Speling Misstakes

Subject: Speling Misstakes
From: bubblyrat
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 07:30 AM

Are we in England (and America !) losing our ability to spell correctly ,or should we blame it on the ever-increasing reliance on "Spell Checker" ??? Recent examples that have both enraged and amused me include an estate agent in Oxfordshire advertising a house which benefits from " uninterpreted views " , a yacht broker who is hoping to attract "perspective purchasers " and a Yahoo news item about the missing 777 ,which apparently the Dutch are searching for in " unchartered waters " .......the mind boggles !
Estate agents everywhere seem to repeatedly refer to "principle bedrooms" and "formally two cottages " , plus other howlers .What say you ??

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 08:05 AM

Not sure that's an inability to spell. Looks more like a matter of not knowing the correct word to use.

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: Musket
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 08:16 AM

Buy a }^#%#%!! iPad. One day I shall let a post out before correcting the autocorrect....

In reply to a question regarding guitars, I shall probably say, "The policeman's donkey has molested my parrot."

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: GUEST,Mike Yates
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 08:23 AM

Sorry to disagree! When I submit things to this site I always check for spelling mistakes. There are none when I submit my comments, but there are mistakes when they appears on the sight. Can somebody please explain?

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 08:40 AM

"There are none when I submit my comments, but there are mistakes when they appears on the sight. Can somebody please explain?"

Look goods to me.

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 09:43 AM

This just might be thread drift, but my Beautiful Wife
has many times asked me how to spell some word, which I
then spelled for her.

"I typed it that way, but the spell checker said that spelling was
wrong."

And I explained (again) that the spell checker doesn't really tell
you that a typed word is "right" or "wrong". All it does is
tell you that it doesn't recognize a given spelling as existing
in its word database. So it just hasn't been "taught" that given
word, or that spelling of the word. And conversely, if the spell
checker does NOT complain of a given typed word, it does not mean
that that spelling is even a recognized word; it may have been
entered wrongly. And of course the typed word may be a "correct"
spelling of a real word, but that doesn't mean that the word as
typed is the word that really belongs in that sentence.

The moral of this story is that it's still the responsibility of
the user to police what (s)he types, and to "teach" the spell
checker the words or the spellings that it doesn't yet "know".

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 09:51 AM

I am annoyed always that, tho I set my  header menu to the Union Jack symbol, it still underlines English spellings of words like colour [yes, there it goes!] as incorrect. Not the quality of programing [programming?] I would expect of !

~M~

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 10:01 AM

It's "site" and not "sight." Although the Mudcat Cafe site can be quite a sight at times.

If you want errors, you should check my local newspaper. They, for example, do not know the difference between "Colombia" and "Columbia." This can lead to comments about the river, the song "Hail Columbia" and a Canadian province.

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: TheSnail
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 10:21 AM

I rather like " uninterpreted views ". Are there job vacancies for view interpreters?

What gets me is people who can't discriminate between "to" and "too" or "there", "their" and "they're" and who think that "of" and "have" are the same word.

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: Nick
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 10:33 AM

Mike - all spellcheckers have the ability to add words to the dictionary which it will then check against.

I have worked with Estate Agents software for 15 years and there are lots of instances of spellchecking amusements. A self-professed poor speller had added all her wrong spellings to the custom dictionary so that it took all her misspellings as being correct.

I agree with the person above. It is partly about spelling but a lot about grammatical and sense errors. If you take the use of 'could of' for 'could have' - it passes the spellcheck but is grammatically horrible.

On the Estate Agent line too there are a lot of agents who will either dictate the house details or use speech recognition software. If you type from dictation it is easy to hear wrongly.

I can spell well (who can't, it's only got 4 letters?) but typing is an easy way to go wrong. Especially if I'm in a hurry.

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: Musket
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 10:51 AM

When I was in business, I used to tell my sales team that bad spelling and lazy grammar is telling a customer you don't think them worth the time and effort of addressing them correctly. When I started chairing health authorities, I threw back sloppy reports and refused to have them on board agendas until they resembles English.

Pedant and proud, even if not the best educated in use of English. (Failed language and literature O level and subsequent qualifications have been technical ones.)

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 11:36 AM

Spell check can't tell its pines from its penis. Knowledge of which word to use should always be of top importance.

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: Musket
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 11:42 AM

I once thought I wrote "surveillance of alert organisms" in a report that was published as an official Dept of Health publication. It got past me, got past quality assurance, comms team and publishing team.

If anybody wishes to carry out surveillance of alert orgasms, write to Dept of Health, Richmond House, Whitehall, London W1C

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: gnu
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 12:02 PM

GUEST,Mike Yates... "Sorry to disagree! When I submit things to this site I always check for spelling mistakes. There are none when I submit my comments, but there are mistakes when they appears on the sight. Can somebody please explain?"

When satellites get dirty, some letters stick to the satellite or bounce off sequence. I am presently in search of a long ladder so I can open my own satellite cleaning business.

Musket... "The policeman's donkey has molested my parrot."

Hahahhahahaaa!

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 01:00 PM

Because I have some hearing loss, I was delighted to find "closed caption" available for many TV programs.......... but it seems the process is automated in many instances, by some voice-to-word program, leading to what must be very confusing news stories for totally deaf folks..

Recent ones included "line late" for 'limelight' and "Napoleon's secret" when discussing Napoleon's 'second exile'.

The scrolling text on various news sites is also a source of 'interesting' errors introduced by humans typing too fast. Somewhere I have a collection. (I do remember one about someone "sewing doubt".)

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 03:51 PM

I'm afraid I'm obsessive about spelling, and being a retired teacher doesn't help. I hardly dare confess that I actually correct the Daily Mail with a red pen every morning. How sick is that?!
With regard to estate agents; when we put our last house on the market some years ago, the lassie (and she was the branch manager!) proudly presented to me the folded bit of A4 which would be the prospective buyers' info, with a photo on the first page and a lot of blurb inside. I took out my trusty red pen from my handbag and circled over twenty terrible spelling mistakes. She was actually a bit cross, as though I was being too demanding. She'd even typed 'sag' for 'gas', which made me wonder if she was dyslexic. The grammar was also appalling. I insisted that I take the thing away and write my own blurb. I also printed a much nicer photo than the awful one she'd taken. I was tempted to ask for a job, as I'd done the whole thing myself. Honestly, what is the world coming to, eh? (Grumpy old thing aren't I?)

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: Ed T
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 04:10 PM

"It's a damn poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word!" -- Andrew Jackson

"Correct spelling, indeed, is one of the arts that are far more esteemed by schoolma'ams than by practical men, neck-deep in the heat and agony of the world." -- Henry Louis Mencken, The American Language

"I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way." -- Mark Twain

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: Rog Peek
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 05:19 PM

Bubblerat - I think you may find the first two examples you gave are not actually spelling mistakes, but malapropisms.

Rog

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: Rog Peek
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 05:21 PM

Sorry, my mis-spelling of your name was not deliberate. Honest!!!!

Rog

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: Mr Red
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 05:25 PM

one of the worst problems is the person who knows better than Micro$oft's best research on how to spell a particular word so adds it to the dictionary. Then everyone who uses that computer cannot be alerted to their errors.

The OP IS about spelling mistakes in many cases, people can't spell so the s/w suggests what it thinks is correct and the user doesn't always know the right one, or is too lazy to check all the alternatives.

I heard of a secretary (remember them?) who misread a hand-written note and addressed a letter to someone in ...........

Leighton Buggered

For the non-Brits amongst us the town in question is Leighton Buzzard

(thinks.... I wonder what she would have made of the Pensylvanian town of Intercourse?)

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 05:49 PM

From an eBay listing describing a painting:

"Water Colour by George Oyston, land scrape"

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 06:03 PM

refused to have them on board agendas until they resembles English

Was yer business somewh't te do wi' pirates? Only arskin.

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: Bert
Date: 20 Jun 14 - 08:18 PM

We have friends here on Mudcat who are dyslexic.

It is considered very bad form to complain about spelling errors.

It happens, get over it.

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 21 Jun 14 - 01:40 AM

Eliza. The spelling mistakes in The Daily M*il are the least of their problems...

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: DMcG
Date: 21 Jun 14 - 03:03 AM

Because I have some hearing loss, I was delighted to find "closed caption" available for many TV programs.......... but it seems the process is automated in many instances, by some voice-to-word program, leading to what must be very confusing news stories for totally deaf folks..

My favourite was when the announcer referred to 'the latest borrowing figures' and it was displayed as 'the latest boring figures'. Even now, I'm not sure which was more accurate.

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Jun 14 - 04:11 AM

The Daily Mail hasn't any problems, in fact. It's underbred selfrighteous idiots, striking fastidious poses of unctuous distaste because they can't recognise the excellent standards of journalism in a paper with whose principles and Weltanschauung they happen to be at odds, who have the problem.

Sad.

~M~

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: Musket
Date: 21 Jun 14 - 04:20 AM

Huh. It described you as a folk singer for starters.....

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Jun 14 - 04:28 AM

Sadder

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Jun 14 - 05:24 AM

Now let's just see. It was in an article concerning my recent bereavement of my much-loved first wife of half-a century. The impeccable taste of your compassionate empathy greatly in evidence as ever, O Muskibumz.

Saddest

~M~

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 21 Jun 14 - 05:37 AM

I don't see that I need to defend my choice of daily newspaper, but I never actually read it. I merely try to complete as many of the puzzles as possible on the four puzzle pages. It's my 'Brain Workout'. Then I correct all the spelling and grammar mistakes, which satisfies my pedantic teacher streak. People who are snobby about other folks' newspaper preferences should get a life. My sister's just as bad. She reads the Times from cover to cover, and has recently had two letters published therein. You should hear her on the subject of the Mail. Snobby old thing!

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: Mr Red
Date: 21 Jun 14 - 06:49 AM

the Daily Mule is full of cross words.

AND ANOTHER THING.....................

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: Musket
Date: 21 Jun 14 - 07:04 AM

You did ask for that Michael. The content of the story is very personal to you and I for one would never comment in any direction for any reason on something I do not and could not understand. You provided a link to the story in order to show how thin you used to be, not the story of your late wife, so my comment about another inconsequential aspect of the story is no different to your comment on another thread.

However, you offered it up and then defended the newspaper, who may have carried a story that met the satisfaction of the subject, but that is a rarity in their case.

Making light of anybody defending that particular rag is about as kind as it gets. The Daily M*il is responsible for many ugly matters, many scares and many irresponsible stories. When they churn out a "such and such gives you cancer" story, the GP clinics and then consultant clinics are overcrowded with anxious people who block up the system and risk actual issues from getting forward. They ruin lives in a manner the other tabloids could only dream of and the worst of it, they wish to be taken seriously.

No, I think making a joke about them is far better than questioning your defence of a scourge and stain on society. If you really think I am being crass, let me not disappoint you. Your own background and heritage versus their support of Mosely and Hitler.

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Jun 14 - 07:24 AM

The Daily Mail would be over the ☻ if it realised the odd sort of anti-respect you have for its influence. It is, in the main, a hole in the air to me -- the sort of thing I will read if someone has left it lying on a table in Costa where I happen to sit. Mostly I look at their rather good funny pics -- Garfield &c; and am usually glad if there is a Melanie Phillips piece, as she is a v good commenter of her sort with whom I often find myself generally in agreement. But I really do feel there is something a bit pathetic in these emotional campaigns waged against perfectly respectable professional organs of opinion with sad little jokes of putting *s in their names to equate the to being called 'The Fuck' or some equivalent prissy unmentionability. Really below even your usual level of incomparable wit.

"Hurrah for the Blackshirts" was a personal piece written by its owner, Northcliffe, 80 years ago (Count them: eighty). It was 6 months before the infamous Olympia Rally, after which the paper changed its tune; and had certainly withdrawn its support by the time of the marches of 1936 -- Cable St &c. Can't you find a slightly more recent stick to beat them with? Like I say: all a bit pathetic.

~M~

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: bubblyrat
Date: 21 Jun 14 - 09:14 AM

The Times newspaper is also guilty on occasion ; I had to write them a letter not long ago to inform them (politely ,of course ) that A) Corfe Castle was NOT in Devon , and B) that Army personnel who were rendering IEDs inert were NOT , in fact , "diffusing" them.Meanwhile ,today my local auction house is STILL advertising "mantle clocks " ( I have been in touch,but to Noah Vale ).

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Jun 14 - 10:34 AM

#Musket --

A slowburn response, after some consideration, to yours of 07.04AM; which you yourself described as "crass", and intended to be offensive.

Do not, ever ever again, dare to throw up my ethnic origins at me, & proceed thence to inform me of your opinion as to what they must compel me to think on any topic. Neither my thoughts nor my origins are any business of yours.

I find it the most insultingly offensive thing anyone can do.

It is also an act of extreme antisemitism; if you cannot see why, that is because your own ethnic origins cannot compass the perception.

If you do that again, I give you fair warning, I shall boycott you: i.e. I shall sedulously & strong-mindedly refrain for the future from reading any post with your name on the top. I can do it. I have done it before to two former Catters ~~ I say 'former', because, oddly, neither of them has posted for a very long time -- coincidentally, I daresay.

And I can do it to you. Don't care? As if I should give a winged act-of-procreation whether or not you care. Just you behave yourself; and never, please, insult me in such a fashion again. There is not the least reason in the world why I should put up with such 'crassness', from you.

~M~

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 22 Jun 14 - 02:36 AM

That's done it. I've shit me britches.

And all for starting a sentence with the word "if."

Still, it would be a first for anyone to feel bad about criticising The Daily M*il.

I receive a daily morning email courtesy of Dept of Health with links to whatever health stories are in the papers that day. It is themed around acute, primary care, mental health etc but at the bottom, on their own, are the links to health stories in The Daily M*il.

It's a bit like having a cartoon section in a newspaper. They are not put with the other papers and if want to read them fine, but the inference is that they do not need to be taken seriously. I'm sure some here are aware if the website that keeps tally of how many times something, coffee for example, gives you cancer and how many times it cures cancer. All from their stories.

Me? I'll carry on taking milk with my tea if it's all the same. It mellows the cup and broadens the perspective.

Still, it's nice to be a member of the "called anti Semitic" club. To date, any mudcatter who criticises Israel is in the club. A bit of a first for criticising The Daily M*il though!

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 22 Jun 14 - 04:27 AM

Regarding the Times, my sister's letter was in response to a Literary Quiz they run. One question was: Who said, "We don't seem to be in Kansas any more, Tonto (sic)" She laughed her socks off and wrote saying that the Lone Ranger and his native American mate seemed to have wandered into the land of the Wizard of Oz. The Times published it and also drew a cartoon to accompany her letter. She'd added that she hadn't laughed so much since their last gaffe, about a nun who had broken her 'clavichord'.
I have very little idea what the articles in the Mail consist of, as I merely extract the folded quiz pages, and hand the rest to my husband so he can look at the sports pages at the back. The rest (probably to the delight of some here!) goes under the cat litter tray.

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Jun 14 - 04:49 AM

No -- it was for telling me what I am supposed to think because my paternal grandparents came from Bucharest (or it might have been Focsani) ~~ "Your own background and heritage versus their support of Mosely and Hitler". Israel came not into the equation at any point, and the Mail only marginally.

Nice try at a bit of sidestepping evasion, you devious little heap of swine-droppings: but it's not going to take anybody in.

So go away & commune with yourself, you obnoxious little piece of racist nothing. I shall be reading no more of your posts.

Meanwhile, learn at least how to spell Mosley. Ignorant fool.

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: Musket
Date: 22 Jun 14 - 05:28 AM

Ah, L before E, except after tea. I'll remember that. I must admit, not being a racist I have little opportunity to spell his name.

Is everyone a racist who you don't like then Michael? What about anti semitic? A bit quick to bandy that one around for that matter.

I doubt I could tell you what to think to be honest. Once you reach the age where nobody gives a fuck what you think and start patronising you, there's not much point in the rest of us trying to humour you.

Mind you, I'm in trouble for laughing at your Princess Di conspiracy waffle, for laughing at your paranoia of members of society who are Muslims on a Friday, and for being sceptical over a newspaper's accuracy when it described you as a folk singer..

Add your scorn for questioning black tea and the odd Baileys, which I referred to as cooking sherry and you know what? You seem to have a fairly long list of things that piss you off, especially when they come from Musket.

Mission accomplished.

Oy Keith! Your turn in the barrel!

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Jun 14 - 05:59 AM

Don't know what "Mission" may have been "accomplished" {couldn't help reading that 2-word tailpiece as I scrolled down to this "Reply to Thread" frame}. But if it has anything to do with any response to a previous post of mine, I will confirm that I have not read the above post, having read its provenance in its heading; and that I shall not be reading any posts whatever headed "Musket" at any time in the future. He had better believe that I am quite strong-minded enough to keep an undertaking not to do so; especially having regard to the motivation that he has become nothing but a contemptible irritant, and I have [as who hasn't?] quite enough irritation in everyday life to wish deliberately to incur any more. So if he does wish to address any further posts to me, let him take note that he will be wasting his time & energies, as they will not be read by me either, so it will all be nothing but vain endeavour and typical wind & piss on his part.

If, on the other hand, that above post which "accomplished a mission" was not in fact addressed to me or any way regarding me, then please disregard this post.

~M~

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Jun 14 - 06:15 PM

Mosely

Moseley.

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: HuwG
Date: 22 Jun 14 - 06:19 PM

I am a software developer, and because the language compiler will invariably choke on every misspelling of a variable or keyword, I flatter myself that I am an efficient and painstaking speller (both in source code and in any document, manual or even email which I produce).

I started a new job in January. Soon after, I was told to add code to a Java application's "listener" thread. I kept failing, until I looked at the code and discovered that my predecessor had created the "listner" thread. I still had trouble, because he had named some of its functions "listerner". He also referered to "golbal" variables. I cried.

The appalling mess is still present because I reckoned that it would take five working days to clean it all up. Development schedules are too tight to allow this diversion.

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 22 Jun 14 - 06:23 PM

HuwG, I have a built-in Language Compiler. It's called my brain, which has had the benefit of Good Education Software!

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 22 Jun 14 - 06:51 PM

The thing that annoys me most are official letters that contain spelling mistakes. Is it due to the fall of standards these days or a less educated younger generation? They obviously can't be proofread before releasing the documents to be sent out.

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: Ed T
Date: 22 Jun 14 - 07:33 PM

A listing on kijiji today:

""We are moving and have this bike that needs a new home, it is in need of TLC.

Bike was tooned up last summer at bikes by Dave but has fallen by the waist side this year. Tires are almost new, rust is surface only""

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Jun 14 - 08:21 PM

Mosely

Moseley.
.,,.
No, Guest 06.15; as I said before

--Mosley--

Check wiki if you don't believe me.

FYI, I remember his marches before the war thru London; and actually met him once, when he spoke as a guest at the Cambridge Union in 1954, in a debate in which I acted as Teller for the Ayes.

So do not try to correct me, please. I know better than you in this case.

~M~

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Jun 14 - 08:25 PM

Eliza -- 06.23 ~~~~~

LoL

& Brava!



❤~Michael~❤

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 23 Jun 14 - 02:53 AM

Hang on, I'll have to shout to make sure Michael hears me.,

OY! STOP SAYING YOU KNOW MORE THAN OTHERS. YOU ARE GETTING TO SOUND LIKE KEITH.

Of course, not being racist or anti Semitic, contrary to the ramblings of an old codger, I would have boycotted an event set up to give publicity to the black shirts.

Takes all sorts I suppose.

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 23 Jun 14 - 03:45 AM

Bert, I was perfectly serious when I said I wondered if the estate agent was dyslexic. I know all about the subject, having been a teacher for thirty years. One of the 'signs' of dyslexia, as you may know, is reversal of simple words, such as 'sag' for 'gas'. While I have every sympathy for anyone with a disability, one has to match employees to their jobs. One wouldn't for example employ a profoundly deaf person in a call centre. And if the work of an estate agent involves compiling text about a property, one would expect that person not to suffer from dyslexia. The condition is far from a joke.

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 23 Jun 14 - 04:18 AM

Musket --

☞〠☜

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: Musket
Date: 23 Jun 14 - 06:19 AM

Wot he said;
"so it will all be nothing but vain endeavour and typical wind & piss on his part."

Still gets me no further in understanding his hieroglyphic...... I take it as conversation but who knows?

Subject: RE: Speling Misstakes
From: bubblyrat
Date: 23 Jun 14 - 07:50 AM

Well done , MGM ( and good to see "brava" and not "bravo" !! Morse would have approved . "Omnes Gentes Plaudite Hanc Cantoram Bravam " ( I THINK that's right !).