"definately"...the importance of spelling

[sophie]

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.

Nope, you got it.

The joke is probably on you.

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

 

[madviking]

I don't see why we shouldn't reform English spelling...

 

[illram]

Not much bothers me other than "loose" when someone means "lose.":suicide:

 

[onedreamer]

Since communication capabilities are one of the major traits that distinguishes human beings from other animals I would agree that spelling is important for us. For many cavemen that still inhabit the planet this issue is definitely undermined. It is also a matter of caring about your language and respect towards others (the readers). There are some countries whos majority of inhabitants are extreme nationalists and will brag about their super-puper nation among themselves and with foreigners every other minute, only to continuously mortifying their own language with repeated spelling, grammatical and logical errors, without feeling the need to correct themselves and in some cases even on purpose. Interesting to note.

 

[Mathalamus]

languages change over time. do you really expect english to remain unchanged with so many communications advances, text wise?

 

[bathsheba666]

Nope, you got it.

It's only your joke if he was using proper as an adverb.

It could be an even bigger joke if he was not, and simply assumed that people would assume he was.
I prefer this latter option as being less dull than the former.

 

[Thoughtful Thug]

To me personally I am prone to make a few errors time to time. I can correct myself. But at times I choose to be lazy and leave it as it is.

After opening my very first facebook account a few month ago, I have found many of my friends and family making a lot of spelling errors. Their, they're, there, and there are - pretty much the most common mistakes that I have seen. Actually there are many grammar issues, but I don't go about correcting them since I already feel what they're saying.

The sentence should definately end with a question mark, not a period.

I'm not a grammar Nazi myself, but I think that correct English is very important to establishing credibility. Am I right?

I think that is a better way of going about it.

Since communication capabilities are one of the major traits that distinguishes human beings from other animals I would agree that spelling is important for us. For many cavemen that still inhabit the planet this issue is definitely undermined. It is also a matter of caring about your language and respect towards others (the readers). There are some countries whos majority of inhabitants are extreme nationalists and will brag about their super-puper nation among themselves and with foreigners every other minute, only to continuously mortifying their own language with repeated spelling, grammatical and logical errors, without feeling the need to correct themselves and in some cases even on purpose. Interesting to note.

What is that? An anthropology of writing?

 

[gangleri2001]

If you don't want to make any spelling errors while texting anything with your computer... WRITE IN CHINESE!!!

 

[Mathalamus]

you can get spelling errors in that too.

 

[Earthling]

It could be an even bigger joke if he was not, and simply assumed that people would assume he was.
I prefer this latter option as being less dull than the former.

But it's not right, because he clearly made several other grammatical errors. A game to catch them all, perhaps, but definately on purpose.

 

[gangleri2001]

you can get spelling errors in that too.

How? By choosing the wrong character? Yes, that may happen. But that can be fixed with decent recognition.

 

[admiral-bell]

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/J7E-aoXLZGY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I believe this is relevant.

 

[emzie]

I don't see why we shouldn't reform English spelling...

Alright, what governing body do you suggest? Will it be a fair representation of English as it is spoken -- that is, will Americans make up the majority of the panel, or will it be full of Oxford scholars?

 

[Brighteye]

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.

Sounds like he didn't enjoy last year.

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).

I don't see why we shouldn't reform English spelling...

It depends on what you want from spelling. English spelling can give you a history of the word and imply nuances that the mere sound when spoken does not. It helps people distinguish words. The obvious and much cited example is that there's a difference between paed- and ped-:
a pedophile is someone with unusual but harmless sexual taste
a paedophile is a criminal

Having the roots of a word be obvious makes words interesting and makes the nuances and differences in language more accessible to non-academics. With basic study at school you can understand and predict the backgrounds of words. If spelling were to be reformed now then we'd lose all those little indicators of meaning.

Lastly, if you hate English spelling because it doesn't agree with your pronunciation, why should changing the spelling be the priority over changing your speech?

 

[gangleri2001]

Lastly, if you hate English spelling because it doesn't agree with your pronunciation, why should changing the spelling be the priority over changing your speech?

Because the writing system of any language is always a secondary mean of communication when compared to speech (or gestures in the case of sign languages) and it's always subordinate to it.

 

[madviking]

Alright, what governing body do you suggest? Will it be a fair representation of English as it is spoken -- that is, will Americans make up the majority of the panel, or will it be full of Oxford scholars?

I, for one, welcome our Oxfordian overlords.

 

[Brighteye]

I, for one, welcome our Oxfordian overlords.

Wait until you get to know them!

 

[Japanrocks12]

Put eloquently by a friend of mine:

http://blog.grapesmoker.com/?p=48

 

[Phrossack]

I rarely see "definitely" spelled "definately". Or "definitely". It's invariably "defiantly", e.g. "I will defiantly eat breakfast". Apparently, it's illegal or something.

 

[naterator]

I rarely see "definitely" spelled "definately". Or "definitely". It's invariably "defiantly", e.g. "I will defiantly eat breakfast". Apparently, it's illegal or something.

That's a result of:

...The Cupertino effect...

wiki:

The Cupertino effect is the tendency of a spellchecker to suggest inappropriate words to replace misspelled words and words not in its dictionary.

The origin of the term is that the spelling "cooperation" was often changed to "Cupertino" by older spellcheckers with dictionaries containing only the hyphenated form "co-operation".[1] (Cupertino is the home of Apple Inc., and thus would be in most computer spelling dictionaries.) Users sometimes clicked "Change All" without checking whether the spellchecker's first suggestion was correct to begin with, resulting in even official documents with phrases like "as well as valuable experience in international Cupertino"[2] and "and reinforcing bilateral and multinational Cupertino and assistance actions."[3] Other examples include "South Asian Association for Regional Cupertino" and "presentation on African-German Cupertino."[4]

More generally, "Cupertino Effect" means failing to check that a suggested word is appropriate. A common case is "definately" being changed to "defiantly" instead of "definitely".