Poll Is our spilling going down the drain?

[jedidia]

Sorry, i didn't meant you specifically, but an example of necessity of structured education.

Ah. I wouldn't consider that unnesecary at all, no matter wheather with or without calculator. You still need to know what you're doing, or a calculator won't help you very far. The dispute was about how much sense intensive training in orthography/doing math in your head makes these days.

Salesmen here try to sell you a fridge with discount of half of the overprice, and in credit for 99 years with 0% yearly stated, but 50% monthly in fine print.
They also love selling free stuff.

Hmmm, I guess we have the same problem when it comes to contracts... in everyday commodity exchange things go very smoothly, at least if you're buying in your home city where people know each other. It's probably a bit different in Moscow, I imagine.

If you can't keep track of your super market shopping in your head, you should be deeply scared...

I can't even keep track of the required items in my head, much less of their prices!

 

[Ghostrider]

Salesmen here try to sell you a fridge with discount of half of the overprice, and in credit for 99 years with 0% yearly stated, but 50% monthly in fine print.
They also love selling free stuff.

Same thing about everywhere, with some variations.

Then there are the people who try to sell you something they don't have. They actually succeed more often than not.

 

[T.Neo]

I agree on both the issues of the calculator and the spellchecker. Still, using a calculator made it easier for me to understand the actual task at hand, rather than struggling with the distraction of long division and carrying 1s and whathaveyou. Repetition of that is what is supposed to make it easier, of course- maybe it's just me. I never agreed with maths.

Similarly I'd much prefer to use a spellchecker that lets me see my mistakes, and see where I've gone wrong, rather than an automatic spellchecker- something that can be both annoying and incorrect. Sure, situations where one is derived the capability of a spellchecker are becoming rare, but actually knowing the correct spelling increases output and efficiency.

I pride myself on my spelling, but I get it wrong often- most of the time when the word looks right, but isn't. My worst offenders are differant (different) and neccesary (necessary). :facepalm:

 

[martins]

Somewhat on topic: the OECD has just published their latest PISA study (testing reading, maths and science skills in secondary schools across more than 50 countries). Looks like if you are living in Shanghai, Korea or Finland (or if you are a girl), you've got a good chance of having learned to read (and presumably, spell) properly.

I see that the UK is intrepidly continuing its march down the tables ...

 

[Ghostrider]

I see that the UK is intrepidly continuing its march down the tables ...

Only the UK? I'm surprised. We're already living in a world where most believe "Delenda Carthago" is the spell Harry Potter uses to erase parchment...

 

[martins]

Only checked the UK, and only the ranking, not the absolute scores. Therefore, somebody else must have improved. Although there may be new entries, so the comparison to earlier results may be skewed.

Only the UK? I'm surprised. We're already living in a world where most believe "Delenda Carthago" is the spell Harry Potter uses to erase parchment...

The full incantation of the spell is actually "Cetero censeo Cartaginem esse delendam", if memory serves right.

 

[Urwumpe]

The full incantation of the spell is actually "Cetero censeo Cartaginem esse delendam", if memory serves right.

Your memory is right... that is the sentence that Cato always used for ending his political speeches, regardless to which topic.

 

[Eccentrus]

why of course the spelling crisis is somewhat a global incident these days, and as siberiantiger had said, it focuses more on languages which use alphabets rather than kanji or other tonic script, I can very well see this happening in AmEng speakers and in British speakers even though in a much lesser extent. And not surprisingly in my own nation's language, which happens to be more of a lingua franca rather than a proper native language, hence the fact that most Indonesian speak a pidgin form of it mixed with the local language of the isle/district where they were born. And interestingly, the spelling mistakes or shifts is related heavily to the other language/ native language of the speaker/writer or the culture in which they grew up in. For example the rise of islamism has brought a spelling shift which popularize the arabization of some words which indeed have arabian origins, such as Friday (Jumat -> Jum'at); sharia -> syariah; congregation(jemaat -> jamaah) and not surprisingly, some words related to religion yet have their roots in Sanskrit were also shifted e.g: heaven (surga -> syurga). And then again, with the increasing influence of evangelical christianity of the US to the Indonesian churches and aided by the fact that most Indonesian scientist are educated there, the english loan word from AmEng is rising at an unprecedented state, and of course this brings about a spelling shifts of dutch loanwords into their english or anglo-latin spelling (kwalitas/kwaliteit->kualitas); talent (bakat -> talenta) and this happens extensively in the increasingly educated population of Jakarta and the other large cities, who prefer to use some odd concoction of Indonesian and English words as a language with progressively deteriorating grammar and spelling, due to the fact that Indonesian grammar is a total disaster compared to the English (even though the English's grammar is actually incomprehensibly simple compared to its ancestors)

and well, I actually am interested in how languages which use Cyrillic script like Russian can have spelling shift or deterioration, especially dealing with the linguistic anglicization of the modern age.

 

[Izack]

I find spell checkers are more useful for finding typing errors more than spelling ones. I have a bad habit of pressign the ubttons in the wrong ordre, and holding SHift for too long, or ACCIDENTALLY PRESSING CAPSLOCK, though that one's easier to notice.

As GaryW already said, I think "txt-speak" is much more of a problem than poor spelling. It's an easy cop-out for people who don't care about learning to spell properly, and is also a bad example for people who may otherwise not mind using proper English on the 'net. The use of 'u' in place of 'you' particularly makes me shudder, because I occasionally see it used in high-school essays by people who actually think it is correct.

 

[dgatsoulis]

I think that, it all comes down to, if you already know how to spell, or not.
As Artlav already pointed out, if you know the basics, then the spell-checker is just a tool.
When i was in school (some 15 years ago - Greek school), we had a class called "etymologia" (etymology). It was actually very interesting to find out, where such words as "astronomy", "astrology"(and to know the difference), "mathematics", "theory", "theorem", etc, derived from...
Unfortunately the spell-check doesn't really work in Greek. Passive voice and active voice verbs, sound about the same... (but are written differently), it's only in the context of the sentence that you can understand what's been used... But i'm still proud of my language!

 

[Unstung]

As GaryW already said, I think "txt-speak" is much more of a problem than poor spelling. It's an easy cop-out for people who don't care about learning to spell properly, and is also a bad example for people who may otherwise not mind using proper English on the 'net. The use of 'u' in place of 'you' particularly makes me shudder, because I occasionally see it used in high-school essays by people who actually think it is correct.

Speaking of it, I used to type like that often about four or five years ago. When I begun to accidentally write "u" instead of "you" in everything, I stopped. The problem was fixed soon after. As for actually thinking it's correct... that's crazy. When I proofread, I mispronounce obvious spelling errors which helps me catch them easily.
Now, I'm terrible at spelling certain words.

 

[ryan]

The use of 'u' in place of 'you' particularly makes me shudder, because I occasionally see it used in high-school essays by people who actually think it is correct.

There was a similar problem here in Australia, half of the class failed a test becuase they used text talk instead of proper pronunciation, and not at my school of course but my school for sure could have something like that :facepalm:

 

[fireballs619]

As GaryW already said, I think "txt-speak" is much more of a problem than poor spelling. It's an easy cop-out for people who don't care about learning to spell properly, and is also a bad example for people who may otherwise not mind using proper English on the 'net. The use of 'u' in place of 'you' particularly makes me shudder, because I occasionally see it used in high-school essays by people who actually think it is correct.

I'll agree here also, 'txt-speak' makes me cry at the butchery of the English language. I will admit, however, that I sometimes use it when IMing friends or actually texting. My friends know me, know that I can actually spell, so I don't see any harm in abbreviating (the point of language syntax, after all, is to have standards with which ideas can be conveyed). I would never consider using txt-speak outside of conversations with my friends, and get extremely annoyed when people do so.

A tad off topic, but I was wondering: Do other languages have abbreviated 'txt-speak', as does English?

 

[Izack]

A tad off topic, but I was wondering: Do other languages have abbreviated 'txt-speak', as does English?

I instant-message a number of French people around here, and they use a lot of English Internet slangs like WTF, LOL, BRB, etc. Other than that I can never tell if they're using shorthand French words or are just bad spellers. :lol:

 

[Keatah]

This is being written in a rambling style of writing.. more or less.

I believe modern media and the internet is encouraging butchering of the English language. Businesses and corporate culture are also culprits. It's not only spelling that is becoming a problem it is the meaning of words.

"Let's circle-back and devacation this synergistic concept.." Uhm let's all walk in a circle, then go backwards. Then we can bring up an old topic that seems harmonious with the new topic.

All these buzzwords that have alternate meanings in corporate culture, like out-of-pocket. It could mean take your keys out of your pocket. Or perhaps it might mean you have to pay your own expenses. Even means you are off duty till a certain time.. According to some buzzword article on the internet here -- http://www.risesmart.com/risesmart/blog/the-worst-business-buzzwords-we-can’t-stop-using/

Advertising media says KWIK instead of QUICK. Or KAR instead of CAR. There is the spelling problem.

Then you just have plain old laziness on the part of parents teaching their kids the rules of spelling. And those same kids being exposed to words from the Urban Dictionary and those alternate meanings. Laziness induced by electronic spell checkers isn't all that bad though. It's the L33t speak encouraged by sending Short Message System messages. And piss-poor expression of ideas. Everybody is trying too hard to stand out and be different. And yet conform.

I also don't like new words made up for something that could easily be explained by existing words. Like "sexting", for example. I guess the media industry needed a new word with edgy and a "implicative-of-bad-stuff" connotation surrounding it.

Seems the same back-and-forth fighting is displayed by the electronics industry, they want you have a small device to watch movies on..like an ipad or cell-a-phone. Then they say that's no good and they want you to watch movies on a big 60" screen. Then they say that is inconvenient and you have to watch movies on-the-go, with your phone or touchpad enabled pocket device. Then they say that that is not the correct experience, you are not seeing it in HD then you better get mid-size screen with HD or some other newfangled buzzword feature.

So it all comes down to twisted meanings and "creative" ways of differentiating those meanings! And improper spelling is only one method used there.

Technology and office work are the absolute two worst "endeavours" when it comes to inventing new words. Just as bad as nasa and the space program with acronyms.

IMHO office buzzwords are 'invented' by some young strapping executive male that has no experience, OR, a fat lady promoting some sort of pet project.