It seems to me that there is a new fashion in this forum for pointing out spelling mistakes and typos as a way of making fun of people who have posted something controversial.
We all have different levels of education. Some of us speak different dialects, or don’t have English as a first language. Some no doubt have specific literacy problems such as dyslexia. Some people are deliberately spelling in an unconventional way, either for humorous effect, or because they think it is cool.
Whatever the reason, it’s a bit below the belt to make fun of someone’s spelling. For all you know, they could be ten times as good as you at maths or music, but that just doesn’t show up in this forum.
I have a high stress job and come to this forum for a friendly atmosphere, and a chance to bullsh with like minded folk. Please, let’s keep it that way.
This site definitely needs a spell check. Most of my entries are late at night, next day when I read some of my posts and see the typos I am horrified (I am carefully checking this one for spelling mistakes)
I agree Mikefule. As long as we all understand what has been written, I don’t think a couple of spelling mistakes matter. I’ve always been hopeless with spelling and would certainly lose some of my enjoyment of posting if I felt that people were ‘getting at’ my spelling.
<3 Mac OS X for having universal (heh) spell check.
or:
I love the OS X operating system for having a spell checker that works with most of the programs installed on my computer.
Anyway, your plea for netiquette is in vain.
There are always “grammar Nazis” correcting other people.
There are always guys like you attempting to correct the “grammar Nazis.”
Moreover, there’s always a guy like me explaining that there will always be “grammar Nazis” and their “haterz.”
(There are more characters, like the guy that points out that both sides are “wasting bandwidth” . . .
. . . and still more people that point out that bandwidth is not a concern . . .
. . . AND that it wastes more bandwidth to criticize wasting bandwidth.)
It is the culture of a forum.
You can accept by your silence, or you can accept it by being one of the characters outlined above.
For the most part posts here are informal communication. For the most part the posts here are not the things that you would proofread several times to make sure there are no errors then sent off to another person to check. That level of checking would be inappropriate and a waste of time. However, a basic attempt at spelling, grammar and content is appreciated. I know I have have gotten words like “loose” and “lose” or “break” and “brake” mixed up at times. A spell checker isn’t going to catch mistakes like those.
I agree that we don’t need to correct spelling or grammatical errors in another member’s post. If the meaning is not understood a simple question will usually solve the issue.
But, before posting - why not make life easy on everyone and use an existing program ( such as Word, or even Outlook Express) to formulate and spell-check your messages? After that, just cut-and-paste into a thread…
I taught myself Quantum physics, but I couldn’t spell if my life depended on it ^^. But I’ll use open office, to spell check my documents if its a very relevent post. Where spelling/grammer could make a substantial diffrence.
Having introduced the concept to the discussion, could you explain to the readers what it means? It doesn’t mean what most people think it does, and I can see no relevance to the matter in hand or to any posts in this forum, including mine.
My initial post on this thread was prompted by one or two quite hostile comments about other people’s spelling. It was a plea for a reasonable attempt at good manners in this public space.
It was a plea for people to make a reasonable attempt to display good manners. This is a forum, with people from many backgrounds and age groups, and a certain amount of cut and thrust is only to be expected. I’m too old to expect perfection.
I was particularly annoyed when one member’s first ever post was attacked, not only for its content, but also for the spelling. That was not the only example, but it stuck in my mind.
For myself, I think I can hold my own in any company when it comes to disputes about spelling, grammar or punctuation. However, I would hate to see people discouraged from posting because they were afraid that their spelling (etc.) might be held up to ridicule.
The very fact that I felt that the plea was necessary made me fear I’d be urinating upwind, but I thought I’d give it a go.
I studied Freud once about a hundred years ago. I know what anal retentive is and it doesn’t have a hyphen. Thats not like unicyclists, we don’t perseverate on things.
Learning about and using computers is like learning unicycling. There is always something new to learn.
Ok. please excuse my lack of knowing about IE or Firefox trials. Where exactly or how does the spell checker work in these programs?
I definitely agree. there will frequently be a degree of inaccuracy, be it through bad luck (typing ability/knowledge/dyslexia) or sloppiness. My bugbear is the laziness of not checking over one’s posts or bothering to correct blatant errors. A well written post can be very pleasing to read indeed. There have been some posts (gladly very few) where, had I been keen on the topic, I would have needed to ask for a translation.
As for using errors to make fun of people, thats pre-teen playground tactics. I’m sure there will always be a few who use this. may their minority decrease greatly.
Thanks John_Childs. Not only can I learn new unicycle stuff, I can also read and learn new computer stuff. I have downloaded the IE spell checker and will now give it a go. I will have to learn some new skills on the uni to keep up with myself.
