Forum

Your Obsession With Spelling and Grammar is Bizzare, Strange, and Kinda Weird

General Discussion

Sir-Charlie

#1 ·

3 polubień
Despite this being called the English Community the vast majority of the people who actively engage aren't native English speakers. Off the top of my head, the only people who fall into that category are myself, Charles, George, Landon, Matt Curtis, Kezz and Fernando occasionally. I may have forgotten some but those are the major people.
In fact, hitherto Alex taking over as Administrator in October of last year, the forum had never been ran by a native English speaker. Arctic Moon, Dash, Railway, Pajper, and I believe Jacob as well were all non-natives. I think Jacob's native language is French, but I could be wrong.
Anyways, there's nothing wrong with that. Despite the Britisher's being one of the most successful at spreading themselves throughout the world, the Anglosphere is still overwelmed. I think there are only like 3 quarters of a billion native English speakers, half of those are Americans.
Anyways, I like rambling before I actually get to my meat and potaters, so here you go.
Y'all have an incredibly strange addiction to correcting spelling and grammar despite not speaking English natively. In fact, I've seen situations where y'all do it while also making a mistake in the same message. I get it. Some people like to have it pointed out so they can improve but the way y'all do it is like some kind of bizarre flex.
It's not cool or funny, it just makes you look like an ass, especially when you make really simple and, by your own logic, laughable mistakes yourself.
If you want to point out someone's mistakes, that's cool, but it doesn't give you brownie points for including the correction in a message where you're essentially calling someone dumb.
P.S. I posted this opinion as just me. This isn't official staff policy unless it definitely crosses the line into personal attack territory.
It's just something I've noticed for years now and thought I'd bring it up.
All that I survey, I could easily destroy. From time to time, it is important to remind these small creatures of the true extent of my power.

thespyde

#2 ·

I'm not sure it was intentional but the title has a mistake. Perhaps your sense of humor peeking through?

I've let a good bit slide, feeling that I've been overbearing at times. In my feed I, sort of with tongue in cheek, stated that I'm the spelling police. It goes on in a sort of humorous way from there.

I realize that though spelling was a great subject in school for me that I'm also not perfect, therefore I've mellowed a bit. Ain't y'all glad? He-he.
Strange, Troubled Times...

djsenter

#3 ·

3 polubień
Actually, I believe that people ought to be aware of the spelling errors they make, only because in the working environment, or a position where their work is being looked at and judged by sighted people, bad spelling won't slide, especially if it is frequent and regarding simple things.
You can excuse grammar if someone isn't a native, in fact I still make grammatical mistakes after learning English for over a decade, but it reflects very poorly on people who come from natively English speaking countries.
It should actually be shameful, that despite of occasional mistakes, which are unavoidable, some foreigners can spell and construct their sentences better in English than natives at times.
Personally, that would make me feel a bit bad tbh, hopefully it motivates people to work on their spelling though, because it is important.
Now, a fun example, to end the post on a light note. A person I just met on an FB group said hi, nice to meat you. Your screenreader will read it as meet, but the spelling is different and while my Polish voice will read it as it is spelled and I'm a bit of a freak perhaps for using Polish Espeak to read English, sighted people use their eyes and surprise surprise, they can tell the difference. I would find it offputting, maybe a bit creepy, or even distasteful to have to read something like that. Maybe I'm arrogant, call me nuts, but I'm also sure that I'm not the only one.
Senter San

Landon205

#4 ·

Edytowano
Well, @Sir-Charlie I do agree. And as for spelling, knowone is perfect. Yes, in the work place we all should all have perfect spellings. I don't doubt you on that. Even when filling out resumes, it's good to have perfect spellings, so that when your boss sees it, they will want to hire you, they want to see perfect spellings.
Let the stars be your guide. Let your mind just relax. And when in doubt, meditate.

ButcherVanity

#5 ·

1 polubień
i do agree with djsenter, a lot of professional environments do think spelling is very important. however, if you want to correct someone, correcting with kindness is always important because you never know how a person already feels. as someone with dyslexia, i get it. spelling is hard.

Sir-Charlie

#6 ·

@3, I specifically said that there's nothing wrong with it. The problem is many people on this forum point out mistakes like it's some kind of flex or places them higher on some kind of made up hierarchy.
All that I survey, I could easily destroy. From time to time, it is important to remind these small creatures of the true extent of my power.

ferre

#7 ·

My spelling used to be terrible, absolutely horrific to look at. I've improved, but I still make a lot, and a lot of mistakes. People correct me, 1 person in particular but I usually don't care because I only speak english in certain settings, other wize it's dutch or french in my home. Let me correct that one. It's not that I don't care, I just don't take advice very well and when people correct me I just shut down a little because I'm that type of person that really is bad at taking advice or corrections. I need to work on that, but it's how I am.
Vox tech, trust us.

daszekmdn

#8 ·

1 polubień
I understand why people focus on correcting spelling mistakes.
My grammar is ummm... Sometimes tragic, but always i try to write words properly.
I think non-native speakers tend to care more about spelling, because English synthesizer can read all mistakes correctly, while another language synthesizers might not, making it harder to understand what someone wrote.
Sygnatura to może być w sądzie. Sygnatura sprawy np. :P

ArcticMoon

#9 ·

I couldn't have said it better. Thank you.

-- (djsenter):
Actually, I believe that people ought to be aware of the spelling errors they make, only because in the working environment, or a position where their work is being looked at and judged by sighted people, bad spelling won't slide, especially if it is frequent and regarding simple things.
You can excuse grammar if someone isn't a native, in fact I still make grammatical mistakes after learning English for over a decade, but it reflects very poorly on people who come from natively English speaking countries.
It should actually be shameful, that despite of occasional mistakes, which are unavoidable, some foreigners can spell and construct their sentences better in English than natives at times.
Personally, that would make me feel a bit bad tbh, hopefully it motivates people to work on their spelling though, because it is important.
Now, a fun example, to end the post on a light note. A person I just met on an FB group said hi, nice to meat you. Your screenreader will read it as meet, but the spelling is different and while my Polish voice will read it as it is spelled and I'm a bit of a freak perhaps for using Polish Espeak to read English, sighted people use their eyes and surprise surprise, they can tell the difference. I would find it offputting, maybe a bit creepy, or even distasteful to have to read something like that. Maybe I'm arrogant, call me nuts, but I'm also sure that I'm not the only one.

--

"As I watch this generation try to rewrite history, one thing I'm sure of is that it will be misspelled and have no punctuation."

ArcticMoon

#10 ·

Yes but Ferre you have definitely improved. These never do, and it doesn't matter if you correct them kindly or not.

-- (ferre):
My spelling used to be terrible, absolutely horrific to look at. I've improved, but I still make a lot, and a lot of mistakes. People correct me, 1 person in particular but I usually don't care because I only speak english in certain settings, other wize it's dutch or french in my home. Let me correct that one. It's not that I don't care, I just don't take advice very well and when people correct me I just shut down a little because I'm that type of person that really is bad at taking advice or corrections. I need to work on that, but it's how I am.

--

"As I watch this generation try to rewrite history, one thing I'm sure of is that it will be misspelled and have no punctuation."

ArcticMoon

#11 ·

The way a lot of people spell here is just insane. I'm not mad at them because of their spelling though. Or, at least, partly not. I'm mad at their schools, their teachers and their parents for not teaching them properly.

"As I watch this generation try to rewrite history, one thing I'm sure of is that it will be misspelled and have no punctuation."

MayowaArogundade

#12 ·

For me I spell words based on how they sound but even I'm not that great especially with like 10-letter long words or even higher xd
signed, Mayowa Arogundade

marchoffmann

#13 ·

Personally, when others spelling starts being annoying for me is when I obviously hear that something is wrong, sometimes it's waaaaay off from how the word would sound, even. I wouldn't bother switching synths to another language just for the heck of it or to be able to correct someone in an instant.
That's for posts though. In cases of moderation I'd look at it differently already. A lot of people prier to Charlie did a terible job at that. Yet there was a rule of people needing to spell good or something, I can't remember how it was formulated exactly, anymore. It was kind of ironic if you ask me considering how in any admin announcements you could find audible mistakes via tts, which again, for me personally it's only those that start to be a bother when you wanna read something properly. I guess I'm more of the type that gets irritated of messy grammar, I guess it's just not enjoyable to read posts that way. That's not just elten though at all, can be games or anywhere else too. In 2021, sketchbook players were constantly complaining about my grammar /spelling and forse corrected me, per say. Wasn't exactly nice because it got real tiring after a while but at least it helped. Looking back on my first maps, oof. It was cringe. Though, fair for a german. I dare to say most germans don't know english too well.
At last, what I think is quite hillarious is that, what post one said and I agree on, others would sometimes try to almost mockingly correct me, while 2 posts later you see horible grammar or a word that even sounds wrong with all kinds of synthesizers. In some cases, it'd be harder for me to identify spelling errors with german synths than english ones. On that note, I honestly do wish to be corrected, though via normal ways. Not stones coming out of glass houses. But that's me.

ArcticMoon

#14 ·

Well for example look at Natan44's posts or there was that other guy, blindsoft something. They are from the UK and they live there since they were born. They study at school. And now really without any negative feelings or anything but the way they spell is worse than horrible. I started to learn English at the age of 10 and I'm brave enough to say even then I had better spelling than those natives at the same age. I don't want to hurt them, I never meant to bully them, but for me it's rather tragic to see that nowadays children don't learn anything at school.

"As I watch this generation try to rewrite history, one thing I'm sure of is that it will be misspelled and have no punctuation."

MayowaArogundade

#15 ·

I mean I had to correct AJ as well because the-dude was being southern with the thang/leenk thing (not to atack him) but I don't know if he is doing it on purpose though.
signed, Mayowa Arogundade

rudolf

#16 ·

2 polubień
LOL Excusing to constantly criticize other's spellings by arguing that tey should've been tauhgt better in school is kinda wild, not as wild as assuming the education system offers any value though. Anyhow, this seems kind of condescending and superiorish, everyone has a different learning curve, a different envirement or perhaps never was really taught that what they write is wrong. For example, I would argue that my German spelling is worse than my English one even though I'm a native to speaker. That's not to say my German spelling is bad, but I feel like I make more mistakes in German than I do with more complex words in English. That's not to say my English is good or better by anyone's by any means either, but just putting that out here. If you learn a language that's not one you're fluent in since you grew up gives you much more potential to elimenate spelling errors straight up while still learning it, which means your intentions of how to spell something aren't as much carved into stone as your native spellings are. Although that's wrong too, the brain is adjustable and flexible, it just depends on mindset I guess. I for myself wouldn't see learning German vocabularies as my favorite thing to do either, I just try to memorize the right spelling if I realized that I spelled something wrong. Regardless of that, for what it's worth, I'm genuinely satisfied with my English given I stopped using a translator and seriously using it three years ago down to the month.

ButcherVanity

#17 ·

it’s hard for me to correct spelling without being face-to-face with a person. I just helped them by spelling the word out myself, but I’m dyslexic. I’m not always right and a lot of people know that and they fact check me on a lot of words lol but I don’t get offended because it helps me too because sometimes I am wrong. I mix letters like I’m gonna see if I can give an example one time I was spelling the word maybe and I put the Y in the wrong spot and I kept saying over and over again that’s how I read it and then I reread it and it was in a different spot. This was back in like fifth grade sometimes I’m not always right but I can help out the best I can even with being dyslexic.

djsenter

#18 ·

Actually, I don't agree that Arctic's post was condescending at all, she tried to be very kind and civilised about why she makes the corrections and at least this time, I think nobody shoult get super defensive because of what she said. The education system has flaws, and clearly it could teah better, if people are on different levels and clearly, some can spell better than others and that is, if we dismiss the native/foreigner perspective.
A braille display can teach a lot, when you read books using it for example. Perhaps more reliance on a braille display would help? Perhaps more literacy tests? None o this can be thrown out just because, not everyone is the same, not everyone learns as quick, etc.
Those are understandable reasons, but also shouldn't be an excuse, because at the end of the day, the blind person goes on to study, work and it's their problem, not anybody elses.
I can give a personal example actually. My family decided we're leaving Poland when I was very young and Polish grammar, spelling, with all of their complex rules haven't been engrained into my mind yet. For years, I made mistakes in Polish writing, even if I could articulate myself well and explain abstract ideas, so I made it a habit to read with a braille display, to look at the spelling of words which were unfamiliar or I never had to write. Over time, it became a habit and although it's still not at a level I want, my Polish spelling and vocabulary even, have greatly improved. The point is to challenge yourself to change what we're not good at nd we know is important.
Senter San

ArcticMoon

#19 ·

Here in Hungary, in primary schools teachers basically force you to learn correct spelling. Or at least when I was in primary school they still did. We had tests, we got marks for it, and if you failed, you had to write again, again, and again until you finally got good results. I'm not sure if I'm fully proficientin hungarian, but one thing I know for sure is that my spelling is correct at 99 percent of times. English is a bit different, because although my spelling is decent, I sometimes have mistakes in terms of grammar, as well as my pronunciation has flaws since a lot of languages influenced my accent.
As for braille displays, you can't really force everyone to buy one. They are so expensive that a simple person with an average salary will never prioritize getting one. I also want to buy a display so I would be able to read more in Braille, but until I don't find a place that is able to officially verify that the model was bought in Hungary, I cannot do so.

"As I watch this generation try to rewrite history, one thing I'm sure of is that it will be misspelled and have no punctuation."

thespyde

#20 ·

I wonder if Orbit Research products are as hard to find there as they are in Germany. I've had no trouble with the 20 I have, none that wasn't fully recoverable. Anyway, it's about the cheapest I've seen and the most reliable. The 20 plus and 40 models I've heard have had more problems than my regular 20. Those problems may have been sorted. I don't follow anything Orbit as I got sorely disappointed by not being able to find a source for the Orbit Player. That's another topic altogether though.
Strange, Troubled Times...