Speeling Eerors

[TameFarrar]

Relax,Shadow ! In case you thought I meant anything personal against you,Teal'c,or Atum...that was not my intention.

Self-edits are best,and fixing typos is easy.Thread titles,though, can only be changed by the Mods. Maybe sometimes,Posters forget to check back on their spellings...and I'm just asking for fairness,between Members,that's all.

I am amazed that this is even being discussed in the manner it is. But I guess that since it is I will throw in my one cent (the dollar is down some where I am sure). I agree with FHB, there should be a bit of *fairness* between members here. To have such animosity over something as trivial as spelling or the way someone has decided to express themself is amazing to me.

As some have pointed out, many of the members here do not speak English as a first language, thus they are unsure of how to phrase certain thoughts. Other members choose to use *computer speak*. While I too am not a fan of it who am I to tell another how to express their thoughts or opinions in a general discussion thread. If I am bothered by a member's posts all I have to do is click on ignore posts. But if I think I have some sort of right to tell that poster how to express themself, be it a spell check, a dictionary or a phrase book, then when do I stop pushing my desires on that poster. There are basic rules for the forum and I don't see those listed. It can annoy me that a poster doesn't take the time to respect me or others by checking his/her spelling but thats about as far as it can go.

Sometimes I read things in this forum that make me forget that this was supposed to be a fun place to be

[Kliggins]

So, I've made a thread to list all the spelling errors (and grammar errors if you wish) that are starting to annoy you, let me begin:

It's Goa'uld, G-O-A-'-U-L-D. Not Gou'uld, Gou'ald, Goa'Uld, Gould, Goau-ou'ld or whatever else you can come up with.

Second on my list: O'Neill, not O'Neal, O'Niell, Oneill etc. etc.

Teal'c, Bra'tac etc. always lowercase after the apostraphie, not Teal'C or Bra'Tac (Or Ha'Tak or Tel'Tac...)

Asgard, no U's not H's, just Asgard.

And for the love of God, it's "I should have done that" not "I should of done that"

If one is going to pick on the spelling of others in this forum, then it would probably have more impact if all words used in that post are spelled correctly.

Personally, my writing skills are not good enough to make a comment about another post.

[Roatbaum]

Sometimes I read things in this forum that make me forget that this was supposed to be a fun place to be

I agree with this. This seems a little bit nit-picky to me. Sometimes people make mistakes, obviously not everyone believes that.

[Madeleine]

A funny thing just happened to me, I was reading a post (on another thread)that had an amusing spelling mistake in it, and three minutes later I found myself reading a post (in this thread) complete with mis-spelled 'apostrophe' and criticisim of people who make spelling mistakes. And you know what? Same poster! Let he who is without sin...

I don't really care about people writing O'Niell or Go'auld. What does it matter, we all know what is meant when we read those words.

Language is about communication. If a person makes themselves clearly understood then that's enough for me. I'm more interested in what a person has to say than whether they spell it right. This is a forum for fun and stimulating discussion, and a place for some people to relax, not a professional writers' forum, and not a school, so don't be surprised if some people's idea of relaxation doesn't involve running to the dictionary to find out how many 'f's in professional.

The same goes for foreign speakers; if they are making themselves understood well who cares if they substitute ther for there?

BUT - if anyone here is so bothered by any individual's speeling or gramer that they can't relax and have fun themselves, the Ignore function works just as well here as on Delphi.

[Kliggins]

A funny thing just happened to me, I was reading a post (on another thread)that had an amusing spelling mistake in it, and three minutes later I found myself reading a post (in this thread) complete with mis-spelled 'apostrophe' and criticisim of people who make spelling mistakes. And you know what? Same poster! Let he who is without sin...

[GateGipsy]

Good grief, there are worse things to get your knickers in a twist over. So what if people mispell or use the wrong grammar? I see people using color all the time here, and other misspelt words like mom instead of mum and there's worse. What with getting the date wrong all the time? I keep seeing it as month first then the day all over the place, when everyone knows it should be day first then month.

If it bothering you then just don't read the post - it isn't your right to tell other people how they should post or b***when they don't post a way that you like, anymore than anyone else has the right to tell you how to post or b*** about you because you don't post the way they like!

[Torley]

Yeah, I find grammar hunters to be a bunch o' darn elitist snobs. And I detest snobs.

If the spelling is absolutely botched and makes it hard for me to get even the gist of the message, I'll ask again to clarify, and if the person can't do that, I'll politely move on.

Language will change over time -- I leave sentence structure fluid.

Those who are not flexible enough to bend with the tides will break!

[tara3583]

I find that as long as i can read and understand what the poster is saying i take
no notice of spelling mistakes, i'm not
the worlds best when it comes to spelling!

But i will add this, i have real trouble reading "text talk" not having a mobile
phone i find reading the word "you" written
down as "u" and so on really hard to
understand.

[hail_jack]

Who the hell gives a damn so long as people can understand what's going on?
"Attention to detail", etc, etc, who cares about spelling its a tv show for crying out loud

[ShadowMaat]

Hmm... ya know, I'm reading over this and I see a couple of posts from people saying "You have no right to tell people how to write", but A) by doing so, they are basically telling people what they can and can't write and B) I don't see any examples of people saying "fix this if you ever want to post here again".

What I DO see are people venting about their own grammatical pet peeves. There have been plenty of threads like this before, so how come this one is taking so much flak?

Teal'c "told" people how to properly spell some words, I "told" people how to correct typos, but I don't recall either of us (or any of the other posts) telling people that they HAD to use correct spelling or fix typos.

I said that I, personally, despise text speak and cannot take people who use it seriously. I didn't say that text speak should be banned and that anyone who uses it should be flogged into submission. I said I don't like... That's all.

Jprime went off about the two L's in O'Neill thing and expressed doubt about people simply "not realizing", but he never said people HAD to spell the name correctly.

I never said that I was immune to spelling and grammatical errors, myself. In fact, I think I made a point of saying I'm NOT perfect, but I do put a little effort into my posts and I try to keep the errors to a minimum not only because I feel it helps me communicate my point better, but because I think it looks better when it's written "properly". I do not subscribe to the theory that "this is the internet so it doesn't matter". This is the future and if we start losing our grammatical rules and spelling now, it won't be long before it DOES become more difficult/impossible to understand what someone is trying to say. If leet speak in particular gains in popularity, I'm going to have to give up reading completely. It takes me twice as long to decipher stuff like that and the result usually isn't worth the effort.

I took a couple of grammar tests recently. One said I was off-the-chart brilliant and the other said I was complete cr@p and the author wanted nothing to do with me. What does that tell me? Not much, but since I feel as if I'm being forced to defend my position and thus take this whole stupid thread far more seriously than it deserves, I figured I'd inject a bit of lightness back into things.

If you have such deep-rooted problems with the subject of the thread, it's easy enough to ignore it. Or if it's offending so many people, then by all means, have the Mods shut it down. But until then, if we want to gripe about it, why can't we?

[Iskandra]

@ShadowMaat: I'm on your side, if that helps.
It might just be my job, as I teach language at university and do translation and text editing jobs on the side, but the more "text speak" I read, the more physical pain I feel. Call me elitist, I don't care. I can't deny it. It's just there. And we're not even talking about my native language.
Nobody's perfect, but I'd also appreciate if, once in a while, people would read what they post *before* hitting the button and at least try to write English, not some kind of pidgin.
I do know people who are dyslexic, and most of them don't think it's funny to make a lot of mistakes, and I also have a very good friend in Egypt who communicates with me via his mobile phone in text speak. Because he is illiterate. He learns how to write with these "spell-as-you-speak" "words".

[Madeleine]

I do put a little effort into my posts and I try to keep the errors to a minimum not only because I feel it helps me communicate my point better, but because I think it looks better when it's written "properly"

That's nice, really. I do the same. I think most people do - put a little effort in, that is. It bothers me, the perception that if there is a mistake (or lots of mistakes) in a post it's because of a lack of effort. The vast majority of posters on GW do follow all the basic rules of grammar and spelling. If there are a few who don't it's hardly surprising given that we have non-English speakers here as well as people who simply aren't good at spelling no matter how hard they try. Spelling really is difficult for some, and it's hard to comprehend that when it's something you find comes naturally.

[ShadowMaat]

Dyslexics and non-native speakers tend to be a lot better about grammar and spelling than native speakers do. I'm not complaining about them, I'm focusing on the ones who speak English as a primary language and have no valid "problems" with words/letters, they're simply too lazy or disinterested to care. "If you can understand it, why does it matter?" Well, it DOES matter to me. If "grammar elitists" are a bunch of snobs, abusers of the language aren't a heck of a lot better. They can be just as arrogant about their lack of effort as those of us who actually proofread before posting. And a lot of the time, it isn't even a matter of not knowing, it's a matter of not caring. "If it's good enough for me, that's all that matters."

[Jprime]

Its pure laziness, theres no excuse for it! I really dont care if its the Internet, The-other-place-I-go-when-Im-not-using-the-Internet, Phone, Text Messaging, Telegraph or any other such thing! A lot of people spend a good deal of time making sure thier posts are well-written and easy to understand. Remember, the easier the post is to read, the more people will understand it and respond to it. Isn't that the POINT of posting????

[Jprime]

Wow! Did The Thread Move????