I was playing an online game yesterday (Red Orchestra) and something happened that got me thinking. Some guy was advertising his clan, and at the end of his text message, he said:
but be warned this clan isnt for the week hearted
Being the language and spelling geek that I am, I said:
Heh, I believe that should be weak hearted.
His response was, “yeah i know but does spellig really matter?” I couldn’t tell you exactly why, but his response blew me away. I actually had a moment where my mouth was probably hanging open, and through my mind ran the thought, “What did he just say?” Does spelling really matter? Does spelling really matter? Of course it does! How can you even entertain such a question? After my shock had faded a bit, I thought about it some more. Does spelling matter? Granted, spelling does matter when, if you don’t spell correctly, the message you’re communicating could be distorted, confused, or lost completely. But if you misspell something and your audience can still understand what you’re trying to convey, does spelling matter? To me, the answer would still be yes for a couple of reasons.
First, it’s simply a matter of pride. If you know how to spell something correctly, then misspell it and not correct it (or simply misspell it on purpose for no apparent reason), to me, that’s just laziness. If you know how to spell a word correctly, please – do so.
Second, using incorrectly spelled words consistently is, to me, almost like a slap in the face to the language that’s being used. Spelling is one of the cornerstones of language; to undermine that cornerstone undermines the entire language. I suppose one could say it a shorter way: misspelled words are disrespectful to the language being used. Then again, maybe I’m just anal retentive when it comes to such things. Poor grammar also drives me wild. I cringe when I see or hear things like “I seen”. If someone truly doesn’t know the correct way to say that (“I saw”), that’s fine; but if they do know and just say “I seen” out of laziness… ugh. That drives me bonkers.
So, what’s your take? Does spelling matter? What about online? shud we all tipe lik3 thiz fr0m now in!!??
My eyes, they’re bleeding!
Comments 18
Hi Josh
Enjoyed reading your piece on spelling. As someone whose bills have been paid by orthographical exactitude for 3 decades, I’d definitely say correctness does matter.
All the best
Posted 02 Dec 2006 at 7:38 pm ¶Woodsy
Woodsy: Thanks for commenting, and I’m glad you enjoyed the post. Your remark about your bills being paid by orthographical exactitude has piqued my interest: what do you do for a living?
Posted 02 Dec 2006 at 8:03 pm ¶You got the message, so spelling really doesn’t matter then.
Posted 03 Dec 2006 at 4:58 am ¶Thanks for this post!
Posted 03 Dec 2006 at 6:55 am ¶I have to do a lot of proofreading at work and sometimes it’s terrible what people do to language. For example, a lot of people in Germany think that you can use ’s for genitive, like in English. Or don’t use hyphens for words. Their argument: “It doesn’t have a hyphen in English”. Aaaargh!!!!!
It’s ok to “tipe lik3 thiz” if you see Leed-Speak or SMS-Spelling as new languages (or at least new ways of spelling – as the New Zealand schools do). But then you still have to follow some rules to convey the message. Spelling does matter.
Hi again Josh
I’m a freelance translator working into English from French, German, Spanish, Italian and Dutch in the main. Most of the material I handle is very mundane – contracts, specifications and the like. Consequently, contributing to and writing my own blog is a bit of light relief.
One further point I should have added in my previous comment was that knowing the rules of the language is important because that allows you to bend them and ignore them for specific effect: this can be seen in any good author’s work, particularly when conveying dialogue; even Chaucer did the latter, varying his spelling (rather fluid in those long-gone days) to reflect the regional accents of his characters.
Regards
Posted 03 Dec 2006 at 9:18 am ¶Woodsy
Woodsy: That sounds like a really enjoyable profession! How long did it take you to learn that many languages?
That’s another really good point.
Posted 03 Dec 2006 at 9:52 am ¶Zeitlos:
I’m not German, but I hate the whole Denglish movement. I don’t want to see “downloaden” as a verb in German.
Posted 03 Dec 2006 at 9:53 am ¶Josh
I started out as a translator 30 years ago with 3 languages. The rest have been picked up along the way.
As for the enjoyment. If you enjoy your own company, it’s fine; I work alone, so no office politics, decent coffee and I can listen to the radio without anyone complaining!
Woodsy
Posted 03 Dec 2006 at 10:16 am ¶Woodsy: I’m a bit of a loner, so I’d love that. I like people, but I really cherish my alone time.
Are you fluent in all of them speaking-wise, or just reading and writing? Recently in my learning of German, I’ve found that being able to do one (i.e., read) has nothing to do with another (say, listening).
Posted 03 Dec 2006 at 10:18 am ¶Josh
Just reading and writing fluency mostly, although I intend to do a bit more travelling next year to try and remedy the decline in spoken proficiency
Posted 03 Dec 2006 at 10:35 am ¶Woodsy: Cool. Do you know where you’re going yet? Perhaps just a general tour of Europe?
Posted 03 Dec 2006 at 10:36 am ¶By the way, I checked out your blog; I’m now subscribed to the RSS feed.
Josh: at the moment just Paris for some music and book shopping (plus a good feed) and I’ve arranged to stay with friends in Crete in the spring.
Very glad to hear you’ve subscribed to the feed. I suppose that means I’ll have to keep it updated now!
Woodsy
Posted 03 Dec 2006 at 11:14 am ¶I try my best to write proper English when blogging; but I know I get some “you’re” when I mean “your”, but this is things I try to correct when I see them. But I get rather frustrated when I see I’ve misspelled or have bad grammar in comments – as I can not edit them.
Zeitlos: We having the same problem in Norwegian as well. – I think people read too much English these days.
Posted 03 Dec 2006 at 1:13 pm ¶Bad spelling annoys me. What drives me up the wall, though, is “of” replacing “‘ve”.
He should of known better!
Posted 03 Dec 2006 at 4:51 pm ¶Josh: I love denglish. The problem is that a lot of people don’t recognize, when they mix up languages. Is this also true for Norwegian, Kristin?
But we would never write like this.
Posted 04 Dec 2006 at 2:24 pm ¶Marcel and I often talk in a German English mix just for fun, like: “Could you help me, bitte? I need the Geschenkpapier but I komm nicht an die Schranktür.”
Zeitlos: Gah. I don’t like that at all! Then again, I’m not German and I don’t live in Germany, so it doesn’t really matter.
I’ll use “bitte” occasionally, like you mentioned. But I’d never say “I need the Geschenkpapier but I komm nicht an die Schranktür.”
Posted 05 Dec 2006 at 10:38 am ¶Zeitlos: We have a lot of English word mixed up in Norwegian, especially computer/ web jargon, and some people don’t even know there’s Norwegian words for the same thing. – But that genetiv ’s is the worst.
Posted 05 Dec 2006 at 12:13 pm ¶Spelling is a slap in the face to the language we use? English is a slap in the face to the people who were forced to adopt it when their countries were colonized. In that case, pull out the gloves.
Then again, English is a really messy creole to begin with. The spellings of words are arbitrary and they change over time.
Posted 10 Feb 2008 at 10:17 pm ¶Post a Comment