Attention all users of the internet; forum trolls, thread stalkers, meme promoters, and other tube denizens:
Although they melt my soul, I can forgive mistakes associated with “there/they’re/their”, “where/wear”, “it’s/its”, “affect/effect”, and even the egregious “loose/lose”. All of these can be explained by a slip of the mind, a marked lack of education, or even inebriation. They are unfortunate and regrettable, but at times, forgivable.
In comparison, spelling words incorrectly makes you look dumb. Incredibly dumb.
I read thread replies, video comments, and (most tragically) blog posts that look like someone injected Novocaine into their hands and just let their limp, lifeless appendages fall all over the keyboard for a few minutes. I cannot focus on the content of the writing, and more importantly the message trying to be conveyed, when every other word is spelled so badly that my brain dies a little.
I focus on spelling because unlike grammar, syntax, or diction, there is no excuse for spelling things incorrectly. Even if your little pygmy brain can’t remember the proper order of letters in basic words, there are so many tools available that automatically correct your spelling that it borders on absurdity.
Using correct grammar requires some cognitive processing, a concept that I acknowledge a lot of people in the English speaking world are not comfortable with. Correct word choice requires actually knowing what specific words mean, and I can let a below average lexicon slide. At the very least, incorrect grammar and diction can be pretty comical (especially in the case of extreme malapropism), giving it some redeeming character.
Spelling things wrong is just plain unacceptable. It’s not funny, cute, or even remotely endearing. All it does is make you look like a lazy imbecile, whose writing I shouldn’t bother wasting the eye-energy reading. Abbreviations that are just as many characters as the actual word, or mutate the word to add a letter that isn’t even in the original word (cuz, cos) are why people are driven to drink.
Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Apple’s Safari all have built-in and enabled-by-default spell checkers. Internet Explorer has about 40 plugins available for download that will let you know when you’ve failed at communication. Voluntarily using IE makes me question a person’s capacity for development anyway, but I digress.
It is simple. Makes friends with these:
Introduce yourself to the red squiggles. This universal plague-mark of misspelling is here to help you not look like a third-world degenerate; you should thank it and buy it nice presents (coincidentally, the red squiggles live at my house, so feel free to send the presents there).
If you have been up until now ignoring these little red lines, claiming ignorance as to their purpose, I implore you to recognize their existence and importance. They don’t just show up for fun to make your writing more colorful; consider them screaming alarms that your words are in physical pain. A misspelling is like a wound on the word, this red line like its veritable lifeblood pouring out and pooling underneath. Ignoring these lines is like sealing the fate of these poor, malformed words, and any hope of people taking you seriously.
If your documents, posts, or other assorted keyboard regurgitations start to look like this…
…you should probably try right clicking each word that is underlined with red squiggles and choosing another word from the list that appears. Even if you don’t know what the word that appears means, the computer is clearly smarter than you and you should probably do what it says.
Notice there is a blue line (and sometimes even green lines!) underneath the word “no”. This means that the computer has noticed that you spelled something correctly, but used it incorrectly. Good try!
P.S. For the record, in disclaimer to the second line of this post, I can never forgive “then/than” mistakes. It’s not even kind of hard to know which is which.
I am gonna quit writing; I am gonna just draw pictures. 🙂 Yeah grammar errors are common. I hate hearing people say, “Hey how are you doing?” … the response people usually give is, “Good!” They mean to say “well” unless they are Mother Teresa. This is the one that everyone says on a daily basis incorrectly. I think the bigger issue is not that people don’t spell well or have bad grammar, but we have become a society of speed, convenience, and quick thinking. I think we should maybe slow down a bit more and be more patient with one another. We all need to stop rushing around. Every mistake you make leaves a legacy of error. I believe that slowing down and getting, for example five things right, instead of finishing ten poor thinga is gonna give you a better reputation for your work than just getting lots of things done. I am currently working on this…
Yea, I agree that we as a culture are way too focused on doing things quickly. There is a definite lack of pride in doing things correctly, and most people don’t even consider that their image might be damaged if they can’t communicate effectively.
Keep working on it! I think your language skills have improved a lot since we met.
Why was I never informed that the red squiggles had moved in?? Do I also get presents?
Aside from that, I have to agree that the rampant misspelling across the internet and beyond is really indicative of a larger shift in American society toward that which is easier and faster. If it enables them to type a Tweet in ten seconds rather than eighteen (heaven knows that IS important when you’re updating from your iPhone while speeding around 495 at seventy five…), then many people just don’t care that “4evr” is wrong, wrong, wrong. Moreover, society rewards people for this kind of behavior! Advertising standard is now to promote sales “Thru Sunday!” and that will help you to “Save $$ Now!” And, having just endured a lunch hour with approximately 7,872 middle school students (give or take a few), I can assure you that this inability to take a few extra seconds to do things properly extends into food selection, clothing choices, and manners as well. (Sushi and french fries with a cola does NOT constitute an acceptable lunch, and there is no excuse for the quantity of ugly hats I saw these children wearing at the table.)
Anyway… I guess that my point is just that people who adhere to strict codes of conduct in anything are vastly outnumbered and, bellyache as we might about how everyone should do what we do, we are likely to remain forever in the minority as long as there is not some kind of sweeping societal upheaval. (Note that this is not one of those minorities that is protected from discrimination by law. SOL there.) No one who constantly disregards correct spelling cares that it bothers you, and in fact such a person is likely to get defensive and angry when confronted about the way it affronts the scholastically-inclined. So while I support your war on bad spelling, I fear that you face a Sisyphean task.
Alas, I fear you are very correct.
I write almost for cathartic release, actively knowing I won’t put a dent in the problem, but putting it out there so it’s not longer rattling around inside my skull.
That, and I’m trying to be funny 🙂
They never really mention how large Sisyphus’ rock was supposed to be…I always picture it as ridiculously huge, but if that is true, how would he have moved it at all?