Be Excellent To Each Other

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7546975.stm



This spineless concession to the illiterati angers me just reading it.

I know that the internet is already an intellectual wasteland, the domain of ScreamingElmo3447, kEWTgRrL47 and pimpghettodawg666biatch69. But it shouldn't infect the normal world like this, or our language will degenerate into a series of grunts and lolololols.

In my opinion, poor spelling is the equivalent of speaking 'common, like, innit'. It doesn't come across well, you don't come across well, and it looks like you don't give a shit about what you're saying or whether people will respect you and what you're saying.

I suspect that this professor is just fed up with the utter gibberish he is undoubtedly forced to decipher as Shaznay and Wayne do his criminology course because CSI is well wikked bruv, and wants a way out of having to fail 90% of his students because they're brain-dead chavs.

NE THOTS?

Poor spelling and grammer from someone capable of better is insulting and unfair to those of us who struggle with such things. I'm not automatically any good at all with words and numbers, I've had to work at it, and learned how to do things more correctly as a result. So when someone cn't b rzd to meet me halfway, I don't bother paying them any attention.

What irks me most is colleagues doing it, as I can't ignore them. There's schizophrenic junkies beleagured by auditory hallucinations on my client roster who have better written English than some managers I've worked under.

I think it's an utter disgrace that someone should think of excusing poor spelling and grammar. I'm not 100% perfect myself but I like to think I'm pretty good. I have sometimes thought of pointing out a few errors by people on here but that might be being a bit of a cunt. There's a terrible lack of education in the English language these days and it's gravely disappointing. I wasn't taught how to use grammar at school and my handwriting looked like a 5 year old's until my dad taught me how to write when I Was about 13. Schools are failing to educate these days and I think it's because of the whole idea of 'allow them to express themselves in their own way'.

Sure language changes over time but to not even attempt to raise standards is criminal.

While I dislike 'lazy' spelling and grammer*, I do think that the actual subject being studied should have paramount importance in an academic situation. Surely it's a matter between him and his examining board though, rather than any kind of need to start a movement for acceptance of failure to spell in the English language.









*

But what happens when his criminology students have to deal with the Dictionary Killer? They won't be able to work out his next target if they can't spell properly, and lots of people will needlessly die as a result!

What indeed...

Let them spell like tards! Makes us look beter.

I saw some woman on the BBC website making a similar argument. Hers was for allegedly phonetic spelling. She then went on to discuss how "poor" would be spelled "por". That's all well and good, but a large chunk of the English populace don't pronounce it "por", which totally ruins her lovely easy "system". So, we'd be back to a system where the spelling is somewhat arbitrary compared to the pronunciation.

Fantastic.

The rest of the country tend to pronounce it 'pooer' though.


*snigger*

I could have done without reading this thread straight after watching Idiocracy, I can tell you.

I got a message on facebook that said

"hi lewis! long tym my friend! how is lyf? xxx"


tym = time
lyf = life


Urgh.

Did any of you actually read the article?

The professor isn't asking for "innit" and "lyf" to be accepted. But spellings like

Which are every bit as bad.

I argree with Meety Ingle.



I had thought this particular one was because these actually mean different things. The former is a person's good judgement, say, and the latter refers to a legal judgment by a judge. Or so I was told.

I may have to look this up now, as it's entirely possible that the lecturer concerned was taking the piss.

ah duno wot d problm is like. awl ma m8s tlk lyk how they spel. erm innit.

No, I can't do it. Even typing that abomination ^^^ hurt. I'm all for flexibility, after all spellings were only standarised by dictionary writers, but please, god, why can we let people fail anymore. I've mentioned in other threads the human waste product that I have to share my bus journeys with and I can see without looking that these kids are being ruined by being told that there's no such thing as 'thick'. The problem is, some people simply don't have the capacity to do more than a physical job. For christ's sake, you can earn a fortune as a labourer, you just need to develop a work ethic. As long as these kids are practically guaranteed 8 GCSE's, 3 ALevels and a 2:2 at the University of Dulwich (or wherever) then they will all have unrealistic expectations about jobs and life.

Christ, I sound like a right elitist snob there don't I? AND that's a council estate background and state education talking.

Fucking chavs.


Innit

Volcanos or volcanoes?

Programme or program?

I'm not saying that all the words the guy is proposing should even be considered. In fact most of the words he has suggested are absurd. Wenesday for Wednesday?? And There for Their can feck off. A list of the 20 words he put forward can be found here http://grumpy.blog.co.uk/2008/08/07/spelling-mistakes-just-acceptable-varian-4554156. This is what should be mocked.

I've just taken issue with people jumping on the back of this saying the professor is suggesting that "txt speek" should be acceptable when quite clearly he is not saying that.

I really don't seen the problem with twelth as well as twelfth and at a stretch truely for truly.

A lot of them just seem to be from people that have had "i before e except after c" drilled into their skull.
You probably shouldn't be at university if you can't get February and Wednesday right though.

The f in twelfth is quite important as you actually pronounce it.

Program is strictly computer-related, I think? And also a verb.

Computer Program. Television Programme. Theatre Programme.

I was going to say that as well. But forgot.

I don't care if people at my company can spell well as long as it isn't part of their job.
*shrugs*

Absolutely - but there's an argument that if you're studying at a university, it is part of your job.

Edumacation, innit.

Tru dat

I came to the same conclusion, but it's not a strict usage.

However, it is always "programming", and never "programmeing".

If he can't be bothered to spell check, I'm not likely to believe he's going to be bothered to do whatever I actually need him to do.

If he's got time to spell check everything, I want to know why he's not doing the job he's employed for.

I can sepll pettry wlel msot of the tmie, but my tpynig is pettry bdooly afuwl.

Deos tihs auctlly wrok? Can you raed tihs?

I rebememr sineeg an aedrvt at a trian satoitn ocne taht cmlaied taht you olny nedeed the frist and lsat ltteer of ecah wrod to be in the crrocet palce to raed the wrods crrocetly.

If he needs that much time to spell check that it's interfering with his work, he shouldn't be trusted outside of a playpen.

All 12 seconds of it? Unless he's a retard.

Plus, if anything could ever be seen by anyone outside the company, it needs to be right.

What if he's the guy that puts the desks together?

Yes it does work - for me at least - I could read that without any hindrance over my normal reading speed.

How would you even know about his spelling skills unless you expect written reports from the poor sod?

Then during his job he's not producing text.

If I was reading a CV I still want it spelt right. If he doesn't care about that I'll have no confidence my desk won't collapse.

Well, that's the point - I don't. So who cares if he uses the wrong "there" or doesn't put a capital I on 'Internet' (*ahem first post*) or puts brought instead of bought on his CV? Not I.

Until your desk collapses or he never turns up for work because clearly he can't be bothered to make the minimum of effort.

Oh yes, clearly. You can tell everything about someone by the way they spell, of course.

It doesn't bother me if people can't spell (though I may just not read anything they write if they can't), but if someone can't spell, I'm certainly not going to tell them their spelling is correct because it was close enough.

The origin here is actually a US thing. 'Program' = American English; 'programme' = British English. We now often use the American form for computer stuff, in the same way we talk about 'dialog' boxes.

As for spelling in general, it does evolve, and such natural evolution is taken into account in the likes of the OED. I don't think we should force alternate spellings, though, just because lots of people are making them, in the same way that I don't think we should drop indicating at roundabouts from the Highway Code, despite most car users thinking those pretty orange lights are merely decorative.

EDIT: I've just seen his list. ARGH! He suggests three alternate spellings for queue, all three of which already have different meanings. In speech, context arrives much more quickly, and can be clarified. However, in print, we need to be able to differentiate between words that sound the same when spoken, without reading the same sentence three times. Queue, que, cue and kew should not be bloody interchangeable. Likewise for 'there' and 'their'.

Of his other ideas—and I use the term 'ideas' loosely, and could easily have said 'verbal diarrhoea'—'Wensday' and 'mispelt' are particularly abhorrent. The former kills off the word's original meaning (Wōden's day—I like my etymology), and the latter means to mis-pelt, so to 'badly pelt' something. Maybe we should start hyphenating things more, to avoid such idiotic suggestions being made.

Again: ARGH!

There is no capital "i" in "internet".

Just like there're no capitals in any other number of nouns that seem to get randomly capitalised in articles, letters and emails these days.

It's all about acceptable standards. Them being subjective and everything

However, I think this thread is more of a dig at willful ignorance and the elevation of mediocrity, is it not?

Major pet peeve there. There is no capitals?

Language

Ha! Absolutely. A product of belting out a post too quickly and then not checking that my editing down didn't leave singular and plural bits next to each other. That originally said "Just like there's no capital at the start of "television", nor capitals in any other...."

I hang my head in shame.

You wouldn't believe how many arguments I've had (and mostly lost) with publishers about that. Mind you, I also canvassed opinions from various editors and some really good production editors I know (like one at The Times), and they came out about 50/50 on whether the word should be capitalised.

One of my main issues with this random capitalistion thing is that I come from a legal background. Yawn, I know, but bear with me.

In contracts only defined terms (e.g. "In this contract the following terms shall have the following meanings: 'Business Day' shall mean any day on which the banks in London are open for business; 'Cockfag' shall mean any person who camps on spawnpoints; 'Services' shall mean your mum blowing the workforce on Wednesdays" etc) and proper nouns are capitalised. Capitalisation is therefore incredibly important in a contract.

It also highlights the fact that you do not otherwise need to be capitalising words that aren't proper nouns. Why, for the love of god, would you write a sentence like "We will want to come to the factory to inspect the manufacture of the Goods to ensure that they are of sufficient Quality" in an email? The lack of consistency is almost as annoying as they irrationality of deciding to capitalise these things. Why are they capitalised? Is it because the writer thinks they're important? Why are they more important than "factory"?

Anyway. Unless it's a defined term in a contract, "internet" is not to be capitalised. There is no logic for deciding "Internet" is a proper noun. It isn't. It's no more a proper noun than "cat". So it's written "internet". (Unless it's at the start of a sentence, natch.)

I can't stand bad spelling. I know I've been guilty of this a few times myself, but how much effort is it to use a spell check? Even if you can't spell, you can fool people into thinking you can.

In fact.. that sounds like a Viz top tip!

"Can't spell? Fool people into thinking you can spell by using your computers spell check"

(I was going to type this in more of that loopy first-and-last-letter-correct-only nonsense, but it hurts so)

While that is true, it only works because you know the language well enough to know the correct spellings in the first place. If this guy has his way and you can just write any old gibberish, you'll no longer know the correct spelling and that little nugget will cease to work.

[/quote]
Nope, I just wanted to vent about a vaguely related thing that had happened to me recently.

There's no excuse for that to happen when you've got a full keyboard in front of you!

Internet isn't a proper noun. The Internet is.

And I think we're experiencing the point of the good prof's article.