QotD: Spelling
Posted August 26th, 2005 @ 10:07am by Erik J. Barzeski
Question: Do you consider yourself a good speller?
My Answer: You betcha. I may have an occasional typo here and there (in other words, there's no need to go back and try to find mispellings here on the ol' blog), but I typically know how to spell just about everything. I rarely hear a word I've never seen in print somewhere before.
Today at Little One's pre-school they had the word "Kindergarden" on the wall in big letters. Carey and I informed the office that they may want to change it… Misspelled words are a big pet peeve of mine, particularly when they're not something you can attribute to a typo.
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Posted 26 Aug 2005 at 11:08am #
Not at all. I highly doubt I would even make it past the 3rd round in an elementary school spelling bee. The funny thing is that I use a lot of big words that I can't even come close to spelling. I blame computers. Because of spell check I very rarely pay attention to how things are spelled and don't worry if I spell them wrong. I also use the internet instead of a dictionary so I don't pay that much attention there either because if I type something into Google for a definition it will correct the spelling and suggest the right one.
Posted 26 Aug 2005 at 11:47am #
I would have to agree totally with Emily, I am a horrible speller. If it wasn't for Microsoft Word and spell check, I don't know where I'd be (at least in the spelling, blog world). I do re-read my stuff to make sure that I catch whatever was missed by MS Words spell check, but I thank MS to put this feature in Word. And I also feel that it makes me dumber, for depending on it so much. So I guess, thanks for that too.
As I speak these words I have to put this whole comment, through MS word to see if I spelled anything wrong (This has gotten out of hand). I am kind of ashamed to admit this on your blog now that I think of it.
Mike
Posted 26 Aug 2005 at 12:03pm #
Im a gud speler.
Posted 26 Aug 2005 at 1:03pm #
Yes. One thing that really bothers me is seeing simple words misspelled by otherwise intelligent people. Almost 9 out of 10 times people misspell 'ridiculous' with an 'e'.
Posted 26 Aug 2005 at 3:40pm #
No, I can't spell for crap but you could never tell when im talking... I have to look words up before I say somethings on the internet for fear of looking stupid and I'm usually right....
Posted 26 Aug 2005 at 6:13pm #
How do you feel about poor Spelling on business and personal websites? We are curious to get some real feedback! Yeah, it's due to a business I am involved with, although this is a not a plug for it! We are genuinely curious as to how all of you react to poor spelling on sites you read.
By the way, I read your site regularly, and yes, it is still in my list of feeds because (along with an interest in what you write about) you can spell and write a proper sentence.
Cheers!
Dave
Feedback and flames to: dave at theconsultant dot net
The site in question is spellwonder dot com
Posted 26 Aug 2005 at 7:48pm #
I am fairly certain Microsoft's automatic spellchecker is itself responsible for the epidemic use of "loose" for the word "lose"; -- loose comes up as an alternate spelling FIRST alphabetically, and people idiotically or lazily accept the default suggestion.
Posted 30 Aug 2005 at 11:00am #
I think that I have a decent grasp on the way English words are spelled. I wasn't always good at spelling though. I used to have the toughest time with it when I was in grade school -- until I learned to count the number of letters in the word. Strangely, that helped trmendously and I still do it when I learn new words in English or in other languages.
In my mind pretty much every somewhat difficult to spell word has at least one number associated with it. If I wonder how to spell it then I will recall the number and spell it accordingly.
I have much better spelling when I type than I do anywhere else though. I think that if I was ever in a spelling bee again I would want a QWERTY keyboard in front of me even if it wasn't attached to anything.