar influencing orthography? Because in that case not English but rather say German seems "out of date". 500 years ago German and English were a lot more similar (example: it used to be correct to say you lovest in stead of just you love [not sure about the exact spelling]), since then English moved to greater simplification while German staid more true to its state 500 years ago.

 

[uppi]

I was only referring to"English orthography is 500 years out of date", my bad. What orthographic rules are you referring to? Are you referring to grammar influencing orthography? Because in that case not English but rather say German seems "out of date". 500 years ago German and English were a lot more similar (example: it used to be correct to say you lovest in stead of just you love [not sure about the exact spelling]), since then English moved to greater simplification while German staid more true to its state 500 years ago.

His point is that English orthography rules are based on how words were pronounced 500 years ago, not on how they are pronounced now. This leads to an abundance of inconsistencies.

The fact that spelling bees even exist is part of the problem: In a well designed spelling system these should be incredibly boring as for most words it should be obvious how they should be spelled (except for not yet adapted foreign words, and maybe a few exceptions).

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I see, thanks

 

[Bootstoots]

The misspelling that's been irritating me lately is "Lybia". Of course, given the number of correct ways to spell Gaddafi's name, maybe the Libya misspellers have a point.

 

[Silurian]

Spreling iis ipotant iff yoou wan poepl two undernand yov.

 

[Mathalamus]

I am a reasonably good speller, but I do not care for grammatical errors like capitalization.

I am also trying to phase out contractions, for no reason.