BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 12 Jul 15 - 08:53 AM

If I want assistance in grammar and spelling, I ask for someone fond of red pens to proof read for me and am grateful for the time they spend doing so. I'm also happy to be corrected where appropriate, as it's useful for future reference. If I've spent time to compose something other than a dashed off bit of conversation on social media, then I don't usually *need* the red pen; though it's always a good insurance policy for anything that actually matters. If I'm just chatting on social media I will make mistakes and not care about it; I certainly can't be bothered to take time rereading posts like this, to ensure that I've not got an apostrophe in the wrong place or used 'too' instead of 'to'. It's not my concern if my mistakes annoy other people, just so long as the content is understandable. I imagine there are a good number of people who treat informal conversational kinds of writing similarly.

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jul 15 - 08:57 AM

I bet you checked that one, though. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 12 Jul 15 - 09:06 AM

I usually edit as I type and spot mistakes as they appear. The degree of rushdness - or how many glasses of wine - will often determine whether I spot them and edit before posting.

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jul 15 - 12:31 PM

And, then there is legibility in many doctors perscriptions. Such poorly written drug requests often leave pharmacists in doubt as to what is being perscribed. It is as if highly-trained doctors don't ven want to take the time to write important information clearly. Maybe they write in such a lazy manner to piss off pharmacists, or merely to defy their previous English teachers from grade three?

Thankfully, some doctirs now utilize computers to print out typed perscriptions.

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jul 15 - 12:47 PM

I hate to point a little something out to you, Guest, but it's...oh, never mind....

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jul 15 - 12:57 PM

"Pre", of course, Mr. Shwa?
:)

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: GUEST,6.24
Date: 12 Jul 15 - 01:08 PM

To be honest guest I think he meant the illegible thing.No harm, but does rise a smile.We all do it,it's karmic a lot of times too.8)

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jul 15 - 02:52 PM

OK, there were two, find another and the round of beer is on Shaw:)

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jul 15 - 02:56 PM

often leave pharmacists in doubt

Is that GPs and high street pharmacists or hospital doctors and pharmacists ?

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jul 15 - 03:01 PM

Take your pick, cousin guest;)

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: Musket
Date: 12 Jul 15 - 03:41 PM

Alternatively, note that 97% of UK prescriptions were, by last March, electronic. (Source PPA)

That said, lazy scripting used to be a legitimate mistake and near miss concern up till recently.

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jul 15 - 03:52 PM

Mrs GUEST says that the pharmacist will piss off the prescriber by querying the prescription. GUEST was once, many years ago, handed one back across the counter with "I'm sorry I can't dispense on this". Presciber was really pissed when that message was passed on (he thought it would be taken to the pharmacy two doors down).

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jul 15 - 03:53 PM

pissed off

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Jul 15 - 05:53 AM

I once received a Facebook message, two days after my Birthday. It stated, "delayted Birthday Wishes". LOL

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: Mo the caller
Date: 13 Jul 15 - 01:32 PM

It's all too easy to make a mistake when typing, even though I know when to use there, their, they're, etc.
So I wouldn't correct anyone else.
When I use a 'quote' button in my reply I might respell a word, or I might not.
Some errors do really trip the reader up though, it can be hard to understand a post.

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: DMcG
Date: 14 Jul 15 - 12:59 AM

I see posting as essentially conversational rather than formal documents. If you you were to correct people's grammar and poor phrasing as they spoke it would be extremely offensive and you would rapidly lose friends.

So I think you should never correct these slips unless people are demonstrably confused, and even then tact should be used. To take a specific example: on a recent thread someone referred to "a small majority" when they meant "a small minority". There was certainly scope for misunderstanding but everyone realised what was meant so it went uncorrected, and I think rightly so.

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 14 Jul 15 - 05:11 AM

On another board, I've just spotted a message, from a male correspondent, claiming that men are more intelligent than women (!) The message contains gross spelling mistakes (e.g. "ime" for I'm) and is completely un-punctuated. I could have commented - but that would have involved setting up an account and logging-in etc., and I really couldn't be bothered. Nevertheless, I would have relished picking that moron up on his spelling and grammar!

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jul 15 - 06:06 AM

It's very tempting, Shimrod with people like that. Their lack of attention to good English is extra evidence of their overall idiocy, and, just occasionally, it could be deemed appropriate, if a bit mischievous, to use it against 'em! We're only human, after all...

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jul 15 - 06:08 AM

Yes and I know there should have been a comma after "Shimrod"!

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jul 15 - 09:04 AM

Steve, if all your sentences were like that second one I would stop reading your posts.

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jul 15 - 10:15 AM

Well it was correct, though perhaps a bit on the labyrinthine side, I suppose. I'll try less hard.

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 14 Jul 15 - 10:49 AM

You could have got away with that, Steve, I didn't notice!

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 14 Jul 15 - 07:08 PM

Yet to this day, I don't think I actually know what a split infinitive is...


.... to (learn and) coherently assess ....


Assuming these two extracts are from the same Musket, there you have it.

Not criticising or even commenting - just pointing it out.


DC

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Jul 15 - 08:37 PM

My general feeling as a moderate dyslexic is that the improvement of this forum by adding a spell check has been paramount.

Grammatical mistakes are often the result of incomplete editing and failing to proof read.

For those who make up their own syntax I say let it be. Polite indications of correcting someone's means of expression should be in in the form of a question such as "did you mean to say?".

I bet half of the ungrammatical examples here are intentional as in a take off of a dialect.

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jul 15 - 09:00 PM

Split infinitives, insofar as they exist at all (they don't because "to" is not part of the infinitive) are not incorrect and never have been. The best thing is to just get on and to freely use them with abandon.

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Jul 15 - 09:57 PM

Are we not trusted or allowed to edit for a missing word or run on sentence due to a technical reason, or because of some sort of feared reason?

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: GUEST,Musket stuttering
Date: 15 Jul 15 - 03:12 AM

I take it Doug was off school when irony was taught?
😎

This Musket has A levels in language and literature but tends to prefer reading the other Musket's posts for ease of text than my own.

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 15 Jul 15 - 04:31 AM

I take it Doug was off school when irony was taught?

Yeah. That's why my shirts always looked so creased.
?;-)

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jul 15 - 05:51 AM

It's OK Steve, I doubt I am the only one appreciating your examples without comment.

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 15 Jul 15 - 07:23 AM

When I was at school 3 score years ago, spelling, punctuation and grammar (SPG) were drummed into us daily. Also my mother was a English teacher, and would read through my homework to make sure I'd got all the SPG correct.
When my kids, now in their 30s, were at school, it seemed it didn't matter any more. I once asked my daughter's primary teacher why she hadn't corrected my daughter's mistakes. "Oh, we have to let them express themselves, you know". Well thanks, but neither of them have ever caught up, and still don't know all the "rules" of SPG.
My husband is moderately dyslexic, so I do quite a lot of proof-reading for him, as he writes a lot of official reports. I've written him a guide to usage of apostrophes but he still doesn't get it!
I am not too bothered by errors in posts on Mudcat, but I do think it is important to get official documents for publication correct, and it does annoy me to see such publications littered with errors on occasion. Even designing our Folk Festival brochure, it can do with 3 pairs of eyes reading through it to spot any errors of SPG or fact, or inconsistencies of formatting.
And you can turn Apple's very annoying auto-correct predictive text off!

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Jul 15 - 08:18 AM

"It's OK Steve, I doubt I am the only one appreciating your examples without comment."

In that case, I intend to completely desist from providing any more, as I have no desire to constantly annoy everyone. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Jul 15 - 08:20 AM

Ahah, "irony". Don't get me started...:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: GUEST,Kampervan
Date: 15 Jul 15 - 10:30 AM

To constantly annoy.....
or

Constantly to annoy.....

We've probably reached the point now where the split infinitive ( if such a thing exist) is the accepted, even preferred, version.

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: Will Fly
Date: 15 Jul 15 - 11:24 AM

The rule against not splitting an infinitive was always a red herring - an artifical and silly construct invented by grammatists with a Latin background. It was roundly debunked by the Plain English Society and similar organisations many years ago.

"To boldly go..." is a perfectly acceptable construction.

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: Will Fly
Date: 15 Jul 15 - 11:30 AM

By the way, my yardstick for writing clear, plain, understandable English is George Orwell's essay, "Politics and the English language" from 1946, which you may read here.

His six rules:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

I particularly like Rule no. 6!

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Jul 15 - 12:55 PM

And, apart from never starting a sentence with a conjunction, avoid cliches like the plague.

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: Will Fly
Date: 15 Jul 15 - 12:57 PM

Tee hee!

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jul 15 - 01:23 PM

""Better late than pregnant""

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: GUEST,bbc
Date: 15 Jul 15 - 08:39 PM

I just ordered a teeshirt that reads as follows:

Let's eat Grandma!

Let's eat, Grandma!

Punctuation saves lives!


Love it!

(I realize this is punctuation, rather than spelling.)

Best,

bbc

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: PHJim
Date: 16 Jul 15 - 09:41 AM

While I don't correct incorrect spelling or grammar, I do notice it, but have come to accept it without dwelling on it. I still haven't gotten used to seeing, "I could care less," though.

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Jul 15 - 10:45 AM

What can be really annoying is when you write something correctly, and it gets "corrected" into something that is wrong - especially when the computer does the "correcting".

I don't think anyone has pointed out that "the hoi polloi" , which has turned up in at least one post, is strictly speaking a solecism, since hoi means the, so you are saying "the the many". But that's one case where I tend to think the wrong version actually sits better in English than the right one.

There's a distinction between mistakes that don't mess up the meaning, and those which do - such as the one demonstrated in the title of "eats, shoots and leaves".

The one time perhaps when it's always justified to be a stickler for accuracy is when picking up grammatical or syntactical errors made in the course of correcting others.

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: Airymouse
Date: 16 Jul 15 - 11:59 AM

I admit that I carefully avoid "the hoi" polloi, but I've always been bothered by the reason. Had I said to you, "I'll meet you in the alcove," would you have said, in the original language "al" meant "the" so you should have said, "I'll meet you in alcove?"

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: mayomick
Date: 16 Jul 15 - 02:09 PM

proofread - one word.

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Jul 15 - 06:49 PM

While I don't correct incorrect spelling or grammar, I do notice it, but have come to accept it without dwelling on it. I still haven't gotten used to seeing, "I could care less," though.

Though you're OK with "haven't gotten". Heheh.

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Jul 15 - 07:06 PM

"Hoi polloi" actually means the riff-raff, the plebs. Interesting that so many people believe, erroneously, that it means the exact opposite. Maybe "hoi" sounds a bit like "high"...

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 16 Jul 15 - 08:39 PM

Will Fly.: We could add these to Orwell's 6 Rules:

• Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
• Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
• And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
• It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
• Avoid clichés like the plague. (They're old hat.)
• Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
• Be more or less specific.
• Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
• Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
• No sentence fragments.
• Contractions aren't necessary and shouldn't be used.
• Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
• Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
• One should NEVER generalise.
• Comparisons are as bad as clichés.
• Don't use no double negatives.
• Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
• One-word sentences? Eliminate.
• Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
• The passive voice is to be ignored.
• Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.
• Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.
• DO NOT use exclamation points and all caps to emphasise!!!
• Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
• Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth shaking ideas.
• Use the apostrophe in it's proper place and omit it when its not needed.
• Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
• If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly.
• Puns are for children, not groan readers.
• Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
• Even IF a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
• Who needs rhetorical questions?
• Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
• The passive voice should never be used.
• Do not put statements in the negative form.
• Verbs have to agree with their subjects.
• A writer must not shift your point of view.
• Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.
• Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
• If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
• Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
• Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
• Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.
• Always pick on the correct idiom.
• The adverb always follows the verb.
• Be careful to use the rite homonym.
• Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Jul 15 - 07:51 AM

I've never come across "hoi polloi" used in the sense Steve gives there, as meaning posh. Not that it's an expression that crops up that often in conversation. LOf course words do shift - at one time "snob" had more or less the same meaning as "common".

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Jul 15 - 08:48 AM

If you look into it, Kevin, you'll see that it's commonly misused.

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 17 Jul 15 - 12:28 PM

I sometimes use "hoi polloi" in conversation and always in the sense of mixing with the masses/crowd/rank and file. It's not so commonly misused that I have ever heard it meaning the opposite until now.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Etiquette ref. Poor spelling
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Jul 15 - 12:36 PM

We're such an erudite bunch here. Yeah, that'll be it!