SPELLING!!

[Anonymous]

I am not a teacher! I was a horrible speller before I started writing documents for a living, back when you knew something was miss-spelled, but were too lazy to look it up in your Funk & Wagnals! Now, with the internet, it's so easy to make sure things are spelled correctly, there really is no excuse. I know this has been mentioned many, many times before. I think with most of you, if you would just read back to yourself what you have written, you would catch most of the miss-spellings. Also, for free, you can down-load ieSpell and have a spell checker for your browser, why wouldn't anyone do this?!?

What you are writing here is literally going out to the world for the world to see! Isn't it important for the world to see your best spelling and try to do the best with your grammar?

You people whom American English is not your primary language have an excuse and are exempt.

If I'm stepping on toes, so be it, but I think we need to do better!

[Anonymous]

Mark
Please take a deep breath and relax! You said it yourself, this is the internet. Its not like it's a national publication. We're all friends here, and life is toooooo short to be worried about it here.[:D]
The national magazines make spelling and grammatical mistakes and for the most part, nobody notices it. Nobody except for maybe the people who are very close to the subject material. [:0]

Huked on foniks werked fur me![(-D]

[railman]

this is the internet...but yeah, just reading the post before hitting "submit reply" should catch most of the grammar mistakes. Like writing sentences that look similar to this.

[rexhea]

Edit: I decided to change my smart mouth response to say that it is a common and an accepted practice to abbreviate, hyphenate, use acronyms, SMILLIES, or whatever to communicate a feeling of 1on1in forums, emails, chat rooms, or whatever on the internet. Your right, I didn't include spelling and grammar, but when the response is usually hurried and to the point, people are simply conveying their thoughts in writing, who cares. I have yet to see a post I couldn't read. Save the grammar and spelling for the class room or work.

Let's relax here! Close enough is acceptable.

[Anonymous]

I kind of agree with both Mark and Karl to some degree. I hate to be critical of other posters' spelling and grammar, though sometimes the amount and variety of mistakes are just too painful to read. I do tend to skip over the posts that simply ignore capitaliization and basic punctuation and uses cutsy spelling like "ur" for "your," all of which limits my interest in hearing what they have to say. Just my preference, but there is a reason why basic English conventions have survived all these years..

On the other hand, I'm glad people are posting here and through writing, will improve their skills.

Wayne

By the way, I think "miss-spellings" was misspelled. :)

[Paul W. Beverung]

Bergi; Give us spell check , PLEASE.

Paul

[Anonymous]

Karl, I'm breathing fine! This is the internet! It is internationally published!

It must be because life is too short, nobody takes the time to do simple things anymore!

[Anonymous]

I agree. There are a lot of spelling mistakes. I also really don't see why some people TYPE ALL CAPITALS. It kind of bothers me.

[willy6]

the people on this forum that look for spelling mistakes are "rivet counters'

[Anonymous]

Hello Mark,

I believe there was another Mark that said he didn't care much for those people that lacked the creativity to spell a word more than just the one way.

[dave9999]

Hey Mark,
It's Funk and Wagnalls..... Dave

[twhite]

It's spelled grammAr. A, not E.

[Anonymous]

i CANET SPEEL AND i REELY DONT CARE

[tatans]

I tried to read one letter about a month ago and could not understand three of the words in the note, I actually thought it was a joke, until they replied to the original question, I only wish I would have saved it. Remember, 80 % of spelling is learned before grade six.

[n2mopac]

Well, I think the continual reappearance of this subject is rediculous. The fact is these forums are more like conversation than formal writing. I myself hold a master's degree and do much formal writing for a living, but in an informal setting such as this I certainly hit some wrong keys and make mistakes. I do not have all day to spend on this forum, thus I do not closely proof read everything I write. If you do not have anything better to do than to critique spelling on an informal model railroading forum you should really think about subscribing to a forum for English majors instead.
Ron

[ben10ben]

"life is toooooo short to be worried about it here."

Life is too short to spend it trying to read through a post that's poorly spelled, with poor grammar, and other problems.

Spelling errors don't bother me so much(although I'll admit that I do notice them, as well as making them myself) as word spellings that are totally off(i.e. "prolly" rather than "probably", or other such errors), or grammar that is horrible. I also think that short hand abbreviations, like "ur" rather than "you are" make something extremely difficult to read. All caps, although they do bother me, aren't nearly as bad as using all lower case letters.

The worst error, though, in my opinion, is seeing a solid block of text. If I see a post that goes on and on and on and on without having any line breaks or any such thing causes my eyes to glaze over, and I will likely skip the post regardless of how good the content is. As I said earlier, I have more important things to do in life than try and decipher a difficult to read post.

[tstage]

Sorry, guys. I'm going to have to side with Mark and Wayne on this.

I'm not a 'rivet counter'. Nor am I going to sit around and count every misspelled word so I can send a note home to your parents. I struggle with even conveying my own thoughts down on paper to stoop to that. I do take the extra time to proofread what I have written before I send a reply or post out. Even then, one or two things may still fall through the cracks.

I can overlook a misspelled word. It's the lack of punctuation and proper capitalization that makes a few posts VERY (capitalized for emphasis) difficult to read.

Remember the adage:

"Only the mediocre are always at their best."

C'mon, guys! We put so much time and effort into our layouts. Can't we just put a little more effort into making our posts more legible to one another?

Tom

[CP5415]

This has been brought up before!
Don't we have anything better to worry about?

Gordon

[rexhea]

QUOTE: Originally posted by twhite

It's spelled grammAr. A, not E.

Good catch twhite. It has been corrected. Good example of fingers working without being in sync with the brain.[ :D]

I have to wonder how many feelings have been hurt by this post. Not everyone on this forum has a higher education if that has anything to do with it. I will admit that I make careless spelling and grammatical errors, but I'm not perfect or pompous enough to think that I am. However, it is nice to know that I have been internationally published.

Bergi, where's that danged "Spell Checker"

CULater

[NZRMac]

Good on ya Rex

Ken.

[twhite]

Rex--there's an interesting piece that came out about a year ago from a Princeton study, we had it at our High School. Every word in the statement was mis-spelled, but every word began and ended with the proper letter. Oddly enough, when I gave it to my students to read, they all understood it. The point was, that we don't read every letter in every word, we scan and our brain seems to be able to unscramble it anyway. And since most of us on the web are writing 'off the top of our heads' so to speak, I don't let grammatical errors bother me. I'm more interested in the content of what someone has to say.
Oh, and by the way, Oklahoma Train Nut--we KNOW you can't spell! And it doesn't take away one iota from the pleasure I get out of reading your posts.
Tom

[jimrice4449]

The quality of a thought is generally reflected in the quality of its expression.
Am I the only one who has noticed that posts from Australia and the UK are generally noticeably better written than those from the USA? Could this be a reflection on the quality of our schools?

[railman]

QUOTE: Originally posted by willy6

the people on this forum that look for spelling mistakes are "rivet counters'

hey, easy now. Just because I believe in well executed grammar doesn't make me a rivet counter! I'm a blue box modeler! Don't associate wordy railroaders with the real rivet counters! They are different!

I'm not a 'grammar-doer!"

[Bikerdad]

QUOTE: Originally posted by willy6

the people on this forum that look for spelling mistakes are "rivet counters'

Posters who out of laziness disregard the conventions of spelling and grammar are Tycos. Low quality stock that runs for a few hours before failure results in consignment to the trashheap of history.

Mistakes in spelling and grammar are not searched out, they are simply noticed. Wilfully failing to take the time to communicate clearly shows a disrespect for others. If you doubt me, consider how you would react to somebody who always keeps their hand in front of their mouth when talking, effectively muffling what they say. When asked to move their hand so you can hear them, they come back with a muffled "tough, if you don't like it, listen harder." That's respect, ain't it?

The occasional typo or mispelled word passes without notice, but as already noted, gross grammatical and spelling errors are painful to read. I'm not talking about deliberately taking a "conversational" style, something that I do frequently. no, I tawkin abowt peeple who dont spel wirth a hoot and nevr use capitool letrs and ...
...
take the attitude inherent in the answer to this question:

"What's the difference between ignorance and apathy?"

If you want your readers to respect what you have to say, then respect them.

[Anonymous]

One problem with spelling errors, especially in the Subject, is that if one tries to do a search of messages the improperly spelled word will not show up. Some subjects have many spelling errors.

There should be a "Gauge Award" to present to those who spell spell the word "guage"! "Guage" is "goo-age", while "Gauge" is "Gage".

Bob Boudreau

[Anonymous]

Jeez, all I said was to read over what you've written and you would likely catch the misspelled words! My intentions were not to show my superior intellect, hurt anyones feelings, or quash what's said here! Oh, by the way, I barely graduated from high school! Not because I was stupid, but because school just didn't work for me!

[lupo]

on some occasions I use an online dictionary: http://www.m-w.com/
not on every word all the time, but I try , and hey:

QUOTE: You people whom American English is not your primary language ( that's me )have an excuse and are exempt.

and if you wanna laugh I try to translate with http://www.babelfish.altavista.com/
you can even try this at home [8D]
translate you text into any language and then back into english . . you will be surprised
[8D]

[Big_Boy_4005]

QUOTE: Originally posted by FundyNorthern

One problem with spelling errors, especially in the Subject, is that if one tries to do a search of messages the improperly spelled word will not show up. Some subjects have many spelling errors.

There should be a "Gauge Award" to present to those who spell spell the word "guage"! "Guage" is "goo-age", while "Gauge" is "Gage".

Bob Boudreau

You talkin to me Bob? I resemble that remark.[B)][:0][;)][(-D][(-D][(-D]

I remember that topic well, and have learned my lesson. Now I laugh when I see others do it.[:D]

Hey guys, we better watch out. This topic has nothing to do with trains, and is subject to deletion under the Brunton rule.[:0]

[Anonymous]

I learned my lesson about complaining about other people's spelling and punctuation. I posted on a Ford truck site regularly. Some kid was complaining about not being able to find a job. His posts had terrible spelling, terrible grammar, and no punctuation. I explained that, as a businessowner, if someone wrote to me like that, I would toss the application or resume. Boy, did the others blast me. The first one was some English major, ripping my post apart for proper (textbook?) english. I think there is "proper english" and then there is "accepted American". We may not all write and speak like an English professor, but some basic rules and form should be followed. I try to write in an acceptible fashion, and try to spell properly, and would expect most to do the same. IN MY OPINION, to do anything less is just pure laziness. If you don't take the time to at least attempt a good job in everything you do, it reflects poorly.
Now, if an English professor is reading this......

[rogerhensley]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jimrice4449

The quality of a thought is generally reflected in the quality of its expression.
Am I the only one who has noticed that posts from Australia and the UK are generally noticeably better written than those from the USA? Could this be a reflection on the quality of our schools?

That and a certain laziness that seems to have overtaken the U.S. You instead of your, your instead of you're., etc. If you can't spell, you aren't communicating well. Yes, I make mistakes, but in most cases, I edit the post and correct them. I stop reading posts that have major spelling and grammatical problems. They are just too hard to read and not worth the effort.