Spelling/ Grammar

BMCCbry

Incidentally the word 'with' in the context used is not a preposition.

What makes you say that?

Brains

"Ok sorry about this but i've got a problem on sataday, i've got GCSE mok's and everything this week and the next and i have to go into school for music GCSE, so i can't come on christmas camp. is it at all possibale to get the money back as my mum will get searusly anonnyed at me for spending £30 for nothing.

Form XXXX"

An E-mail sent to me on Friday, by a 15 year old. Count the errors, I make it 14 in a 5 line message, and this one, is one of many I could produce. Could I have done better at that age ? yes, I only have to read my diaries written at the time (in Cyrillic script, so my younger brother could not read it)

skinny man0903

First may I say that I agree with what is being said about spelling and grammar is important and I do try to be careful when writing posts and also replying to posts.
I will make mistakes and sometimes what I type won’t make sense , but I am dyslexic, which I am not proud of but also I am not ashamed. of it.

At the end of the day this is a forum about cycling and we are not here to criticize other people's abilities of the written word.
If you want to ignore peoples posts because of the their spelling or grammar, then I am sorry but you are ignorant !
Let’s do what this forum is about and talk about cycling

The Mechanic

ireallydontnowotallthefussisaboutcosucanalusunderstanwotevery1isgassingaboutthougimustadmitthatihaveagoodlaughatsomeofthedocwotlandonmydesk

dislexia rools ko

Graham Webb

Anyone that stumbles over the spelling mistakes of forum members are 'nit pickers' and should spend their time more costructively by posting interesting threads instead of waiting for a slip up. Then this thread wouldn't be necessary.

spen666

Graham Webb wrote:

Anyone that stumbles over the spelling mistakes of forum members are 'nit pickers' and should spend their time more costructively by posting interesting threads instead of waiting for a slip up. Then this thread wouldn't be necessary.

If people are stumbling to read posts and understand them because of errors, then that is an issue


if I type
asdfgkohl;jkbn; bcvnkl'sdnko[sdgno[erio[o[sdguono[sdfwevtanhio[wda

and then say it is just a spelling/ grammatical mistake- are you expected to realise what it meant. Some posts are virtually impossible to read/understand because of mistakes.

Anonymous

spen666 wrote:

Graham Webb wrote:

Anyone that stumbles over the spelling mistakes of forum members are 'nit pickers' and should spend their time more costructively by posting interesting threads instead of waiting for a slip up. Then this thread wouldn't be necessary.

If people are stumbling to read posts and understand them because of errors, then that is an issue


if I type
asdfgkohl;jkbn; bcvnkl'sdnko[sdgno[erio[o[sdguono[sdfwevtanhio[wda

and then say it is just a spelling/ grammatical mistake- are you expected to realise what it meant. Some posts are virtually impossible to read/understand because of mistakes.

Makes a lot more sense than your usual drivel.

tatanab

"spen666 wrote:

If people are stumbling to read posts and understand them because of errors, then that is an issue

I agree. Here is an example of a simply tying error or spelling mistake (unlikely) causing a problem.

A few weeks a go somebody posted on this forume looking for a pair of forks for a old scholl bike. Somebody replied asking for details such as steerer length and what is a scholl bike? That responder got an electronic earful of vitriol. I doubt the advertiser ever got forks. I too wondered what an old scholl bike may be. Did Scholl ever put their brand name on bikes. It was not until the vitriol popped up that I realise there was a typo and the advertiser meant "old school" bike. So this advertiser made two errors. Firstly a typo, which he could easily have explained; and secondly using a term that has no meanng. Just what is an "old school bike"?

I make typing errors - I made and corrected several in this post. I can accept typos to some extent; I can accept spelling errors, but I have trouble with posts that use completely the wrong words possibly because they sound the same. The one currently find frustrating is the use of "of" instead of "have" -- should of instead of should've.

Cajun

One of my favorite peeves:
You're is a contraction of YOU ARE (you are going, you are nuts, you are gorgeous)
Your is a possesive pronoun (your car, your beer, your bike)
The misuse of these is unbelievable in the Business world, even television advertising....makes one wonder if their University degrees are forgeries :oops:

Handy tips:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/ ... lhomo.html
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/index2.html

Graham Webb

I'm on loads of forums and some of the spelling would make you weep (like mine) but I would never insult those people as many of them have an interesting story to tell, unlike those that go on & on about the spelling and have nothing better to do than frighten otherwise good contributors away.

spen666

Graham Webb wrote:

I'm on loads of forums and some of the spelling would make you weep (like mine) but I would never insult those people as many of them have an interesting story to tell, unlike those that go on & on about the spelling and have nothing better to do than frighten otherwise good contributors away.

Graham, there is a world of difference between someone making the odd typo or spelling mistake and the posts that are almost unintelligible as the spelling or grammar is so bad ( like mine :oops: )

mr_hippo

Graham Webb wrote:

Anyone that stumbles over the spelling mistakes of forum members are 'nit pickers' and should spend their time more costructively by posting interesting threads instead of waiting for a slip up. Then this thread wouldn't be necessary.

spen666 wrote:

Graham Webb wrote:

I'm on loads of forums and some of the spelling would make you weep (like mine) but I would never insult those people as many of them have an interesting story to tell, unlike those that go on & on about the spelling and have nothing better to do than frighten otherwise good contributors away.

Graham, there is a world of difference between someone making the odd typo or spelling mistake and the posts that are almost unintelligible as the spelling or grammar is so bad ( like mine :oops: )

As Spen says, the odd typo/spelling error will slip through but we are not complaining about those. I used to teach English here in Bangkok and have taught all levels from primary to university and some of the 8 year old Thai kids can write better English than some of the posters that have English as their native language.

Anonymous

mr_hippo wrote:

Graham Webb wrote:

Anyone that stumbles over the spelling mistakes of forum members are 'nit pickers' and should spend their time more costructively by posting interesting threads instead of waiting for a slip up. Then this thread wouldn't be necessary.

spen666 wrote:

Graham Webb wrote:

I'm on loads of forums and some of the spelling would make you weep (like mine) but I would never insult those people as many of them have an interesting story to tell, unlike those that go on & on about the spelling and have nothing better to do than frighten otherwise good contributors away.

Graham, there is a world of difference between someone making the odd typo or spelling mistake and the posts that are almost unintelligible as the spelling or grammar is so bad ( like mine :oops: )

As Spen says, the odd typo/spelling error will slip through but we are not complaining about those. I used to teach English here in Bangkok and have taught all levels from primary to university and some of the 8 year old Thai kids can write better English than some of the posters that have English as their native language.

mmmm

Graham Webb

In the 50's I attended, in Birmingham, what must have been the worst school in Britain. I failed my 11+ because of my (bad) English. This wasn't my fault, but the fault of that school; they never gave us any lessons in spelling or grammar. I was treated like a dunce yet I'm far from that, I can now speak read and write in several languages, thanks to good teachers. I don't think that the teachers at that Brum school had a clue themselves how to teach, I guess all the good ones died in the war.

As I've said I'm on many forums, one of them is form Brum and many of my old school mates are on this forum, most of them still can't spell! But we have great fun and no one ever insults anyone about their spelling, after all it’s not their fault. So don't knock anyone, they might not have had the good luck of good schooling. Think before you criticize and be more tolerant.

spen666

Graham Webb wrote:

.... But we have great fun and no one ever insults anyone about their spelling, after all it’s not their fault. So don't knock anyone, they might not have had the good luck of good schooling. Think before you criticize and be more tolerant.

So no body is to blame for anything?


Graham, I and others will criticise when people do not take the time to make things they post intelligible.

You seem to be deliberately trying to spin what is being said. Nobody is complaining about spelling or grammar mistakes per se- they are however complaining when the mistakes are such as to make the post barely legible.

The solution to bad spelling or grammar is surely to learn. People may have difficulties in writing/ speaking English, but it is a cop out to say its not their fault

lunaeventer

Hi,

I was sent this a while ago & thought it might lighten up the mood - at least for the folk able to decipher it!!

"Try to read this....very interesting.

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too
Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55% of plepoe can.

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was
rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a
rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr
the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the
frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a
taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is
bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but
the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot
slpeling was ipmorantt!"

richardjallen

For a gvien clelctooin of ltertes terhe cna olny be a fwe wdros. Teh fsirt and lsat lerttes gvie you a cule and it msut be psioslbe to wroekd out the rset by cxotent. If a leettr wree msised out in the mldde taht mhigt torhw the radeer.

skinny man0903

I hope people can understand my posts, I do try to be as careful as I can, so that my post can be understood, but occasionally I do rush to write a post and I don’t read it though enough before I post, because in my head it makes sense. So I now re read what I have written.
I am not going to say it’s not my fault, because it is sometimes.
I am not trying to cope out.
Some people like myself who are dyslexic, go to adult learning classes at the local collage so they can improve their grammar and spelling and also maths.
I do agree though that some posts are very hard to understand, so we all need to care in writing

Iain

spen666

skinny man0903 wrote:

I hope people can understand my posts, I do try to be as careful as I can, so that my post can be understood, but occasionally I do rush to write a post and I don’t read it though enough before I post, because in my head it makes sense. So I now re read what I have written.
I am not going to say it’s not my fault, because it is sometimes.
I am not trying to cope out.
Some people like myself who are dyslexic, go to adult learning classes at the local collage so they can improve their grammar and spelling and also maths.
I do agree though that some posts are very hard to understand, so we all need to care in writing

Iain

Iain,

A very brave and honest post

You are doing what you can to learn and you check what you write- no faair minded person can ask you for more

windyphil

my friend is a dyslexic and was given a PC to do his university work. Unfortunately when presented with a list of words from spellchecker he still couldn't decide what word to pick.

Tourist Tony

I thinj there is a clear distinction to be made between typos (such as the one deliberately left in here) and illiteracy. There are people who, no matter how many times they are told, still cannot or will not understand the differences between its/it's, who's/whose, your/you're, there/they're/their, and many others. That isn't more than a niggle here, but when you see signs like "Welcome to Gatwick and it's new facilities", or find similar errors on the application form for a UK Passport, then it is different.

TomF

It's interesting that there is a concern that, by discriminating against those who demonstrate prima facie that they do not have a strong grasp of spelling, punctuation or grammar, elitism is at play.

I try hard to communicate clearly. However, the "it's only a forum" argument seems, to me, to stem from the democratisation of the written word as propogated through the growth of the internet. More people post in forums (or "fora", if you will) than sought (or had the opportunity) to write down any thoughts even 15 years ago, and so with it bring their own approaches to communicaiton.

It is important that some do complain about, and strive to maintain and uphold, standards in written (and spoken) communicaiton. However, it also seems fair to permit a written voice to those who have thoughts they wish to express, even if they do not possess all of the skills which are the subject of this thread.

Besides, unlike, for example, France, the English language does not have a formal guardian. It is, in my view, one of the reasons why the language has remained so flexible, and with it so succesful a means of communicaiton (imperial history notwithstanding, but France has had that too). (An example I always enjoy about the Academie is their refusal to sanc tion the word "computer" into the language (preferring, instead, "ordinateur") because computer is American. "Computer" is the more accurate word, deriving directly from the Latin.)

It comes down to how (and how much) we value communication of ideas, or the means by which they are communicated. I'll always seek to write with as much accuracy as possible, but will that make it more interesting or valuable? I am not so sure....

Tom

Anonymous

An inordinate use of parenthesis commas and brackets in your post Tom; Don't you think?
Just being picky because....well I'm sure you get my gist.
:roll:

Mettan

Regards grammar, I tend to keep it short and slightly "choppy" on the forum - seems to be sufficiently effective in conveying the intended meaning.

The Mechanic

Dyslexia rules KO