Thread: Spell it Right

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.

Sadly, folks here seem to pay little, if any, attention to how the owners of PayPal spell/portray their name; it's



and please notice that only the "Y" appears in upper-case; the other letters are clearly lower-case.

Perhaps all the squinting through tiny jewelers' loupes, at even tinier scratches (real and imagined) on the bevel of a blade, have caused some of you to "lose the forest for the trees". I'm just sayin'.



Hey! smooth shaving...

PS: My family name is Horen, but it took forever to get JimmyHAD to not prepend a "w".

Originally Posted by JBHoren

Sadly, folks here seem to pay little, if any, attention to how the owners of PayPal spell/portray their name; it's



and please notice that only the "Y" appears in upper-case; the other letters are clearly lower-case.

Perhaps all the squinting through tiny jewelers' loupes, at even tinier scratches (real and imagined) on the bevel of a blade, have caused some of you to "lose the forest for the trees". I'm just sayin'.



Hey! smooth shaving...

PS: My family name is Horen, but it took forever to get JimmyHAD to not prepend a "w".

They actually spell it both as "ebaY" and "eBay" but your post gave me a good chuckle anyways.

Originally Posted by leadduck

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.

Very interesting I'd want to see that. I love small facts of history.

I only know poor english and bad english, I'm lucky when spell check recognizes my words

Lets hear it for the school system letting me out functionally illiterate and only 1 semester of general math At the time I thought it was pretty funny, now I'm just sad...

Originally Posted by deighaingeal

Very interesting I'd want to see that. I love small facts of history.

I saw the letter in the book, Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride by Michael Wallis. Interestingly, I saw it in a bookstore but it was absent from the edition I bought on Amazon.

I think my English and spelling is more or less ok although i still make mistakes. I've heard that getting into same level with someone who speaks English as a mothers language is almost impossible.
I get Obies point about proper spelling, but he should hear me (or any other Finn as well) speak English. Wouldn't be a pleasure for any English ears. We pronounce vocals more or less different here.

Have to consider, at least here, that 'official' language is something almost nobody speaks correctly. It is a compromise between different dialects from different parts of the country, and those dialects might differ very much.