Forgive me.

A couple of recent posts have highlighted the fact that people don't know how to spell infinity or raspberries.

If we're going to have a spelling lesson, my vote goes for people learning to spell the word DEFINITE correctly as I cringe whenever I see it with an 'a' (can't help it, it's the way I am)...

Which word gets your vote?

Ridiculous, not rediculous.

[/pedant]

Very laudable benj, but you arbitrarily mix the word "and" and the ampersand "&" symbol in your signature. That, I find offensive.....

I ran out of fingers.

Anyway, most of the great writers do it...

Someone spelt 'disintegrated' wrong recently, as 'dissintergrated'.

Car Expert

I pick all of these words

Too many mis-spelt words to mention.........

I could start a whole new thread about grammatical errors that get up my nasal passages. I have a friend who writes 'presense', of course meaning 'presence', and absense, meaning...

I do like to share my linguistic observations!

I hope that was deliberate

where I work thre is a notice about specific places but the person has spelt it "persific"

it would be nice if it was, wouldn't it?!

occurred, spelt occured; pronounced 'oc-cured' perhaps?

Generally, I'm more bothered by grammar though.

saxOphone not saxAphone!

Being a mathematician, I find the spelling 'intergrate' something which is annoying to put up with. And the numerous ways people misspell 'differentiation' is something I don't want to go into. Grammatical errors in sentences also bug me, and are something people should look at. And on an aside, my deep loathing of the exclamation mark is something I could go on and on about.

And to annoy grammar pedants: yes, every sentence in that previous paragraph ends with a preposition.

I never actually learnt the different types of word at school, like preposition, etc. I've picked most of it up, and learning from others, but we just weren't taught that sort of stuff at school...

I don't mind the poor spelling, but could everybody please stop the text talk because I can't understand it !
That goes for abbreviations and acronyms too !
I wouldn't expect that everyone would know the acronyms I use at work and I don't know anybody elses either.


(Got to go and do an NMR IPC on the reaction I'm performing PRD on. If the result is OOS or above the LOD then I'll have to continue for a longer time. If it passes I'll have to get the KF into range too, not to mention solvent content within ICH guidelines. See ? I bet no-one understood that !)

thats cuz u wer !(paying_attention)

I confess it does bug me when people confuse 'lose' and 'loose'.

I found out the other day that I've been spelling quite a common word incorrectly for my whole life
Only now I've forgotten what the word was, so I'll carry on doing it

Yes, that one comes up loads and loads of times......

To be honest, on a forum like this, it's easy to misspell words when you're typing quickly, and the odd misspelling doesn't bother me.

Something at which people should look???

What do you want to end a sentence on a preposition for

I agree with all of these. I was looking forward to adding SAXOPHONE but someone got there before me!

Argh, don't go there!


Have an '

OK then, let's not. How about: What do you want to end a sentence on a preposition for, idiot?

Can I add a vote for PRACTICE and PRACTISE?

And can I request that anyone who realises that they've made a speeling misteak uses the wonderful edit facility to correct their post?

My spelling is pretty dreadful, although most of my errors on here are typos. When typing documents at home, I usually use a spell-checker and a dictionary.

Knowing ones faults is a good way of correcting them. However when I am typing at speed, I'm more likely to make mistakes than when I'm using pen and ink. Pity that doesn't work over the net.

Mind you my excuse is that I'm mildly dyslexic, a fact I neglected to tell my college tutors until after I passed my degree with a 2 i. I wanted a level playing field not special consideration.

Some of my typos in my undergraduate dissertation are a hoot!

It does me...I usually go back and edit if I notice mine.

I post to another board where the spelling is "atroshuss". I think it definitely reflects on the individuals posting (ie I now have an opinion that the people on the "atroshuss board" are of poorer intelligence and therefore why should I have any regard for what they post?...I know that's not exactly rational )

I am all for upholding high standards of grammar and spelling.

However, I know there are a lot of people who post here for whom English is a second language, I am in total awe...their English is for the most part excellent.

Jane I'm perfectly intelligent. I just find spelling difficult, and don't always get the dictionary out when I am posting here. I do try to edit, but even then it's not always perfect. Sometimes my fingers and brain just don't communicate properly.

Oooh yes, I will vote for that too!


Very true: I think some of the non-native speakers put some of the natives to shame!

To be honest, on a forum like this, it's easy to misspell words when you're typing quickly, and the odd misspelling doesn't bother me.


It does me...I usually go back and edit if I notice mine.

Oh you too, Jane?

When I was in my last-but-one teaching post, we had a teacher who always spelled Australia as "Austrailia". It used to bug me, and there it was sitting on the wall in one room for a whole term.

It's no wonder children grow up with misspellings ingrained in their memory!

Which is why I know its totally irrational to think this...but your spelling is nothing like those on the "atroshuss board", believe me.

In any case my judgement of intelligence is not based solely on spelling and grammar...it also has something to do with the content

Have an apostrophe! <runs away>


Absolutely! I'll allow anyone to make a spelling mistake or grammatical error (in the hope that they'll excuse any of mine), and, like Jane, I'll look at the content as well as spelling and grammar. Great content is fine even if the spelling's up the creek, but if the content AND the spelling are rubbish, the poster has an uphill struggle.

Thanks. I must have dropped it in my rush. Careless!!

Does that forgive the typos then? Just because I can string a sentence together with the use of decent grammar, the appropriate use of an appostrophe, and a varied vocabulary (even if I cannot spell all of it perfectly). (Sorry long sentence)

Ahh, this is the thread I was wondering about just the other day .

Are we now allowed to have that thread renamed to 'Category 3: Thread From Which We Learnt The Most' ?

Mmm... I suppose...

Car Expert

If you think it will be useful to

Lets have a Pedants club!

I bet there already is one...

Yes there is bobifier

Oh well...

Just a thought

If you download and install the Google toolbar, amongst other things you get a spell-checker you can use to check messages like this before you post them.

http://toolbar.google.com/index_xp.html

Best wishes

barry

(Sorry if this spoils the fun for the pedants.)

No it won't spoil the fun Barry. It won't do a context check on practise and practice, and complementary and complimentary etc

Are you getting it confused with the Pedants' Club by any chance?

Sorry, my typing goes completely off sometimes. For instance, I just put and h in 'sometimes', and I got the n and s in 'instance' mixed up...

And I say I can touchtype...

Oops, I think I've set a proverbial cat amongst proverbial pigeons!

Deborah's hit the nail on the head here I think. It is easy to hit a wrong key when typing quickly, but if the meaning is there, then really it doesn't bother me. If I spot a mistake in my own posts, I will go back and correct it.

There are a few grammatical errors that could be avoided though, and one that bothers me (though it tends to be spoken rather than written usually) is when someone says something like 'We're going to the park innit'.

Funnily enough, what can really annoy me is people's misuse of swear words. I think, if they insist upon swearing, they could at least be a tad grammatically correct when they do it.

Good job they're only proverbial!

What really gets me is the incorrect use of apostrophes. The English teacher I had last year drilled this rule in to me and it really annoyes me the number of times it is misused, even on shop signs and in official publications.
The use of text talk also annoyes me - it's fine when texting and I sometimes use it when emailing my friends because I know they can understand it easily and it doesn't bother them.
And at school, the number of people who don't proof read essays at all... AARGH!!

And misprononciations... (which, by the way, I feel I have misspelled, but I am too tired to work out how...)

I recall a music teacher for whom "specific" was "pacific" (intelligent woman, too...) and a maths teacher who constantly said "anythink", "nothink", "somethink". It drove me up the wall....





There already is a club, but you're only allowed to join if you can place the two missing apostrophes correctly in that phrase...


A snack shop in town advertises "pitta's, baguette's, meal deal's..." you get the picture.

Random mean trick: if you want to drive YAP to drink, send him PMs entitled "Panini's"

Annoys, perchance?


It's mispronunciations. You drop the 'o' for no good reason.

Ta treebs, I knew is wasn't mispronounciations, but could not for the life of me work out what it SHOULD be

You know, what really does annoy me about people adding millions of unneccessary apostrophes to their spelling is when they don't even follow their own incorrect logic. For example, down the road from us is a shop which advertises:

CDs, DVDs, Video's.

Argh! If you're going to get it wrong, at least get it wrong consistently, that's what I say.


My favourite ever misspelling is a used car place near us which announces:

'All major credit/debit cards excepted'

Heh - I agree about the apostrophes, and love the credit card sign