Free Spelling Lesson

[JustAGuy]

Motivated by a strong sense of public service, not to mention being sick to death of seeing people misspell these words, let me give the CORRECT spelling of what I believe to be the two most frequently misspelled words on the internet.

1. Definitely. It is definitely not definately or defanitely or defanately.
2. Tongue. It is not tounge, tonge, tunge or any of the other twenty variations I have seen on this word.

The dumbing down of society in general and the deterioration of the English language in particular seems to be escalating at the speed of light in recent years. In the late 80's, I used to work for a company that ran full page ads in the Seattle Times and when I was mortified by the owner's spelling mistakes and offered to proofread the ads before they were submitted, he took great offense and said his spelling mistakes made him "one of the people" and that he didn't need my help at all, thank you very much. At the time, I thought that someone who took a perverse pride in being sub-literate was an aberration. Little did I realize he was the wave of the future. But no matter how much this may be considered dog paddling against a tidal wave, I will continue to do my tiny part in fighting against the onslaught of illiteracy. You're welcome.

 

[mick_eight]

phonetics

One of the reasons us old ppl can't spell is the method used in 50s fucked a lot of us up regards spelling,and the other part is ,I could give a bean if all the Ts are crossed,I can't even be bothered to load spell check,, A litte anal maybe?

 

[schizo_man]

you konw, poelpe uesd to hvae a hrad tmie rdeanig waht I witre but if tehy look rael cosle tehy can ulsualy mkae out waht I am wirtnig aobut. If you tihnk I can't sepll, all I can say is fcuk you.

 

[Chantal]

you konw, poelpe uesd to hvae a hrad tmie rdeanig waht I witre but if tehy look rael cosle tehy can ulsualy mkae out waht I am wirtnig aobut. If you tihnk I can't sepll, all I can say is fcuk you.

That was funny LOL but some of the new generation are teenagers that maybe did not graduate...What's the big deal....it's only a "BOARD" not a "THESIS"

 

[personalmale]

The purpose of language is to communicate. If I understand what a person means when they say something to me, I'm not going to correct them on how they say it. On the other hand, if I notice that my friend's fly is down, I'm going to tell him quietly. I'm not going to yell out in public, "Holy shit Fred you're fvcking flying at half mast!" while gawking at his no-fly-zone. Job accomplished and I'm not having to duck his beer or worse his fist.

 

[maxx50]

To spell or not to spell ..

I thought i would throw in here on the side of those that can't spell well ... me included....I just never could sound out the words that well ....because my dad was a german imagrent ...that had lived in Brazil ....worked in spain ...was in jail in france ....was on the russen front.... and finially ended up here in Canada...speaking in an accent...thats one of the people who i learnt engish from ....and i did not need to spell ..jack off.

 

[beerdrinker]

wasn't it proven that the human brain only "see's" the first and last letter when it reads something and has the ability to make out the rest of the word as a whole

here is an example:

THIS IS REALLY QUITE DIFFERENT!! BUT CHALLENGE & AMAZE YOURSELF BEFORE YOU DUMP IT!

Don't delete this because it looks weird. Believe it or not you can read it.


I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt!

 

[JustAGuy]

This is quite correct, beerdrinker, but it still presumes that the word is spelled correctly in the sense of all the right letters being present. The first and last letters have to be where they belong and the middle letters can be garbled anyway you want, but they still have to be the correct middle letters for our mind to read the actual word. So while "third" can be seen by our mind as "third" even when spelled "trihd" or "tirhd", that isn't the case if it's spelled "truhd" or "turhd".

 

[Herb_The_Perb]

Motivated by a strong sense of public service, not to mention being sick to death of seeing people misspell these words, let me give the CORRECT spelling of what I believe to be the two most frequently misspelled words on the internet.

1. Definitely. It is definitely not definately or defanitely or defanately.

I've also seen it spelled "defiantly".

 

[tom25]

wasn't it proven that the human brain only "see's" the first and last letter when it reads something and has the ability to make out the rest of the word as a whole

here is an example:

THIS IS REALLY QUITE DIFFERENT!! BUT CHALLENGE & AMAZE YOURSELF BEFORE YOU DUMP IT!

Don't delete this because it looks weird. Believe it or not you can read it.


I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt!

Even if true, I'm not sure its a reason to say "spell however you want ... people will still be able to understand you."

 

[Avery]

I have to agree with JustAGuy on this issue. Like it or not, many people will judge you on the quality of your communications skills. A résumé full of typos, spelling errors and poor grammar gets tossed by most potential employers without a second glance.

Just because PERB is an internet bulletin board doesn't mean that posters shouldn't take a few extra seconds to proofread their posts. I ignore obvious typos here and there, but I don't give much credence to posts that are made by people who seem incapable of expressing their thoughts cogently and concisely. In a few instances, I've decided not to see SP's because their inarticulate posts tell me we wouldn't be able to communicate very well with each other.

The posts that really stick in my craw are those that are written entirely in lower case letters with no breaks or grammar at all, just a bunch of (usually misspelled) words running into each other. It's painful to try to read them! I also don't like posts that are written in chat room style. There's rarely a need to reply instantly to a post, so why do some people post "r u goin 2..." instead of "are you going to..."?

I generally avail myself of the option to preview posts. I nearly always find typos somewhere in my posts when I check them.

 

[Chantal]

Avery,Is it not resumee?

 

[Sydney]

dictionary.com

to
too
two

there
their
they're

This is second grade grammar.

Sydney

 

[therealrex]

By " second grade grammar" do you mean that it less important than normal grammar or that it is grammar that should be learned in the second grade? I found your statement to be unclear.
The phrase I find misspelled the most on internet boards is "uptight nitpicker"

 

[Sydney]

it is grammar that should be learned in the second grade?

Yes, it is grammar easily taught to 7 year olds.

I find the words 'sarcastic' and 'provocation' used often on boards and even with many spelling errors and typos surrounding them, always easy to read.

Just adding my 2 (that's 'two') cents.

Sydney

 

[tom25]

touche [I haven't forgotten the accent ... just don't know how to do it on this program]

... I think that's a point to Sydney!

Tom

 

[therealrex]

touché

first make sure the numlock key is on then hold down alt and key in 0223
http://fog.ccsf.cc.ca.us/~creitan/accents.htm

But make sure you spell that french word right or you'll upset some uptight multilingual nitpicker

 

[tom25]

touché

first make sure the numlock key is on then hold down alt and key in 0223
http://fog.ccsf.cc.ca.us/~creitan/accents.htm

But make sure you spell that french word right or you'll upset some uptight multilingual nitpicker

Many thanks

 

[Avery]

Avery,Is it not resumee?

No, it's definitely "résumé". But the French don't use that French term anyway; they use the Latin term "c.v."

Another one that bugs me is people who write "discrete" when they mean "discreet". They're two completely different words.

 

[Chantal]

Discrete means "discreet"Oui -NON "