soapbox

[opabinia]

Spell check. If you're talking about how smart or correct you and your like-minded acquaintances are in comparison to another group, and your writing frequently contains misspellings that are clearly not typos, you're making more than one person look kinda dumb.

(Or not -- I can grasp the idea that your writing isn't necessarily representative of your peer group, so it's unfair to assume others can't. [Well, not always, but that's not nice.] Still -- spell check, or you'll look dumb. Again.)

Comments

[disco-vixen.livejournal.com]

eeesh, spelling errors that are not typos is worse than picking your nose in public. Like when a client emails me about their magazine add. GAWD!

[bottleimp.livejournal.com]

That just means that they have trouble concentrating on a single magazine for very long.

[popetom.livejournal.com]

It's not a spelling mistake, it's an accent.

-PT

[jhimm.livejournal.com]

one reason i don't like continuing to use PINE as an email client
is a lack of spell check.
i'm a horrid speller, always have been.
but,
the way it allows me to filter spam and embedded HTML and other crap
i doubt i'll switch away from it anytime soon.

i've typically taken the view
that anyone who's cutting down my opinions
because i can't spell
rather than for aspects of the opinions themselves
is looking for excuses to disagree with me,
or to conclude that i'm not very smart,
so it makes them easy to identify and ignore.

i tend to be more critical of typos,
which make one's writing seem rushed and unchecked,
than i am of spelling errors which are clearly rooted in ignorance
given how unpredictable english spelling is.
as someone who was always far more interested
in math, science, computers and the arts
i couldn't be bothered to memorize how to spell several hundred words
so i can't expect anyone else to.

my LJ client has a built in spell check which makes me happy,
but i tend to skip the "check spelling and preview" step
when it comes to comments
because i type with a lot of slag, jargon, acronyms and the like
all of which get flagged as misspelled
and it's just annoying.
i suppose it's valid
to label that as lazy.
to me,
its just an issue of priorities.

when i was in college,
studying to be a high school teacher,
i had to take an entire semester long course
on teaching literacy within my content area.
basically,
making sure Johnny can read
at the same time i was teaching him geometry.
it drove me bats.
how was this my problem?
was the english teacher going to teach algebra
at the same time they were teaching Moby Dick?
why is being able to read
so much more important than other curricula?
within 20 years
computers will read and write for us.
it will all be voice driven.
reading and writing will be an art form
much like public speaking is more or less an art form, now.
english majors used to get very very upset
when i said things like that.

[lepidosiren.livejournal.com]

I agree with plenty of people who can't spell, but I think it's harder to persuade people who disagree with you if your spelling is bad. As you said: Even people who know you're right can use the irrelevant spelling errors against you. That can influence people who don't think as critically, but whose opinions can shape events as much as anyone else's.

Anyhoo, I place value on spelling because it suggests that the writer knows not only the right words, but where they come from, and maybe what they've meant over time. It also suggests good pattern recognition, not just memorization. A good speller can guess if an unfamiliar word is borrowed from French, or derived from Greek, or whatever, and try to spell it accordingly.

All this masturbation (on my part, I mean) made me curious:

pedant
1588, "schoolmaster," from M.Fr. pédant (1566), from It. pedante "teacher, schoolmaster," apparently an alteration of L.L. paedagogantem (nom. paedagogans), prp. of paedagogare (see pedagogue). Meaning "person who trumpets minor points of learning" first recorded 1596. Pedantic formed in Eng. c.1600, in Donne's "Sunne Rising," where he bids the morning sun let his love and him linger in bed, telling it, "Sawcy pedantique wretch, goe chide Late schooleboyes."

*snort*

[jhimm.livejournal.com]

because it suggests that the writer knows not only the right words, but where they come from, and maybe what they've meant over time. It also suggests good pattern recognition, not just memorization. A good speller can guess if an unfamiliar word is borrowed from French, or derived from Greek, or whatever, and try to spell it accordingly.

the only people i've known who did that
with any kind of effortless aptitude,
were humanities majors,
typically english majors.
which is why i say
that it kind of comes down to priorities.
spelling well has just never been important to me.
i accept that makes me "look stupid" to a certain type of person.
most of the time,
that type of person hasn't been important to me, either.
let's face it,
most of the people in my life are tech engineers,
and stereotypically,
engineers aren't great at the humanities.
socially,
people have had lots of reasons to disagree with me,
so spelling has been the least of my problems :)

[lepidosiren.livejournal.com]

Good points, all.

socially, people have had lots of reasons to disagree with me, so spelling has been the least of my problems

(I meant all the other points. :) )

[jhimm.livejournal.com]

oh,
many of those reasons people disagreed with me
were quite valid.

i spent most of 1998-2002
being a pretty big hoser.
and then spent 2003-2004
being a lower profile hoser.

the last 2 years have really only just been the beginning
of realizing what a bitter, angry, vindictive bastard
my divorce turned me into
and that if i didn't do something about undoing that,
i was going to be pretty isolated my entire life.

so,
i'd say that point was "good" as well ;)

[rynsect.livejournal.com]

why is being able to read
so much more important than other curricula?

perhaps it's because being able to read is what enables you to study all other curricula?

[jhimm.livejournal.com]

i disagree,
but don't care enough to debate/argue the issue
at any length.

but let's assume its true for a second.

if i'm teaching 10th grade math,
and Johnny can't read,
the damage is already -long- since done.
at that point,
Johnny shouldn't be in my class.
he needs to be removed from the mainstream,
brought up to speed,
re-taught everything he's missed over the last eleven years
(since he can't learn without being able to read).
so,
i still don't see how this was my problem as a teacher.

[lepidosiren.livejournal.com]

I think reading facilitates learning in all areas. That may not be the case sometime in the future, but it's certainly true now.

Jhimm is right: A 10th-grader should already know how to read and write, and it's not a math teacher's job to "fix" one who can't. I think this problem, and the question of how important general literacy is, compared to other fields of knowledge, are two different things. I wouldn't label one as a priority over another, except in chronological terms -- learn to read first, so you can learn math later.

[jhimm.livejournal.com]

that's kind of what i meant,
and i didn't take the time to say it more precisely.

when i said "important"
i meant
"why am i taking a class to learn how to teach literacy
if i am not a literacy teacher,
and yet no one else,
not even the elementary education majors,
take courses on ensuring aptitude
in math, science, technology etc".
in that sense,
the world of educational academia
has made literacy "more important".

which i'd have been ok with,
if i felt like it would have done any good
(my comments above already illustrating that i don't).

[youngenglshrose.livejournal.com]

I would have to agree with what you are saying. As I personally can't spell to save my life. Which is not due to laziness but to the fact that a lot of my mother's side of the family has had problems when it comes to spelling, grammar and reading.

[rynsect.livejournal.com]

if the course was in, as jhimm said when he first mentioned it, teaching literacy within his content area, then it sounds to me like the point of the training was to make the teacher better able to instruct the students in the kinds of reading necessary for that field, rather than a general catch-up for students who are poor readers. the idea is that there are many different kinds of texts, and those most fit to teach how to read a certain kind are those who spend the most time with it.

[morbidiqua.livejournal.com]

I have too many friends with impossible grammar problems to even start getting cringy about spelling (is there even such a word as cringy?). I often am sloppy with spelling, but incorrect conjugations make my mind melt.
Their, there and they're mistakes being my biggest pet peeves.

[panzerkunst.livejournal.com]

"Your awesome!"

Oh, that's my favorite. :-P

[wolfdreams01.livejournal.com]

Speaking as an annoying person who totally thinks he's smarter than other people (and comfortable with it) I'd just like to point out that some people do use wireless keyboards. Because the remote doesn't always pick up each keystroke, fast typers often suffer more typos on one of these.

[halo.livejournal.com]

I'm unapologetically a bigot when it comes to this stuff. I automatically take any text less seriously if it contains spelling/grammar/punctuation errors, especially of the obviously non-typo variety. Bad spelling in particular is like nails on a blackboard to my brain.

Call me elitist, but you know what? Unless it's handwritten, everyone basically always has the chance to spell check (or even grammar check), SO FOR GOD'S SAKE, DO IT.

I am thinking of instituting a policy with my students of refusing to accept papers that clearly haven't ever been run through a spell checker.