Spelling police (paragraph, dictionary, sentence, grammar)

[msm_teacher]

Originally Posted by 28173

Please don't be offended, but if we want our kids to be "the best that they can be", we as parents should do the same and lead by example. While I realize this is just an internet forum, please make the effort to show us the best of you...

I hope to not ruffle too many feathers here, but it drives me crazy when I see so many spelling mistakes on this forum...
Most common ones:

1) Their vs. There vs. They're:
“Their” is a possessive pronoun: Their car is blue.
“There” is an adverb of location: The car is over there.
“They’re” is a contraction of “they are”: They’re going to the movies tonight.

2) Your vs. You're:
“Your” is a possessive pronoun: Your car is green.
“You’re” is a contraction of “you are”: You’re a great swimmer.

3) To vs. Too:
A printable explanation of the homophones “to”, “too”, and “two”.
“To” is a preposition used to indicate movement toward a person, place, or thing, an addition to something, or to indicate direction: Let’s go to the store.
“Too” means “excessively” or “more than enough”: That necklace was too expensive for me.

4) who’s vs. whose
INCORRECT: Parents who’s child is in high school.
CORRECT: Parents whose child is in high school.
Who’s is the contracted form of “who is.”: Who’s your teacher?
Whose is the possessive adjective form of who: Whose car are we going in?

Parts of your post are clearly directly at one of my posts. Well, get over it.

I find your assumption way off base that parents must have perfected writing skills to want our children to be the best they can be. Personally, I am a highly educated person with degrees in math and science. My writing may not be perfect, but I am usually able to make myself understood. When it really counts, I take the time to have someone proof my writing, but that is not going to happen on a casual chat board.

I saw several grammar and syntax errors in your original post and humbly suggest you look up the definition of a complete sentence.

[Mclaurin]

Tech. communication needs to be fast. Like conceptual art, is more about the concept.

[tijlover]

Increasingly, too many in this world are looking at leaves and not the trees or the forests. Personally, I find spelling mistakes to be refreshing, coming from those who are not ruled by microscopic egos!

[ApartmentNomad]

Weary - Adjective: Feeling or showing tiredness, esp. as a result of excessive exertion or lack of sleep.
Verb: Cause to become tired: "she was wearied by her cough".

Wary - Feeling or showing caution about possible dangers or problems: "dogs are often wary of strangers".

Although wary of joining the spelling police, I am weary of this particular mistake.

[michael_atw]

I'm not sure why spelling errors affect people so much. Are some of you this nit-picky in your everyday lives?


Maybe I'm just lenient. I do hate abbreviated "text-talk" but I do recognize that I can't expect everyone to be linguists.

[Mightyqueen801]

Originally Posted by michael_atw

I'm not sure why spelling errors affect people so much. Are some of you this nit-picky in your everyday lives?


Maybe I'm just lenient. I do hate abbreviated "text-talk" but I do recognize that I can't expect everyone to be linguists.

About spelling, yes, I am. Not about everything else.

Also, as has been said before, it has to be in context. At work, yes, you'd damn well better be spelling things correctly in public documents!

It's grating to see some of the errors that we see on City-Data, for example, but it's not necessary to call them out on the threads where they occur. It's only a message board.

However, it's nice to have a place like the "I can't take it anymore" thread on this forum where people who do care about written language can voice our frustration with people who are simply too lazy to bother. "Swats Sticker" for "Swastika"? "Pre-Madonna" for "Prima Donna"? Really? It's not OK with me that some Americans, who are provided with a basic education, willingly and deliberately look like a bunch of uneducated morons and aren't the least bit ashamed of it.

This isn't expecting anyone to be linguists. And yes, yawn, we know that some people have learning disabilities. But not that many people do. So many more are just plain lazy, and too many just don't read enough.

[JustJulia]

MQ, I don't want people to improve too much. I'd be out of a job!

[Mightyqueen801]

Originally Posted by JustJulia

MQ, I don't want people to improve too much. I'd be out of a job!

Hahaha, good point.

As to your rep note, yup. Saw it on a CD thread last year, and then just for the heck of it, I did a Google search and found that there's apparently more than one idiot out there.

[Fred314X]

Mightyqueen, apparently I haven't been as generous with my bestowal of rep points as I'm supposed to be, because I wasn't allowed to rep you for Post #16. But the thought was definitely (as opposed to "definatly") there.

[linicx]

As long as we are the subject of perfection, I thought I might add my own story. Once upon a time I had excellent writing skills. I loved the NYT Sunday Crossword even though it wasn't quite as much challenge as I hoped. Doing a crossword puzzle every night before I retired was a ritual I had enjoyed for many years.

And it came to pass some twenty years later that I woke up one morning to learn that sometime during the night I lost my writing, spelling, math and comprehension skills. It's taken 23 years to partially recover some of what I lost. I can't define syntax, or a dangling participle. I can't diagram a sentence. So what? I don't always type well or spell well. So what? I think the fact that I am alive and able to function on a daily basis is quite remarkable all things considered. (And I will always write a complicated sentence backward the first time.) So what? At least I can recognize something is wrong even though I don't comprehend what the problem is or why it does not read well.

I think parents who want their children to have an excellent education need to be involved with the teachers and every aspect of the school system from K to college. This includes the child learning all facets of the three R's: reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic. The kid will get spelling, grammar, sentence structure and will hopeful lylearn the art of how to hold a pencil and write cursive letters correctly.