oldjerry wrote:Dyslexia aside ,some people seem to revel in their illiteracy and it has become to be a form of inverted snobbery.
Very true OJ, but the difficulty arises trying to distinguish between those that are doing it on purpose and those that are linguistically challenged.
I have no problem with obvious spelling errors, the annoying ones that get to me are those that you have to stop and spend time trying to work out what on earth the word is. Those ones disrupt the flow of your reading, sometimes to the extent that I just give up and go to the next message.
Which is exactly why it IS important. Emphasis on IS.
Mike
The secret of life is to aim below the head (With thanks to MMM)
Could of, would of, should of ... really gets my goat.
Oh Noooo! I'm new here and now not sure if i should get my coat....
I say could 've, would 've, should 've (I guess having a somerset accent is bad english.) and type it as 'could of' etc. I'm not sure that people can tell the difference between laziness, illiteracy and genuine difficulty with grammar, punctuation and spelling. I wouldn't want to make people feel unconfortable or lazy for things they struggle with, and the struggle isn't always apparent.; its not like anyone can see how many times I've had to re-read this and edit it. I'm still not sure it's ok!
I think people who can't spell, can't talk properly, or just don't care are all right in my book; it doesn't stop them being lovely or great at anything else :-)
Personally. I couldn’t give a monkies elbow. Some people on this forum are clearly ‘inverted snobs’ ‘Dyslexic’ can’t spell, or like me, usually posting after a hard day and two glasses of wine. So long as it’s not mean or rude what do we care? Having said that, I do find myself jumping from sentence to sentence when reading messages from my daughter.
flower_hercules wrote:
I say could 've, would 've, should 've (I guess having a somerset accent is bad english.) and type it as 'could of' etc.
But why do you say it right and then change it when you write it so it is wrong? (I know right and wrong are loaded terms! I'm not being bitchy, I'm just interested). Do you not like the look of the abbreviation?
It is an interesting point Susie. An example would be Bulgarian, it is Cyrillic, not unlike Russian, in the same way as French is written in Latin text, like English.
In Bulgarian ( I can’t speak for Russian), you will read or write a word as it sounds.
From an English point of view it all seems a bit childish at first. If you come here, you may have occasion to see a Notary, or someone official. They will take your passport and translate your name into Cyrillic. They will sound it out to you, like you would an infant, but that is the way it is. Dead easy to spell.
Then you will try to learn the language, they have masculine feminine and neuter. So where a car would be feminine, a stool would be masculine, the neuter is a little harder to explain.
Names are the same, For example, If I were to see Doctor Markov, I would know without any prefix that it was a man. If however, it was his wife, I would be seeing Dr Markova.
So what I am trying to get to is that English, whilst a lot of people can’t be bothered to learn spell, is so much easier to learn than other languages.
This is why people from other countries appear to learn English so much quicker.
To ‘get by’ in normal day to day situations, they simply need to learn words. It is a generalisation, however, English is easier to speak because the speaker can get along by putting one word after another, not so with other languages.
There seems to be this idea perpetuated by English people that foreigners are ‘so much better at learning languages’. I don’t agree. After living abroad, I know very well that a lack of effort by one party, does not make the other party any more, or less intelligent.
English is not my first language (French is) and whether I'm writing in French or English, I've always been told that if you're not sure of the spelling, you check! It's not difficult: I always have a google page open - other sites available :) . When I'm not sure of a word, I type it as I think and the correct spelling comes up. To me, it's basic correction/manners to make an effort (wait, just checking if it's maners or manners...), for the people who are going to read it.
Obviously, people suffering from dyslexia and such are going to struggle but to be honest, the most annoying posts for me are from people who express themselves in a very pedantic/patronising way and can't spell, have bad grammar etc. I'd like to go through the post with red pen and say "you can get down from your high horse now..."
Anyway, I'll carry on doing my best, even if I know some people doesn't minde if I mak mestaks. I'll do it for myself and the people who actually appreciate the effort.
I wud like to aply for the job as a filing clark. Ive got eksperiens in this feeld as Ive wurrked for Tescos as a shelf staker wear you hav to be able to reed the labels proper. Im avalabul for intervyew at any time at yor conveniens.
Do I get the job? Like Hell I do!!!!! This has nothing whatsoever to do with dyslexia or Engish as a foreign language. It's called being bothered. It's called standard of education. It's called using tools properly - try holding a hammer by its head to knock in a nail then stand back listening to the laughter. Not being bothered about the language you use every day is symptomatic of the dumbing down which has plagued our society for years.
Why on earth anyone should see a reluctance to accept poor language skills as inverted snobbery (and why would that be inverted?) is totally beyond me. Communication, in one form or another, is a skill finely honed over thousands of years by people wanting to convey precise meanings to other people. Until now, of course, when the products of those thousands of years are written off and belittled as unimportant.
Defence of a means of communication is far from pedantry.
And I found (easily) a number of Bulgarian dictionaries - plus a history of the Bulgarian language - on the net. Of course, I had to put in the correct search terms because "tel me abowt sum eastern talk" wouldn't have worked.
Mike
EDIT @Julie ... Your English is indistinguishable from that of any native English speaker.
EDIT @ anyone else ... and Julie's French!!!!!
The secret of life is to aim below the head (With thanks to MMM)
A letter to ask for a Job - Yes of cource your spelling and grammar should be 100%.
A post on a forum to learn how you grow carrots, not so.
You should try and communicate effectively, but also try and cut some slack for people who are dyslexic. I am not, but have seen the terrible effort involved in the simplest of writing, and if you can forego the spelling you will find often intelligent and extremely resourcefull and practical people, by the very definition of their problem making them so.
I liked your insight into Bulgarian Merlin, in England we tell the sex of our doctors normally by looking for the tell tale signs of facial hair and boobies!
Millymollymandy wrote:Bloody smilies, always being used. I hate them and they should be banned.
No I won't use a smiley because I've decided to turn into Boboff, as he's turned all nice all of a sudden. Grumble grumble.
boboff wrote:A letter to ask for a Job - Yes of cource your spelling and grammar should be 100%.
A post on a forum to learn how you grow carrots, not so.
You see, this is what I completely fail to understand, boboff. Why the double standard? In fact, if someone CAN use good English, why do they sometimes NOT use good English? Practice makes perfect, after all.
Maybe it's my age. But I hope not.
Mike
The secret of life is to aim below the head (With thanks to MMM)
Mike, I know where you are coming from, and I am in no way condoning laziness.
BUT, as I say if it takes someone 20 minutes to write a semi literate post, but the content is ok, then I think that is fine. The fact with dyslexia is that they Can't use decent English without a MASSIVE effort, and as I say I don't see why they should have to on a forum, but must do in a job application.
Thats all........
It is not your age either, you do have a right to expect decent English spelling and grammar on a forum, in an email, in a letter, but given the more informal nature of a forum, those who have, in effect, a disabililty should be given SOME leeway. It is no doubt a double standard, but hopefully one most people can accept.
Millymollymandy wrote:Bloody smilies, always being used. I hate them and they should be banned.
No I won't use a smiley because I've decided to turn into Boboff, as he's turned all nice all of a sudden. Grumble grumble.
I'm perfectly prepared to cut people a lot of slack on this matter, but it still makes me wince... It's like watching somebody using a perfectly good chisel as a screwdriver, or seeing a toddler reaching for a sharp knife - it sets off a huge screaming klaxon in my brain. I can no more chose not to care about spelling and grammar than a dyslexic can choose to be able to spell. It's so deeply ingrained in my brain that I just can't turn it off. You have no idea how much effort I have to make to stop myself from correcting people.
I agree with everything you've said about dyslexia, boboff - if you look a little further back, you'll see that I stated that I understand the problems of that particular disability. No - I was talking about people who have no such disadvantage. I also said that I could understand spelling difficulties, given that English has a pretty illogical spelling system. I don't like to see them (I'm with Dunc on that one), but spelling errors coupled with correct grammatical construction do not, except in rare cases, destroy meaning. Spelling errors coupled with bad (dare I say lazy?) grammatical construction can not only destroy meaning but can also create new, unintended meaning. Language is about communication. If human beings cannot communicate effectively, we're in trouble.
Mike
The secret of life is to aim below the head (With thanks to MMM)
