muckefuck | Ejimicated peeples is werks hear

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Ejimicated peeples is werks hear

Spelling is one of those areas where I simply fail at being the non-judgmental descriptivist that, deep in my heart, I truly wish to be. I fervently believe that poor spelling is no indication of a person's intelligence or breeding; after all, I've known too many very clever and well-brought-up people who were simply lousy at memorising the arbitrary letter sequences of English to think otherwise. But I've been raised since birth in a society which overwhelmingly rejects such progressive notions and has conditioned me to react in mortal disgust at the untidy orthography of those who cannot mind their p's and q's (or e's and a's, as the case may be).

So when I walk into a set of beautifully refurbished offices in a neighbouring department and see a spanking new sign that reads "GATAR METIRIALS", every fibre of me wants to scream out "WHERE IS YOUR DIGNITY?"

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When I think of you and spelling, I think of the whole "people misspell Gandhi all the time" rant you did years ago where you misspelled Gandhi... :: laugh ::

Oh stop. It was funny.

I hear you. I find myself torn in exactly the same way.

wait, do these metirials pertain to Gatar, Pakistan (in which case they're probably highly sought after in intel circles)?

Or are we dealing with the kind of gatar that goes with drums?

...also now I'm all self-conscious about my egregious Portuguese spelling, which comes of me never having to write in the language.

Well, it's certainly possible there are some Gataris there...

In some ways, it's gotten even worse, since in the Bad Old Days, the only way to keep your copy clean was to have everything proofread by a less hopeless speller than yourself. But now there are so many tools available online to save misspellers from perdition that it's hard to view egregious errors as the products of anything other than moral turpitude.

Muphry's law in action!

As a Usenetter of the old school, I know this as "Skitt's law".

Was that a Usenet thing? Or more specifically an aue thing?

I've got a shiny penny for you, Herr Haarsplitter, if you can tell me where to find a.u.e!

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.usage.english/topics, for example? (Or am I misunderstanding the question?)

IIRC, Skitt was a regular there, and I thought that Skitt's Law was named after that particular Skitt and that the name originated in that newsgroup. I could well be wrong.

Edited 2009-03-27 20:58 (UTC)

You nailed it!

As somewhat of an amateur linguist, I find it convenient to think of "Colloquial English" as a similar, but totally different language than "Academic English", with its own spelling and grammar rules. By treating it as a foreign language with rules that differ from those I'm comfortable with, it's easier for me to deal with without causing permanent dental problems :)

I agree, except when words misspell themselves after you hit "submit." That is lj's fult.

See!?!

Uncany!

Ugh, I have to have

tyrannio or my mom proofread anything I write if I need it up to, er, my education level.

It's those schwa vowels and the consonants which may or may not be doubled that get me every time. It's like you have to know the word's whole history in order to spell it right. And how many words does English have?

Still, I hate seeing commercial signs misspelled. "Bokays" anyone?

Somehow, I always found that sign more charming than irritating. After all, the place is called "Flower Bucket". If you want fancy frills like correct spelling, expect to pay more than $10 for your dozen roses!

I hear you.
At the same time, I wonder if all those spell-checkers are making the problem worse, since as long as you approximate the correct word, the computer will find the right spelling for you.

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