Spelling and Fair Play

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on one of our threads (now locked) there's been a lot of hammering on a particular poster because of their misspelling and it kind of turned into a feeding frenzy over that more than disagreement over the topics being discussed.

just wanted to say that i don't really think that's a fair tactic. we do ourselves and our causes a disservice when we attack the person rather than the idea.

i don't think i've been doing that on a2k, but if i have, i offer my apologies.

dtom

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It's more of a tactic to prove someone's weaknesses. We disagree with them, and they keep feeding our ammo of defense, and so we use all that we can.

I too took part in insulting the person's views as well as spellings; the latter merely because the thread had deteriorated from an intellectual debate into a flimsy comedy-show.

I won't apologize, but my last post (concerning spelling) has since been deleted off the thread by Moderators, so I'm assuming I shouldn't start up again.

What can you do - we all get out of hand - personally, I've seen some situations here and on other forums that go beyond extreme. I just hope I'm never involved in one of those scenarios.

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Yes - bad spelling is annoying, but a foolish thing to attack someone for, I think.

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I don't know if this refers to me, but one clown who had no argument had spelled my name wrong. I asked that he/she/it have the courtesy to spell the name correctly, noting that although it is a small thing, it has a good deal of social freight. For this, i was accused of being a "spelling Nazi." There are times when it is not inappropriate to mention spelling. Furthermore, there are times when the spelling is so bad as to make the words unrecognizable, or to make any attempt to extract meaning futile.

There are times when criticizing spelling is petty. There are other times when it is very germaine. As with all things in life, rules regarding this behavior cannot be carved in stone.

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Did you mean "germane"?

Heehee.

It is not about you, btw.

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I'm a retired English teacher with active dyslexia. I love Spellcheck.

Misspellings annoy me, patricularly when the poster is also guilty of intellectual arrogance and shallow thinking.

Ad hominem attacks are even more annoying. I can understand the temptation, but feel the temptation should be resisted.

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I can resist anything except temptation.

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Sometimes, when I look at my posts, I am appalled. It is not so much the lack of spelling knowledge, but the typos that make my writing look like that of a 9th grade dropout.

I, quick like a bunny, attempt to fix the mistakes before another member posts. Invariably, my worst typing gaffes happen when the A2K hamster in charge of such things is on a coffee break.

I think that the way that a person comes across in writing says a lot about the person, including what he thinks about himself.

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Without spellcheck and microsoft word I may as well stay off the boards. I still manage to misspell a lot of words though.

Although with names all you have to copy and paste it on the post. I do it all the time.

I do think at times people around here are a tad hung up on these things. But I will agree that a sentence like this could be really annoying to read and fairly easy to correct.

"I would appcieate an apolagy."

On this site's spellcheck (which shows up as an error but does not offer suggestions) the only one with suggestions is "apolagy". You would need to go to another program for "apprcieate" which is a lot of trouble to spell it correctly for the "spell nazi's". :wink:

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dlowan wrote:

Did you mean "germane"?

Heehee.

It is not about you, btw.

I have the habit of using the French spelling, which is, by the way, and acceptable variant spelling in English.

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Setanta wrote:

I have the habit of using the French spelling, which is, by the way, and acceptable variant spelling in English.

Oh baloney.

Back to the thread. I strive to spell correctly; perhaps because English is my second language and I tend to discount posts that are full of misspellings. But I won't point them out.

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I say to-may-to, and you say to-mah-to. Who cares?

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Well, to-may-to is just so WRONG!

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fruit or vegetable?

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Fruit.

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If you have a point to make and want it to be respected and listened to you should at least have the courtesy to click on SpellCheck and make sure you sound as intelligent as you want others to believe you are.

A mistake every now and then is acceptable (because we all do it in a hurry) but when you write a long post with a lot of errors or continually post with spelling errors and terrible grammar, people will become annoyed. It's hard to take the point of someone seriously when they can't even take the 5 seconds to click Spellcheck.

I also think it's difficult to take someone seriously when they abbreviate everything. IM lingo, if you will. I can't stand trying to read someone's post when it is filled with it. Again, abbreviating here and there is fine (we all do it!). But all over the post in every post is just annoying.

But that's just my opinion. Very Happy

What do I know?

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panzade wrote:

Back to the thread. I strive to spell correctly; perhaps because English is my second language and I tend to discount posts that are full of misspellings. But I won't point them out.

It is? Wow. I would have never known...what is your first?

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Fruit! It has seeds!

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http://www.answers.com/topic/tomato

dlowan- Harrumph.............click on the speaker.

Quote:

Let's Call the Whole Thing Off
by Ira Gershwin

You say "either" and I say "either"
You say "neither" I say "neither" "
Either" "either", "neither" "neither"
Let's call the whole thing off

You say "potato," I say "patattah"
You say "tomato", I say "creole tomata"
Oh, let's call the whole thing off
Oh, if we call the whole thing off
Then we must part and oh
If we ever part, that would break my heart

So, I say "ursta" you say "oyster"
I'm not gonna stop eatin' urstas just cause you say oyster,
Oh, let's call the whole thing off
Oh, I say "pajamas", you say "pajamas"
Sugar, what's the problem?

Oh, for we know we need each other so
We'd better call the calling off off
So let's call it off, oh let's call it off
Oh, let's call it off, baby let's call it off
Sugar why don't we call it off,
I'm talking baby why call it off
Call it off
Let's call the whole thing off

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Don't you harrumph me, you demned Murrican!!

Youse peepul carnt spell for toffee, and youse torks funny, two!

(And - eye no the song - speaking off spell chequers.)

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