Thread: Spell it Right

I am glad I have things in my life that are more important than proper speling, Like taking some pain pills and staring at a corner of the wall. How do you spell " obsessive compulsive disorder " ?

For the record the correct spelling is actually: eBetray. At least in this cyber-community.

My name is Axel. It's both ancient Germanic and ancient Hebrew. In spite of its validity I get plenty of jokes and tons of misspellings.

You can get by in English without much knowledge of grammar.
When you try to learn another language such as French, you find any deficiencies in your knowledge of grammar are a real hindrance.
I speak from practical experience.

Originally Posted by Obie

Hello, Lazarus:

My thoughts on the subject of the spelling of the word eBay were meant for myself and no one else. That's why I started my initial post with the following: "I insist on good grammar and punctuation for myself."

Well said Obie. Focusing on the only person we can control (ourselves) is so much more productive than trying to fix those around us. Please be assured I didn't mean to imply that you were advocating being a pedantic grammar stickler. I was really just talking to myself as I suffer from a tendency to such pedantry as demonstrated by my correcting your use of the word most.

I always find your posts to be thoughtful and well written and I have derived much pleasure and edification from reading them.

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

No it isn't!!!

No, it isn't! Mine is Portuguese. But we got the point... I always try to spell everything as correctly as possible. And I try to do the same in English - because English became what Esperanto was supposed to be: a common language. However, the point is taken! And I do think that I do pretty well in English... Mind you that my English is written without any aid from a correcting gizmo.

Since we're here let me tell you all a little story. You all remember when you went to school to learn how to read and write, right? I do. And I remember that spelling mistakes were not accepted in any way. Why? Because this was the point - learn the way to express yourself. If we do not have the propper vocabulary we will never be able to express aour thoughts, our ideas and ultimately, we cannot fight for our freedom.
So... some years ago my eldest cousin (now 15 years old) was learning how to read and write. One day he came home with a text he had written at school. My aunt took a look at it and was appaled. The thing was uncompreensible. There were so many spelling mistakes that they were no longer mistakes... the kid didn't know how to write as he was supposed to.
The next day my aunt went to school and paid a visit to her son's teacher thinking that something was wrong with the kid's learning abbilities. To her amazement the teacher - if I can call her that without offending the teaching class - told her that the spelling mistakes were not a problem... because the important thing is not to learn the tools to express yourself propperly but what the kid thinks! WHAT?!!! What is a 10 year old supposed to think? Who cares about that? Is she quite MAD?! I felt like... kidnaping the little idiot (the teacher) and tie her up in my basement and force her to read Orwell's 1984 one thousand and eighty four times aloud until she realizes that without propper vocabulary one simply cannot express oneself correctly. Plus, writing is the one thing that makes what we are as a culture... Fortunately the kid got to grow up with propper schooling because the stupid idiot teacher went away at the end of the school year and the kid is quite clever and curious.
Well... this is me ranting and speaking my mind.

I hope the spelling was acceptable.

i too am a stickler for correct spelling.. punctuation on the other hand is something i have no idea how to do correctly.. i just place a ".." between sentences and will go ahead and throw a question mark in whenever needed.. and who needs capitalization anyway? as long as i'm using the right who's or whose.. i figure i'm doing ok..

Gentlemen:

Thank you for your thoughts.

What led me to my initial post on the frequency with which I have misspelled the word eBay is an item in my book "Obie's Opus." It is about the great opera composer Rossini, who was known for his acerbic sense of humor.

Rossini marked the errors on student papers with crosses. He once sent a manuscript back to a student with few markings. "I'm so happy there are so few mistakes," the kid beamed. Looking stern, Rossini shot back, "If I had marked all the errors in the music with crosses, your score would be a cemetery."

Regards,
Obie

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

No it isn't!!!

The people who post on this site using correct English, although English is not their first language, make me ashamed about the state of my spelling ability.

Spell checker is God sent.

I must say thank you to fpessanha for using the term 'proper' english. As Obie used the term 'good' it made me cringe slightly. Grammar and spelling, in most cases cannot be good or bad. Being that currently I do not wish to prove cases for bad spelling right now I won't.
I, usually, do not care about proper spelling. Up until fairly recent times in the history of language proper spelling was not only unnecessary, but uncommon even among the educated.

Originally Posted by deighaingeal

I must say thank you to fpessanha for using the term 'proper' english. As Obie used the term 'good' it made me cringe slightly. Grammar and spelling, in most cases cannot be good or bad. Being that currently I do not wish to prove cases for bad spelling right now I won't.
I, usually, do not care about proper spelling. Up until fairly recent times in the history of language proper spelling was not only unnecessary, but uncommon even among the educated.

This is true. If you look at the original writings of our founding fathers, in paricular Jefferson, who took great pride in education, their spelling was atrocious (did I spell that correctly?) by our standards It just wasn't important then. On the other hand, I've seen hand-written letter by a 19th century ranch hand by the name of Henry McCardy (aka Billy the Kid) and noted that the spelling, grammar and even the handwriting were impeccable.