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Not a popular sentiment, and perhaps elitist, but I often feel that stupidity is a choice. And that does bother me that people choose stupidity. That may be a personal issue that I have to own.
Perhaps some of us are of the mind that we would should strive for excellence, and in particular, excellence in writing.
I agree with this sentiment.
Certainly, there are highly intelligent, successful people who have learning disabilities or come from circumstances that make them seem "dumb." Maybe they're not the best at spelling or speak with a heavy regional accent that makes the average person think of them as unintelligent at first glance. Maybe they didn't do well in school early on and spent the rest of their life busting their back building a successful business and were too busy to bother polishing up their grammar or whatever.
There are plenty of people who are simply lazy or just don't care enough about their situation to make any sort of improvement - whether educationally, personally or financially. I don't mean people who are stuck in a bad situation, struggling to survive and don't have time to worry about other things. I'm talking about people who are simply satisfied with the the way things are.
An an example of somebody like this is a guy I worked with many years ago in a factory. He worked there at a dead end job in shipping/receiving. All day long, all you ever heard the guy talk about was sports. You could tell if his team won or lost the night before based on his mood that day. This wasn't somebody who would go home at night and ponder great questions or try to get a college degree in his spare time. He just cared about watching sports. He never stuck me as being stupid. Just a normal guy who seemed content to float along.
Let me clarify that I'm not only talking about errors on C-D. They are seen everywhere, from Facebook to advertising signs.
When I went back to college as a 32 year old I was *shocked* at the lack of knowledge among my fellow students, and this was for papers and essays being typed on programs with spell check and grammar check built right in! It is the height of laziness if you can't be bothered to check a word that has the squiggly red line right there pointing it out to you.
I am NOT talking about people who have disabilities or are new to English. However, I am potentially going to be an ESL teacher and let me tell you, my students will know the differences between your and you're, there, their, and there, etc.
Please also teach them the difference between "have" and "of" (would have, not would of). It is a different word, different meaning, different sound, unlike there and they're, which at least are pronounced the same. It is only recently I have noticed this misuse of the word "of" pretty much all over the internet. If "would have" is too difficult to type then maybe they could try "would've", it's the same amount of keystrokes as "would of" and it's actually correct.
No one says "I of to go to class" so you don't say or write "I would of gone to class", it's the same nonsense, and obviously they never made it to class or maybe they of gone to class and not learned much have anything.
Is the savant that (not who) has poor spelling or grammar "stupid"?
Do people who use perfect spelling and grammar think they're smarter than everyone else?
Lol!
Is the savant that (not who) has poor spelling or grammar "stupid"? Do people who use perfect spelling and grammar think they're smarter than everyone else?
Lol!
Sure! I do...when we're talking about spelling and grammar. When we're talking about math or how to open a plastic package without cutting myself, I just slink into the background.
Similarly, I don't understand people who need to reply and point out minor spelling/grammar mistakes that don't really detract from communicating the main ideas of the message.. especially if that's the entire point of the reply (as opposed to writing a meaningful reply and adding something like "oh, btw, you misspelled <insert word>")
Why do people get upset or even freak out when their written spelling or grammar is corrected? I'm not talking about embarrassingly correcting someone aloud.
Auto-correct is basically everywhere, as is dictionary.com, etc. We all went to school and were supposed to learn the difference between there, their, and they're. It's not that difficult to check if what you wrote is correct.
Correcting another person's spelling in a public venue the likes of this forum for example is both rude and a rather cheap slight. Furthermore, if I am better educated than another, and I correct their spelling because they don't know any better, it's rather telling when a stronger person picks on one who's weaker.
For anybody who's a well versed writer and has done a lot of it, they're all too familiar with the fact that spell check isn't as good as it could be. For example, I spent five years at see on a scowl. It's the best I could do off the cuff, but spell check let see pass for sea and scowl pass for scow.
I disagree with auto-correct because it's got serious limitations, and that's just what I can see. Imagine somebody who's truly intelligent and educated in writing and English could point out. Furthermore, most people have a provincial education, they post here for light amusement, to exchange ideas, and even if they've the preparatory education to write a thesis, they're not here to be graded.
It's an interesting topic though.
Cheers,
bolillo
Last edited by bolillo_loco; 11-06-2013 at 02:46 PM..
Reason: No Rhodes scholar here
Correcting another person's spelling in a public venue the likes of this forum for example is both rude and a rather cheap slight. Furthermore, if I am better educated than another, and I correct their spelling because they don't know any better, it's rather telling when a stronger person picks on one who's weaker.
For anybody who's a well versed writer and has done a lot of it, they're all too familiar with the fact that spell check isn't as good as it could be. For example, I spent five years at see on a scowl. It's the best I could do off the cuff, but spell check let see pass for sea and scowl pass for scow.
I disagree with auto-correct because it's got serious limitations, and that's just what I can see. Imagine somebody who's truly intelligent and educated in writing and English could point out. Furthermore, most people have a provincial education, they post here for light amusement, to exchange ideas, and even if they've the preparatory education to write a thesis, they're not here to be graded.
It's an interesting topic though.
Cheers,
bolillo
True, but by posting anything on a public forum (C-D, Facebook, twitter, etc) you are opening yourself up to response or criticism of all kinds. It is a risk one takes.
And the limitations of auto-correct just show how important it is to proofread!
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