Why can't people spell!?

Aww, the good ol' days.  Ya sometimes it can be funny, but when it's a simple word, it's just annoying. For instance once I posted on the duck forum that I loved my older di-ks  more than the new ducks.  That went over real well.

Angel, I would have just written that off to a Freudian slip.  []

Incorrect spelling is a peeve of mine. Sometimes it floors me when we receive email or faxes from corporate and it's chock full of misspelled words. When our old pharmacy manager used to create an email for corporate I made a point to proofread it for her because she'd misspell words, wouldn't use correct grammar or punctuation and I didn't want her to send an email to corporate that looked like a hot mess.
 
When it comes to dog message boards, I can overlook some things. Everyone is bound to make mistakes but I'll be honest... if I see a post that is horribly misspelled and lacks punctuation I cannot read it any further because it hurts my eyes.

Some of us old farts actually learned grammar in elementary school.  Grammar (and the cursed, much hated diagramming of sentences) was part of our regular English class.  Grammar hasn't been taught in school for a long time ... and it shows. Most of the kids in Jr. High today wouldn't know a verb from a noun from a pronoun if it jumped up and bit them on the arse. My youngest DS (now 29) was an A student in high school English, yet I had a hard time explaining to him how  just the word *Yes* or *Stop* could be a complete sentence. The phrase "the subject is understood" was something he had never heard.[]

Joyce

Ha, I just noticed the spell check, I will definately be making use of it!
 
Ive been living in Puerto Rico for about 3 years and my English has gone downhill a bit. My creative writing is no longer creative, and some words are getting difficult for me, but since ive noticed Ive worked really hard on getting my second language back to perfection!

My spelling went downhill with the use of spell check. I used to be an A+ speller, but now I can't spell anyting---antyhing---anything! [] 
 
When I see typos, it doesn't really bother me. Most of the time, I'm typing quickly in between calls, so my posts might not always be perfect. As others have pointed out, this is a dog forum, not an english forum. But I do like the posts to be at least mostly legible. And although I can read "chat speak", I don't think it's necessary to use that on a forum like this.

Since this board apparently doesn#%92t have a spell-checker for Firefox, I type the majority of my posts up in Word, let it run the spell and grammar check, then copy and paste into the post box.  Running spell check is too easy not to do and if anyone wants to be stricter about grammar than that, they need to realize that this is a place people come just for fun.

For those of you that think is snob talk, fine.  I'm not talking about MINOR typographical errors here.  I'm talking about people who think that tlking lik dis , is absolutly gr8 , and its lik u just dont want 2 listn.  So u can t8k it or l33f it.
 
That stuff is annoying.  As I stated earlier, everybody makes typographical errors.  We're human, we make mistakes, but when people purposely talk in chat speak or don't punctuate correctly, it makes things extremely hard to read!  Why should I bother reading your post if it's full of gobbeldygook?!  I can't bloody well understand you!

ORIGINAL: Roxie865

Since it should be obviously why those two sentences are revolting, I won't explain why.

hmmm..."obviously"?

I love these boards because I get to "meet" people who I may normally never associate with- people with very diverse backgrounds, people from different parts of the world.  I'll gladly put up with poor spelling and grammar to learn a few things and perhaps make a friend.
 
*edit*  Oops!  I just realized that I ended a sentence with a preposition!  So sorry!!  Let's get it right so I don't annoy anyone: I love these boards because I get to "meet" people with whom I may normally never associate.

Oh, wow!
There ISN'T a spell check for firefox!
I never use it on my other browser anyway.

Some of us old farts actually learned grammar in elementary school.  Grammar (and the cursed, much hated diagramming of sentences) was part of our regular English class.  Grammar hasn't been taught in school for a long time ... and it shows. Most of the kids in Jr. High today wouldn't know a verb from a noun from a pronoun if it jumped up and bit them on the arse.

 
I hear you, Joyce.  I tutored English for several semesters at a community college and I got sick of hearing that "we didn't have to do this in high school" or that correct grammar and spelling "interferes with creativity".  Grammar was always reviewed in every English class I ever had, K-12.
 
Kate also makes a good point, that we're here for fun and not perfection. 
 
I'm not fond of the 'net speak, abbreviations, etc. because I can't decipher it easily and that makes me feel kinda old and dumb.
 
Billy is right, too.  Misspellings can add a whole new meaning to things.  (OMG, did I just say Billy is right about something??!??!!).

ORIGINAL: fuzzy_dogs_mom  Grammar (and the cursed, much hated diagramming of sentences) was part of our regular English class.  

Oooh, Joyce -- to prove what a weirdo I was (or am!), I loved sentence diagramming!  Sometimes I think it would be fun to take those grammar classes again as an adult.  What a dork!
 
I agree with lots of points made here -- poor spelling and grammar can make a post very tough or annoying to read, but I figure most of us are racing through our typing while at work, multi-tasking at home, half asleep, whatever.  The "chatspeak" (I didn't know it had a name!) is baffling to me, but I'm old, don't do text messaging, etc.  It took me a long time just to figure out things like DH, DS, OMG.  I still feel funny using those!
 
In general, I think each generation gets used to faster (lazier?) ways of doing things simply because that's how things are done.  For example, how many young kids today have several telephone numbers memorized?  Not as many as when I was a kid - we didn't have speed dial buttons or storage/memory in cell phones.  Another example -- it occurred to me when my youngest cousins learned to "tell time" so quickly that they really weren't understanding it.  That is, they simply read the numbers on all the digital clocks all over the house.  However, what they couldn't do was read a "face" clock.  In fact, I wonder if some kids ever understand telling time as it relates to fractions, such as 3:15 meaning it's a quarter of an hour past 3 o'clock.  Anyone know what I mean?  I still imagine time and portions of hours as parts of a circle in my mind's eye. Before I sound any more ancient than I already do, I'll stop now!!  No, I didn't use an abacus when I learned math! []

Tracy, lol...  my parents made me learn to tell time on a face clock before they'd buy me a digital wrist watch!  I'm still not that great and have to do some counting.  And I'm, , 31 now....  ugh..

I don't like the chatspeak either, and tend to ignore it.  But along these lines, I doubt too many people here remember "shorthand."  It served the same purpose for secretaries, lega and medical transcribers, etc.  But you actually took classes to learn it.  Yeah, I'm old....

ORIGINAL: leslie__chessies

ORIGINAL: Roxie865

Since it should be obviously why those two sentences are revolting, I won't explain why.

hmmm..."obviously"?

I love these boards because I get to "meet" people who I may normally never associate with- people with very diverse backgrounds, people from different parts of the world.  I'll gladly put up with poor spelling and grammar to learn a few things and perhaps make a friend.

*edit*  Oops!  I just realized that I ended a sentence with a preposition!  So sorry!!  Let's get it right so I don't annoy anyone: I love these boards because I get to "meet" people with whom I may normally never associate.

You know what?  I did see that and refused to go back and fix it, because I didn't want my post to appear edited in any way.  Leaving that "as-is" took a lot for me, as I do not tolerate such mistakes in my writing.

Thanks for being cute with the preposition rule.  Like I said, the poorly abused comma is what rankles the crap out of me.  [sm=banghead002.gif]