I here people say its a lost art. That no one gives it the importance it deserves… etc., etc., etc. Oh please… give me a brake. What do these people think “spell check” is for? Me… I’m so exited about having something that automatically checks you’re spelling.
Actually though, I’m glad Whatsapp doesn’t have “spell check.” I would feel like I’m being sensored. What does it matter anyway? People understand what I’m trying to say weather its spelled correctly or not. To me, its the principal of the thing.
We have so many other things to worry about, we should not loose our focus. We should be aloud the occasional misspelling. Besides, between emojis and acronyms on Whatsapp and Facebook, I get my massage across.
There are more important things in life, such as having a good desert after dinner. Or deciding witch show to watch at night. Sometimes I can’t decide, and sneak a peak at various channels before settling for the one I want to watch.
So what’s with all the worry from these “spelling gurus”? Their just jealous that the rest of us can express ourselves without having to worry about something that has no affect on anything. Well, I hate to be the one to brake it to them that their “up the creak without a paddle”, and they had better watch out for that bare on the lose.
You have no idea how difficult it was for me to write the above five paragraphs. The fact of the matter is that I am “old school” when it comes to misspelling. Regardless of how commonplace it is nowadays, it never ceases to amaze me just how little importance is attached to correct spelling.
I come from a time when spelling bees were an important rite of passage for middle school students. English was my second language, but I prided myself in placing highly on spelling bees held at my school when we lived in the States.
I won’t claim to never have misspelled a word… but when I see that I have… I cringe. I can’t help it, it’s an automatic reflex. Years of writing resumes, technical papers, reports, letters… and I have always placed a vast amount of importance on correct spelling. I have gone over thousands of resumes as well… and needless to say… a chronic bad speller is a deal breaker.
Admittedly we’re living in different times. It is not as important knowing how to spell as it is to be fluent in emojis and acronyms. IMO, social media has its own language, which I think is GR8… but FWIW I think spelling is still important. BTW, I just SMH at the errors I see on a daily basis… LOL. OMG it’s like a plague. OTOH I still think people should have a little pride in their spelling.
I cringed a little… a lot… reading the first few paragraphs. Like you, I take accurate spelling seriously, especially those you’re/your, their/there, and accept/except that I come across so often on social media. And it absolutely mortifies me when I find that I’ve been guilty of a similar offense.
Having a kindergartener who is now learning to read has opened my eyes as to how truly difficult it is to make much sense of how words are pronounced and spelled in English. Just when he learns that the letters “wh” make a waa sound like “what”, “where”, and “when” they have him learn the word “who” (he insists it’s pronounced “wo”). Sight words they call them because it all comes down to memorization instead of phonetic rules.
In this I think that bilingual people have an advantage. I clearly remember having some difficulty as a child spelling the words beautiful and people. Luckily, my Spanish came to the rescue and I taught myself that people is peo-ple and beautiful be-a-u-ti-ful. Also, perhaps it was because English was my second language that I placed particular importance in learning how to read it and write it correctly.
It is sad to see so many native speakers simply not care about spelling. In my eyes it denotes a carelessness and sloppiness akin to going out in public with a stained and wrinkled shirt. But like you I am old school… More so it seems because I only understood about half of the acronyms in your last paragraph.
Hello Angela, and thank you for your wonderful comments. It is always important to get the perspective from a parent of small children, precisely because you are currently going through the stage of education of your children where spelling begins to come into play.
You are totally on target with your comments about how being bilingual has helped with English spelling… as I can attest to the same thing from my own personal experience. I also share your disappointment and befuddlement at how little many people care about spelling correctly. To me, it’s downright mind-boggling. Again I mention the many resumes I reviewed during my working years. I won’t say that one typo would automatically eliminate a candidate. But if I saw sloppy spelling throughout the document, you better believe that resume was immediately canned.
Your last sentence made me laugh. Don’t give me too much credit on those acronyms, as I had to Google a couple of them at least. The LOL’s and TBH’s are familiar enough. But beyond that I struggle to make them out myself. Thanks again for commenting.