Some thoughts on Spelling !

[PCH]

I know it's been mentioned on here more than once - spelling that is. I myself am a real stickler for it and generally prefer to see things spelled correctly.

But it has been argued that spelling doesn't really matter, and that to get the message across is the important thing. So, - does it really matter? Well from the point of view of our minds' ability to decipher words, it appears it doesn't much matter.

I saw the following some time ago. It demonstrates the power of the mind to make up for incorrect spelling quite conclusively. For those who haven't seen it, have a look .....

Just a word of warning. It may not be quite such a great demo for those for whom English isn't their first language.

Here goes ....

" More Brain Stuff . . From Cambridge University .

Olny srmat poelpe can raed tihs.
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 in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rgh it 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 tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs psas it on !!

Cool huh ?!

[astroron]

An oldie but a goody;)
But then again if you can spell why not make the effort to do it:rolleyes:

[bobson]

It would be nice if there is no need for spelling.
Consider word like:

STOP

The one everyone understands all around the world.

And then consider:

EWE

Female sheep, go figure?

Silent letters, if they are not pronounced why do we need them?

KNIGHT
KNIFE

Do we need double letters,

And then "C" "K" "CC" and so on...

I am happy my name BOB I can spell even backwards :)

cheers

[Kevnool]

I dont feel bad now when i make a typo cause you will all still be able to understand it.

I feel better now.

Cheers Kev.

[kinetic]

Oh Kev, when do you ever make typos mate? :shrug::D

Steve

[mac]

The thing about that example from Cambridge is that the words are complete - every letter is present in each word - just in the wrong order. So when we look at the shape of the word, we're looking at both the first and last letters, and also the length and shape of it.

What happens with a lot of spelling errors is that letters get left out, or the wrong letters are used altogether. I've seen some shockers in these forums! But sigh, I tolerate you all anyway... :P :lol:

[Kevnool]

All da tyme...... :D.

Cheers Kev.

[MrB]

Yep, I had a little stumble when I got to "the rgh it pclae."

[bobson]

The fact is there is no need for spelling. There are many languages without it. Its about time someone starts simplifying it. USA is more keen than some hard core English speaking nations who are even proud the way things are.

bob

[matt]

The fact is....I don't agree.

[bobson]

Matt,

Can you speak any other language besides English?

cheers

bob

[stephenb]

I can only speak for myself here. I will type everything as correct as possible, including all spelling and punctuation. I do not use the latest acronyms, such as FYI, IIRC, etc. and I will always use a dictionary to correct my posts prior to posting. My only issue (I've been told), is that I use commas too often in sentences. I think this is a result of my speech habits due to my job, because I tend to speak clearly and audibly, resulting in a lots of pauses in my speech. This translates into lots of commas in my typing.

What I do not like on forums such as IIS, the the blatent misuse of spelling, lack full stops, no capitals or any form of punctuation. I feel that this is a representation of today's internet usage.

[JethroB76]

:lol:

[mac]

Haha, you beat me to it Jethro!

And Bob, which languages are you referring to which don't have spelling? I've been to many countries and seen and heard dozens of different languages, and they all had spelling.

Pronunciation can be an issue though! One time I was in France, and was thanking a bartender "merci beaucoup" (thank you very much), but he thought I said "merci, beau queue", which means "thank you - nice bum".

[bobson]

My second language is SerboCroation. Neither Serbian nor Croation language have spelling.

All words are spelled as they are pronounced, and, consequently, pronounced as they are spelled.

When I worked for Duty Free Shop there were many Japanese students working with us and they said in Japanese language there is no spelling either.

bob

[stephenb]

I left an error in there to see how many posts before it was detected. I made a personal bet that it would have taken five posts, and you clearly beat me on that one.

[astroron]

You have not corrected your punctuation?

[marki]

These threads always end up in tears. If you are publishing something for general sale, grammer and spelling need to be spot on. If you are are replying to a post on a thread you do not need a proof reader nor should you:shrug:. It would stifle most communication around here and people would become reluctant to post. Those of you who are highly literate will just have to come to terms with that. Funny thing is everytime this comes up many of the folk demanding perfection post replies full of mistakes.

Mark

[stephenb]

Thank you Ron, done.

but IMO i dont lik it whn people tolk lik this on forums witoout any corect speeling in there centencs that reely anoys me fwiw

[stephenb]

You are correct Mark, I don't lose sleep over the odd spelling error, the odd errant punctuation, that's not an issue. I have never stated in my posts I have demanded perfection, I just see a small minority in all forums who type like they are randomly mashing the keyboard with open palms. Having said that, their may be legitimate reasons for their errors and I certainly don't make assumptions.

[bobson]

Nau yu toking Stefan, tel em layk it iz :)

[Peter Ward]

So would you rather have the surgeon who can actually spell scalpel to do some delicate work on your melanoma, or the wun hoo kant ??

Sometimes the devil is in the detail....

[marki]

Stephen, there can be a large number of reasons why mistakes are made but last time this came up it ended very badly.

Mark

[astroron]

The fact is there is no need for spelling.:shrug:

Please enlighten me,how do you write a book in Serbia if there is no set spelling? do you just type the words the way they sound to you:shrug:
Do you have a dictionary?
Why is it that about two thirds of the world's population have English as their second language?
It is also the language of the world diplomacy:)
That there is a few small countries that maybe have no spelling, and if this is correct it confuses me how they can communicate by the written word:help:

[Baddad]

Hi Paul, :)

An interesting point. It has been known for some time in the psychological community.
Matt answers it well. the words are complete. Messed up but complete. Remaining intelligable.

From my point of view: Typos are acceptable, consistant bad spelling leads the reader to assess the author to have much less credibility. Therefore the integrity of the piece becomes dubious.

However I, have said previously that it is a personal thing how people express themselves. Individuality. Kind of a special expression, learn to read it. It does not go away.....? We gotta' live with it.:lol:;)

Cheers Marty

[Octane]

Warning: linked image has some profanity.

But, it's just about the ultimate example of how Internet communication can sometimes be a case of "mash butan".

http://img3.imagebanana.com/img/3smsiclx/1238623180829.jpg

Regards,
Humayun

[Tandum]

This supposes that the reader has been taught english phonemically in the first place. Unfortunately, they have taught my children to read using this recognition method and now they can't read. When they come across a word they have not seen before they don't know what it is because they don't know how to sound out words. Don't you love experts.

[Octane]

Robin,

I'm highly skeptical that this research was actually undertaken, at Cambridge of all places.

Snopes turns up a status of "undetermined" with regards to this potential myth.

I guess the fact that it is on Snopes means that people have doubts as to its veracity.

Regards,
Humayun

[Omaroo]

Huh? Japanese is one of the most rigidly-structured written languages in existence! The term "spelling" refers to adherence to a pre-defined letter or character structure making words vary in meaning and context. Given this, Japanese is incredibly strict on correct structure (I lived there and studied it), so what the students told you was, quite frankly, wrong. They probably had a good laugh about it. :lol: Their humour can be a little bizarre at times. The language is heavily dependent on context, as the same word can mean several things. For instance the word "hana" could mean either "nose" or "flower" depending on context. Did you go picking flowers today... or.. did you go picking noses?

Besides, whilst we humans may make sense of that passage, try getting a computer to. Spelling will be important and around for a little while yet me thinks.

[Tandum]

Humayun,
Regardless of myth or fact on this one, this is how they are teaching our kids english these days, up here at least. My son had a bucket load of trouble with english after moving from a public primary to a private secondary as private schools don't have to conform to the states view on teaching english.

[marki]

Robin, teaching english without the use of phonics was all the rage a short while ago (OBE). Over here it has been discarded after about ten years when it was conceded (by the do gooders) that kids could no longer read properly. Back to the three R's again, imagine:P.

Mark

[Redshift]

I saw an interesting trick with English once. So long as you start and end a sentence with those two words spelt correctly, and also spell all words of three letters or less correctly, then the other words in the sentence can have letters missing or letters jumbled and the sentence is still perfectly understandable.
English is an amazng languge its no wondr evryone in the wrld wnts to lern it.
;)
I just hope that doesn't catch on though.

[bobson]

Ron

Mate, it seems to me some people think that I am attacking English language here, like I said Serbian is my second language. Al I am saying is it should be simplified. You can not do it overnight, but like I said USA spells "color" we spell "colour". If you read old documents you can notice that English changed a lot from that time for better of course.

"Please enlighten me,how do you write a book in Serbia"

They would write it: BUK

Why would you have two "oo" to make one letter when you already have that letter?

And then logic behind it, EWE? Pronounced "U" ? Whats the logic behind it? Its time for change absurd things like that.

" if there is no set spelling? do you just type the words the way they sound to you"

Thats correct.

"Do you have a dictionary?"

Of course, every language has dictionary. But only to explain words and its meanings. Like word "Astronomy" if you just tell people who never heard about Astronomy they would look in dictionary and find out what it is.


"Why is it that about two thirds of the world's population have English as their second language?"

Hmmm, I wonder why? Why Brazilians speak Portuguese, or Argentinians, Chile, Mexico, Cuba speak Spanish?

Wrong bro, have a look here:
http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/most_spoken_languages.htm

"It is also the language of the world diplomacy"

Yes it is, only because Brits and USA couldn't learn Esperanto :)

"That there is a few small countries that maybe have no spelling, and if this is correct it confuses me how they can communicate by the written word"

This is not valid argument and you know it. Its not how many people do something that makes it right.

"if this is correct it confuses me how they can communicate by the written word"

Very easy mate, very easy, it takes to learn other languages to find out.

cheers

bob

Chris,

"Japanese is incredibly strict on correct structure"

Exactly,

[MrB]

Therin lies the problem.... I read BUK as exactly that... buk... buck, luck, duck, f....

If I read 'oo' I know what the word sounds like, because of I've been taught it's spelling and it's sound....
book, took, look, shook
buk, tuk, luk, shuk

Just not the same I'm afraid.
It all comes down to a word I used a moment ago... taught... education.

[bobson]

What about

Floor?
Poor?
Door?

:)

[MrB]

I knew that would be brought up ;)
Through education, again, yourself and most other people can recognise those words as being different and without even consciously thinking about it know they are pronounced differently.... without formalised spelling you would lose that.

What single letter would you replace those 'oo' with?

[rat156]

Can I point out that the correct spelling of sic "Croation", is Croatian?

Sorry, couldn't resist...

Cheers
Stuart

[bobson]

Simon,

I understand the problem and have sympathy for foreigners when they start learning English language.
To me too, its normal to read properly either "floor" or "book" because thats the way I was thought from the very beginning. But try to explain to someone who just started learning English why is it so.

"What single letter would you replace those 'oo' with?"

It will only confuse things even further if I suggest one letter. To me it makes sense because I can speak both languages. The problem is in alphabet itself, the way we use it.

To us its normal to sound out letter "I" and pronounce word "eye" "U" and "you" or even "ewe"
We accept this as normal, we have been thought like this and think thats the only way.

Think about this words and the way you write and pronounce them, and imagine all other words are this simple:

START
STOP
SMART

One letter one sound. Simple :)


bob

BTW

Read this:

" A treatise on phonology: comprising a perfect alphabet for the English language; a specimen exhibition of the absurdities of our present system of orthography; Comstock's, Pitman's, and the Cincinnati alphabet, contrasted; a lecture on phonetics, by Prof. McLaine; the pamphoneticon, and recommendations of Comstock's alphabet"

http://www.archive.org/details/atreatiseonphon00leagoog
http://thenonist.com/index.php/thenonist/permalink/something_like_a_phonemenon/

[bobson]

Ah forget about it, this is Astronomy forum.
Lets hope for clear sky soon.

Cheers all

[kinetic]

What's all this fuss about Spelling anyway?
Are we talking about Aaron or Tori?

Steve

[stephenb]

Please read my last post (#20) again. As I stated there is a number of reasons, illiteracy issues, and I am not having a go at people for that. Oh and I didn't start this topic, by the way. It was put up for opinions and I gave mine, which I thought was honest and sincere and diplomatic and I did not denigrate anyone.

[Barrykgerdes]

I Like to spell correctly but do make many mistakes because I am only a two finger typist and I am often careless in my haste. However there are a few things to think about with spelling.

It is in everyones interest to ensure that spelling is correct for the language in use. Remember the most important asset you can have is knowledge. Knowledge mostly comes from reading what has been done before. If you don't understand the rules of the language you may not get the information that is intended. Remember also that if you belong to the ruling class, keeping the people under you in the dark is the way to control them. Now you know why some goverments do not enforce the rules of spelling in school.

My 2 cents worth
Baz

[marki]

Stephen I am aware you did not start the thread and my comment about " many reasons" was in support of your comment. I am not having a go at you. This topic comes up fairly frequently and sooner or later someone with a disability gets upset. It is very difficult to correctly interpret the intention of a post simply because we rely so much on body language when communicating with others. My intent is not to have a go at people but rather throw a bucket of water on the fire. When I first started teaching I was silly enough to believe the only thing that seperated students was the amount of work they put in. 15 years on I have learnt alot.

Mark

[matt]

:lol:

So many possible witty retorts....so little time.

[mac]

Perhaps we could discuss the following next:

its / it's
your / you're
they're / there / their

;)

[matt]

The misuse of the apostrophe drives me nuts!

[marki]

Or to, too, two, weather, whether, our, hour, then, than, effect, affect etc

Mark

[mac]

We are kindred spirits, Matt.

Mark, the 'then' and 'than' thing is strange because they are pronounced differently from each other, but I do see that mistake a lot in the forums.

But it could just be an accent thing.

In the UK, 'beer' and 'bare' are pronounced differently from each other but here in NZ they're pronounced the same. This also applies with 'ferry' and 'fairy'.

[marki]

Matt, I have seen kids work themselves to the point of complete breakdown, both mentally and physically with very little to show for it. I do not see any humour in this.

Mark

[dpastern]

Spelling and maths have gone downhill - the current Y generation are epic fails imho. God help their kids...

Dave

[TrevorW]

One could say that English is the most complex language too learn.

I have a spanish/english speaking colleague who has been in our country for several year and still has trouble understanding words and is continually learning new ones.

Learning the fundamentals as a child is important, how we apply words latter in life is often dependant on our employment, but socially as long as we convey the message is all that really matters.

Tolerance is important not the spelling of the words.

[Starkler]

The European Union commissioners have announced agreement to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility.They have agreed, however, to some concessions to make English easier for other EU partners to learn.


In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c". Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard "c" will be replaced with "k" which will is klear up konfusion.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced by "f". In the third year governments will enkourage the removal of double letters. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent "e"s in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" by "z" and "W" by "V".

During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o"kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou", and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil b no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru.

[Octane]

I love the spelling and grammar mistakes made by those saying how much the misuse of both annoys them.

[matt]

Trust me, Mark...my comment is not levelled at the kids.

You might need to look a little harder to find the humour.

[bobson]

:rofl:

[stephenb]

What it proves is that everyone is not perfect at it, but occasionally an error slips through for any number of reasons.

Mark, fully agreeing with you :thumbsup: And yes, this topic comes up as regular as the "local dealers are ripping up all off" threads. Or should that be "as regularly" ?

[dpastern]

One could say that, yes. The English language has a problem (at least in my eyes) - grammatically, many words do not make any sense whatsoever.

English is a Germanic language - its roots are based in the German language. Anyone who speaks German (or Dutch for that matter) will easily recognise a similarity in many instances. It also has a French, Arabic, Latin & Greek root history as well. It's a ******* language.

If you want to try a complex language, try Gaelige. Two sets of consonants. Two sets of vowels. Pronunciation is dependant in many instances on what consonant/vowel combination is being used in the word in question. The language might not seem logical at first, but it has very specific rules, and they do make sense. Let's try something:

Can anyone pronounce it correctly (hee hee)! What common English word is derived from it?

Dave

PS I'm semi fluent in German, and trying to learn Gaelige (but it's hard).

[dpastern]

:P

Dave

[mac]

I used to work at Oxford University, and one of the German experts there told me that "life is too short to learn German". So I guess we can all be happy that we, in some form or another, know English.

[DavidU]

You may notice all my posts are short. I cannot spell very well at all, I don't know why. I try very hard .
At work I usually had my own Exec assistant so she always did it for me.
I would love to write nice posts like some do on IIS.:confused2:

[TheDecepticon]

I agree. Charity starts at home.

[circumpolar]

Very funny. :lol:

[stephenb]

Would it be fair to say that there is a difference between people who make a genuine attempt to spell, whatever their level of skill, and just the plain lazy, who use a combination of SMS/texting and internet shorthand? Just a thought.

[Omaroo]

I think that this is a very good point Stephen. A person can really care about spelling and grammar yet still make mistakes. They are just those - mistakes. The intent is always there to do the best that they can.

On the other hand you have those who just plain don't care - for whatever reasons they can find or have.

I suppose it's also down to the medium. This and other forum-like environments sometimes make it difficult to maintain your standards because of the sheer speed at which things happen. I think that it comes down to the fact that there is a big difference between a forum, or other electronic means of instant communication, and writing a book.

[mithrandir]

If people don't insist on being the first to reply to a post, they have time to reread what they wrote and fix the most glaring typos. Even more important is the grammar. Usually if the grammar is correct, the occasional spelling error can be forgiven.



I don't know what you use to post to the forum, but Firefox with an Australian English dictionary picks up most of my spelling errors, and rereading fixes the grammar and the readability.

[Omaroo]

Indeed.

[DavidU]

My Firefox did not have spell check,I just downloaded to add on.
Now it works !

[Starkler]

Anyone can make spelling mistakes or errors in grammar but what really gets my goat is people who make no effort at all in punctuation sentence structure or paragraphing inflicting through laziness a painful reading experience on those they expect to decipher what can seem like an endless ramble for petes sake read back what you write!

Phew!

[mithrandir]

From what I've seen from my daughter's texting, you put in one too many capital letters, far too many vowels and not enough exclamation marks. I think you meant us to read that as:

Anyone can make spelling mistakes or errors in grammar. What really gets my goat is people who make no effort at all in punctuation, sentence structure or paragraphing, inflicting, through laziness, a painful reading experience on those they expect to decipher what can seem like an endless ramble. For Pete's sake, read back what you write!

:)