I'm not speaking about the people who don't care (because I can spell, I suppose I'm like the rich people who say that money doesn't matter). My concern is for the people who have interesting things to say, or a talent for poetry or writing, who are afraid to put pen to paper because they can't spell. It's amazing what a student can produce when you tell them that, for this session, there's a spelling amnesty.
I know. I met 2 women just 2 or 3 years younger than me when I moved to Belgium in 1991 and they were the first victims of the mistaken decision to stop teaching English grammar in secondary schools because it was boring and elitist. It meant they never did learn French because they didn't know how to parse a sentence which means that if you don't even know the basics such as distinguishing a subject from a verb from a direct or indirect object you have a Himalayan mountain to climb to learn French.
Possum has grown up bi-lingual but is of a generation that hardly reads at all so doesn't see words written down. She has very creative spelling in English.
Doesn't stop people over 27 getting irritated by bad grammar and spelling.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
There was also a fashion to ignore spelling errors. This keeps me in business. I suppose with predictive text, texting etc spelling will eventually go the way of the apostrophe. That is if we're not all writing in Russian or Chinese by then.
It's the ambiguity of bad grammar that annoys me. I understand that occassional spelling errors are no big deal (and the 'o word' is one I'm never sure of) but bad grammar can cause all kinds of problems in comprehension. And can change the meaning of a sentence completely sometimes. Everyone knows the 'let's eat grandma' example but it does have a point.
I wish I was a glow worm A glow worm's never glum Cos how can you be grumpy When the sun shines out your bum!
" On another forum I follow, some threads are really hard to understand
because contributors are (intentionally, apparently) totally uncaring
about the way they express themselves, and abusive of anyone innocently
trying to find out what they mean, when what they've said is ambiguous."
It's the carelessness I can't stand. I have bad vision and horendus spelling but I check through before I post (most of the time) which is so easy these days. I know the words I tend to spell phonetically, and so pause to give them thought. If a person has a problem with its/it's or there/their then slow down and review the rules in your mind. I still do. I have to recite my "i before e, except when it isn't".
I entirely agree with B that bad spelling, punct and grammar puts of millions of people from writing poetry, plays, novels and going for all sorts of jobs, studies and passions they would great at, because the feel embarrassed. Even my street email group has many people on the listing that won't use it because they are so ashamed of their writing. It's a tragedy because they are so disenfranchised by it all.
Phones make people (including myself) write far too fast and shoot off messages. Speed becomes more vital than accuracy or reflection. Mistake-making is now becoming embedded in phone culture as de rigueur.
10 years ago, 'predictive text' on phones used to be a great help but the new form of it, where it changes the whole word to one you use more frequently, is a real problem. If you have always spelt a word incorrectly, you always will because the phone will substitute your usual wrong spelling even if you actually type the correct one. I've taught my phone the phrase "stoopid phone". I use it a lot. But it doesn't like me typing 'stupid' now.
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Try putting in a nonsense word, like 'whadyamacallit' a couple of times. Then any time you type 'wha' it'll jump to whadyamacallit. It's very annoying to a curmudgeon such as myself.
ETA apparently iPhones and tablets are much worse for this than android ones. If you correct the android ones back to the real word it normally will then leave it. But iPhones just keep changing it back to what they think you should have typed
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Posts
My concern is for the people who have interesting things to say, or a talent for poetry or writing, who are afraid to put pen to paper because they can't spell.
It's amazing what a student can produce when you tell them that, for this session, there's a spelling amnesty.
Possum has grown up bi-lingual but is of a generation that hardly reads at all so doesn't see words written down. She has very creative spelling in English.
Doesn't stop people over 27 getting irritated by bad grammar and spelling.
I suppose with predictive text, texting etc spelling will eventually go the way of the apostrophe. That is if we're not all writing in Russian or Chinese by then.
A glow worm's never glum
Cos how can you be grumpy
When the sun shines out your bum!
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
ETA apparently iPhones and tablets are much worse for this than android ones. If you correct the android ones back to the real word it normally will then leave it. But iPhones just keep changing it back to what they think you should have typed
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”