buzz.yahoo.com— Happy Dictionary Day! (Yes this is a real day). Yahoo has published a list of the most commonly mispelled searches. Brittany Spears anyone?
Oct 17, 2006View in Crawl 4
Language is mostly spoken. English is written, largely, as it's spoken. People spell loser as "looser" because that's closer to how they pronounce it. Same for "rediculous" and "whinge". They misspell "to", "too", and "two" (and "they're", "there", and "their") because they're homonyms.The silver lining to this dark cloud is this: the grammarians are winning. Email has made grammar and spelling more important, and, people pay more attention to it. People who can't spell or write are on the defensive. They also have great tools like Google that will correct their spelling for them, gently nudging them toward the correct spelling.
Wild:As unfortunate as it may be, I think that you're absolutely wrong. Email and chat have become socially 'acceptable' times to misspell anything and everything, while the prevalence of automatic spell-checking and the ubiquity of abbreviations have further estranged people from their native language. Even the 'grammar Nazis' on Digg more than likely use the built-in spellcheck function to ensure perfection (I personally check words that I'm unsure of against a dictionary widget, manually; at least it keeps me on my toes). I would hardly say that the grammarians are 'winning.' Tools like Google and spellchecks correct without intervention from the user, ensuring that they'll -never- learn to spell 'decision' correctly.However, I doubt that our situation's any worse now than it's ever been. Notably, everyone (excepting those with some kind of mental or physical disorder) can -speak- in their native tongue, but few can stand up to the scrutiny of the written word. The only difference today is that the online community is exposed to more writing from more people, while the ratio of 'fluency' to 'vague familiarity' is probably the same as it's always been. If everyone was forced to scrawl their innermost thoughts and opinions on signs for the whole world to see, we'd probably notice the same trends. Ever seen a bathroom wall? Not the most heady conversation.That being said, people who are constantly being chided for their poor grammar and spelling need to 'pony up' and learn the damned language. Typos are one thing, but obvious ignorance undermines the worth of your statements and makes you 'sound' uninformed.
mecole21Oct 17, 2006
where is pron?
wildgiftOct 17, 2006
Language is mostly spoken. English is written, largely, as it's spoken. People spell loser as "looser" because that's closer to how they pronounce it. Same for "rediculous" and "whinge". They misspell "to", "too", and "two" (and "they're", "there", and "their") because they're homonyms.The silver lining to this dark cloud is this: the grammarians are winning. Email has made grammar and spelling more important, and, people pay more attention to it. People who can't spell or write are on the defensive. They also have great tools like Google that will correct their spelling for them, gently nudging them toward the correct spelling.
abdimOct 17, 2006
yeah exactly... you can spell some names a few different ways so who gives a s**twhat a crap post
drjborgOct 17, 2006
I was thinking the same thing, until I saw M.J. on the list. Has he been in the news recently?
phatt138Oct 18, 2006
Wild:As unfortunate as it may be, I think that you're absolutely wrong. Email and chat have become socially 'acceptable' times to misspell anything and everything, while the prevalence of automatic spell-checking and the ubiquity of abbreviations have further estranged people from their native language. Even the 'grammar Nazis' on Digg more than likely use the built-in spellcheck function to ensure perfection (I personally check words that I'm unsure of against a dictionary widget, manually; at least it keeps me on my toes). I would hardly say that the grammarians are 'winning.' Tools like Google and spellchecks correct without intervention from the user, ensuring that they'll -never- learn to spell 'decision' correctly.However, I doubt that our situation's any worse now than it's ever been. Notably, everyone (excepting those with some kind of mental or physical disorder) can -speak- in their native tongue, but few can stand up to the scrutiny of the written word. The only difference today is that the online community is exposed to more writing from more people, while the ratio of 'fluency' to 'vague familiarity' is probably the same as it's always been. If everyone was forced to scrawl their innermost thoughts and opinions on signs for the whole world to see, we'd probably notice the same trends. Ever seen a bathroom wall? Not the most heady conversation.That being said, people who are constantly being chided for their poor grammar and spelling need to 'pony up' and learn the damned language. Typos are one thing, but obvious ignorance undermines the worth of your statements and makes you 'sound' uninformed.
mareksOct 18, 2006
how did this crap get dugg to the front page? ...digg what is happening to you?:(
toxicredmOct 18, 2006
@FanofFilm:Sadly, I had to go back and read my comment to notice what you were referring to.
dyvbondNov 22, 2006
Yeah, and in Japan the average newspaper uses 1495 different CHARACTERS...*shudder*