Speling.
I know Im not won to talk. The blog and newsletter are wriddled with bad spelling. But tonight we're going to talk about this:
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The blog for the afternoon news and current affairs programme presented by Eddie Mair.
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Eddie, tread carefully, some us of really can't spell for toffee! I totally failed CSE English and only recently found out why.
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Eddie,
Your header is, of course, pronounced: speeling. If correct use of English is not encouraged, it just get's worse.
(get's seen in the corridor of a University hall of residence)
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Eye halve a spelling checker
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques for my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it to say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
It's rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
Eye am shore your pleased two no
It's letter perfect awl the weigh
My checker tolled me sew.
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I agree with some of the sentiment of this article, but disagree with some of the examples - particularly the use of 'their' vs 'there'. If all ocurrences were spelt 'there', it might be tricky to make sense of something such as:
" If they're over there when we're here, and we're over there when they're in their territory, does their 'there' become our 'there' if we move over to their's?"
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A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling
by Mark Twain
For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "kay" or "s," and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.
Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c," "y" and "x"--bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez--tu riplais "ch," "sh," and "th" rispektivli.
Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.
(One letter modified to avoid the profanity filter)
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We must remember that we had words before we had letters, and that the most notable "gift" of the invention of writing (by accountants) has been lawyers.
;-)
ed
;
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Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
-oOo-
Well, that internet meme is partially true - the relevant research is: Rawlinson, G. E. (1976) The significance of letter position in word recognition. Unpublished PhD Thesis, Psychology Department, University of Nottingham, Nottingham UK.
Short words are obviously no problem - very little reordering is necessary. However, with longer words, some letters ideally need to be close to their original positions for the theory to work.
Source: http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/~mattd/Cmabrigde/
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(6) & (7) - So is Cambridge plagiarising Texas or vice versa?
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It's nice to spell correctly, but not very important when writing to those with the intelligence to acquiesce, and the emotional fortitude not to have a fit.
The problem comes from those half wits who use spelling mistakes as ammunition for irrelevant objection to the written piece.
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I've always heard the Cambridge variant, although no doubt someone who heard it in the US decided to localise it.
But quite how an unpublished PhD thesis from 1976 hit the Internet is still a mystery...
However, one mystery I have managed to clear up is the mangling of characters. It might be more down to the character encoding of your browser than the blog software. My FireFox is set to display in Unicode (UTF-8) by default. The character before PM in the tagline was showing up as a square box, and none of the accents in the weblink @ 7 were showing up.
Changing the character encoding to "Western (ISO-8859-1)" fixed both.
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If I didn't correct the errors in my posts before I sent them they would be ineligible.
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Update - my Firefox is set to display in ISO-8859-1 by default, but near the top of each page on the blog is this bit of code:
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
Which tells the browser to render everything in Unicode instead - which mangles all the accents.
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DMcN (11) Would they be illegible as well?
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ed 6 and mittfh 7......spot on!
DM 11, I some times use bill gates word to spell check my post prior to posting, but only if i can be assed
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TIH 13, No, they would be deleted.
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How much did the paint-spattered broom, in Tuesday's blog, fetch at auction?
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I am quite happy to accept that the English language is a living thing, and changes as time marches on.
BUT - there is no reason why we can't teach children to spell properly. I speak as an infant teacher from Basildon. I find that if you tell children why words are spelt the way they are, they can understand a lot more than we think - and they can learn the most obscure spellings. They also learn to be interested in our language (and don't forget I'm talking about 6 year olds).
There are good reasons for all the instances offered. For example, there isn't an 'e' in argument because the 'u' makes the 'g' hard. Take the 'e' out of 'managment' and the 'g' softens.
And there/their is never ambiguous?
Try this:
There elephants are wild.
Their elephants are wild.
No difference?
Ask my 6 year old linguists about that!
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Hte truble with incorect spellling is that it distract's teh reeder from the meening of the senten's. So doe's increct punctueation.
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Sid (17)
The would be a difference depending on if they wer indian or African elephants because those African ones are very wild
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Spelling? Just admit it. It's so clearly you and your ilk that are responsible for drumming up a stamp duty scare. Your irrisponsible and arrogant attitude only serves to bring you into disripute. Hiding behind journalistic privilage is just a cheap excuse for your obvious desire to drum up another Northern Rock.
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Didn't we have a similar discussion here some time ago?
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It's day-jar voo all over again!
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Wecan certainly have a lively discussion about whether spelling rules can be relaxed, but we shouldn't loose our heads over it.
(...or they'll fall off.)
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There's no redundant 'R' in February, if pronounced properly. Your interviewee needs to learn to speak. Spelling, perhaps, can come later.
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Mittfh (10),(12),
My Firefox is also set to display in ISO-8859-1 by default, and everything still gets mangled. Does your fix still display the strapline correctly (without the query/box)?
Curiouser and curiouser
ed
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Sure, people make spelling mistakes: But to relax the rules (whatever that means) could only lead to greater variations- which would have practical effects. For example, text searches would become less reliable.
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Here we go again ... another so-called academic with a plea to lower standards. The quality of spelling and grammar is already apallingly low and this man wants to permit adjustments to spelling so long as it does not detract from the meaning of the sentence. Nonsense! His move would be just another step away from correct meanings and spellings. Just what is the problem in stating that standards have to be met? Lowering standards will encourage even further erosion of our language.
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Oh dear... What a pity your contributor used 'February' as an example. Surely, that's not a redundant 'r' - it should be sounded! A frequent spelling error I come across is 'proberly' - because that is how the children I teach have been taught to say it. When the real pronunciation is explained, things become a lot easier!
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Is ?PM a new programme, then? The one on Long Wave?
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'February' used to drive my old man mad and now it drives me mad (I intend to pass the craziness on to my children). Not only is it frequently mis-spelled, it is nearly always said wrong, as is 'Wednesday', two words which when pronounced properly sound so much nicer.
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Is this the future of English in Britain, to accepy sloppiness in spelling the Queen's English? So many things are changing for the worse in Britain today. For God's sake lets keep up the standards with the language and not allow those who are too lazy to learn how to spell properly get away with "other versions" of a vocabulary.
If this were Maths would we accept
6 x 2 = 12? Of course not!!
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What a crazy idea! If we cannot spell a word correctly just change it.
It would lead to chaos. And by the way, the first R in February is not redundant if it's said properly.
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Ed (25):
It's set to ISO-8859-1 by default, but the page tells it to display in UTF-8.
To unmangle stuff, View --> Character Encoding --> Western (ISO-8859-1).
Eddie: pass this on to your web team...
HTML Validator finds 2 errors and 16 warnings in the page. Looking at the source, there are 2 different DOCTYPE declarations. The page is encoded in UTF-8, but there's a bit of script that sets the variable bbc_charset to iso-8859-1.
So the page is written in ISO-8859-1, but forces the browser to display it in UTF-8.
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For students, why not have the following rule: If they are writing under exam conditions, then the important thing is that they can be understood; if they are submitting an essay that was written in their own time, then spelling and word choice should be correct, as it should be assumed that a speling chequer is available and that students can even pass work to a friend for reeding before it is submitted.
Simple really.
Oh, and if a student cannot learn to spell a specific word like "February" when their life depends on it, perhaps they should question what they are doing at university.
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Sid 17, well bully for you!
Although I respect your point of view, there, are some of us that strive to counter the argument that because we can't spell then we are 'thick'.
I am not 'thick', 'dimwitted' or whatever. (And, no I am not bovvered!)
But I do have a serious problem with words / letters and spellings.
It makes me wonder how on earth you would get a 6 yer old in your school to conform if they had the same problem.
Or would you choose to move them to outside of mainstream education?
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DIY (14),
If you were using Firefox, you'd have it happening automatically as you type here in the comments box, AND in British English!
Show Windows the door!
;-)
ed
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Cor (28), is that "properly" or "probably"?
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Hmmm, I use Firefox and it checks my spelling, but in US English.
Do I need to change summat somewhere?
(Good to see you around a bit more, byw, EdI)
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Am I missing something? Has "shameonyou2"'s comment got anything to do with spelling?
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What a daft idea! Even if we allowed alternative spellings to some commonly misspelled words, people would never remember which words they were allowed to misspell and the langwij wud kwikly deteriate and dizolv inter kaos!
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The case of the vanishing R.
Words are misspelled because they are wrongly pronounced.
It's a question of pacing, or as singers would say "phrasing".
It is surely no more difficult to say February than Febuary;
deteriorate than deteriate;
secretary than secketary.
In the case of Arctic, commonly mispronounced as artic, the speaker is confusing two words; the second being a commonly used abbreviation for articulated truck.
In the case of brought, commonly mispronounced as bought, the speaker is confusing two totally unrelated verbs.
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Frances
British English Dictionary
But, at the moment, it seems to still be checking in Merican! ;-(
I'll let you know when I figure THAT out!
xx
ed
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Frances,
Right-click in the comments box (or any input box with space for more than one line), and select language. If you've got the en-gb dictionary installed, it'll appear, and you can select it.
Easy, and thanks for spurring me to seek the solution.
;-)
ed
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DI_Wyman (35) - if you had been in my class, you wouldn't have had the problem. It all comes down to being taught properly, in the end. And I teach properly.
I really do believe half the problem is due to the educational establishment having taken their eye off the ball in the 60s and 70s - with the unfortunate consequence that today's teachers, who were at school then, don't know what dozy old farts like me are talking about ...
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Sid (44), I bow to your superiour knowledge.
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This goes along with 'people don't keep the law against murder so let's get rid of the law' reasoning, if carried along its logical course, doesn't it?
In the matter of one of his comments,
- Twelth as twelfth. The "f" word. How on earth did that "f" get in there? The answer is Old English again: twelf is related to the Frisian tweli, but why should we care? You would not dream of spelling the words "stealth" or "wealth" with an "f" in them (as "stealfth" and "wealfth") so why insist on putting the "f" in "twelfth"?
It has not-a-lot to do with Old English or Frisian, more to do with modern English: 'twelve' has a v in it, and it's been turned into an f because 'twelvth' would be harder to say, probably! It just follows such words as fifth and tenth, in fact. There isn't a 'v' or 'w' in the roots of the other two words. Do people really say twelth instead of twelfth, anyhow? Spelling it that way would only make any sense if it is what one says, I'd've thought.
I expect calls for 'nukilar' as a spelling, too: after all, that's what the current President of the United States says when he is talking about nuclear power, so it must be acceptable.
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D_IW 14, As I spell in both American and British ('or' not 'our', as in color, but 'ise' instead of 'ize') I only check to see if the general spelling is correct.
You said in 35, "...there are some of us that strive..." (I assume the comma after 'there' was not intended), which always sounds wrong to me. I say, ...."there are some of us who strive...."
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Hyperboloid 41, Yes, you should always hang on to your Rs.
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C_G 46, A lot of Americans say 'nukular', not just Bush. I think it must be a regional thing.
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pobdliner (31) Ar dow spake the Quane's Inglish, so whoi should oi spell it proper?
An another thing, Steveobx (30) - ow many Wensdis was there this Feboory?
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All this weird spelling is making me feel unwell.
I need an ambliance.
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stab me vitals!
now me grammer is shot to shreds
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#39 Dalesman
No, I've seen exactly the same comment on a different thread.
maybe it's a mistake?
or maybe shameonyou2 just wants to put it on all of them?
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EdI - thanks re US/British English. Will have a shot tomorrow.
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think we got it bad? Crumbs!!!
My chinese language teacher told me I had misspelled so many chinese characters, I might as well be writing in Japanese!!!
I am still none the wiser.
It looked right to me.....
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How can you misspell a character? miss-draw maybe, anyway it's all Greek to me, in-it
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What word do Californians ALWAYS spell incorrectly?
Incorrectly.
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Tbird 56, You Miss Pelled innit, innit.
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Foiled again, damn-you
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Oh and we got this email: "Discreet has a discrete spelling. Spelling discreet discrete, or discrete discreet, may be indiscreet in discrete, or even discreet, social circles. Richard Cooper, South Tyneside
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I think Mr Cooper should get out more......
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