<p>I freely admit I can never keep the orthography of hors d’oeuvres in my head, but I am still amazed by the attempts of people to spell it who have evidently never come across it in print and are just guessing.</p>
<p>French spelling has to be the most arcane & annoying in the world, but it does have some basic structures.</p>
<p>I’m a good speller, but I very frequently get the wrong homophone when I’m trying to write quickly. I know the differences very well, but I am a strongly aural as opposed to visual learner, and I tend to write what I hear. I have always been a reader, but I have not internalized the spellings of those homophones to the point that I get them correct without thinking about it.</p>
<p>Here’s a cute expression that one of my high school students used recently in a writing assignment: “say la vee.”</p>
<p>^That reminds me of another one I’ve seen…“per say” for “per se.” If you don’t know it’s a Latin expression, “per say” probably makes sense.</p>
<p>In defense of kids (and parents!) who can’t spell or write on here, I just want to say this:</p>
<p>In ‘real life’ I write very well and I can spell too (I do a lot of writing in my occupation and for me it means a lot of editing). For some reason, however, when typing in this forum on my laptop, I make a huge number of mistakes. </p>
<p>Now I DO get shocked by the writing samples of some of my supposedly ‘top shelf’ college students. That is another story.</p>
<p>
Hey, Al! You from Brooklyn? Dat’s correct spelling here in the 'hood!! :)</p>
<p>Franglish, don’t you mean in “da 'hood”?</p>
<p>I guess the light H has been leaving on in the shower stall is minor league egregious behavior. I guess you already tossed the food, but perhaps an extra zap in the microwave would have killed the emerging bacteria…not a good idea, eh!!!</p>
<p>nah…the problem is not just the emerging bacteria; there are the toxins created by thriving bacteria.</p>
<p>I went around in circles with my environmentally conscientious D and SIL this summer…they insisted on leaving cooked food out to cool for HOURS, so that it did not tax the energy usage of the refrigerator…I ran around behind them putting things away so that we would all live to pay the putatively lowered bill. UGH</p>
<p>how did our comments about Zmom’s food problems end up here???</p>
<p>Their is know reesun under the son to beerate anywuns abilitie to spel things properlie. You peeple rely nede to get a lyfe.</p>
<p>Just my too sense.</p>
<p>Maysixxmom:</p>
<p>I don’t hear anything wrong with Kate (of Jon and Kate Plus Eight) saying “It’s <em>are</em> life.”
To my eastern ear that sounds fine. Do you pronounce it like <em>hour</em>?</p>
<p>(I’m a May 6 mom myself.)</p>
<p>“Vwala”, always makes me laugh. But “loose” instead of “lose” makes me cringe - it’s not pronounced the same! I’m hugely guilty of mistyping homonyms though. It’s/its, their/there/they’re - I’ve even mistyped too/to/two wrong. I know the difference, but apparently my fingers don’t. I’m terrible about proofreading.</p>
<p>Does one be a perfectionist and correct every typo or continue to get the words out even if the i key doesn’t get the shift key simultaneously or letters are skipped by those of us who hated to type and dropped out of the the summer for college typing class eons ago (you’re supposed to look at the page, not the keyboard???)? Someday you’ll see a post from me done fast and not proofread at all- one reason to give no reason for editing is half the time it’s merely correcting typos. Waiting for voice activated typing- dictation.</p>
<p>I just saw someone refer to Palin’s pick as VP as a “Hale Mary.”</p>
<p>Oh Lordy.</p>
<p>Rats, violadad and mathmom beat me to my intended comment, namely that I definately never mined misspellings in CC posts. You just read them phonetically, and walah!</p>
<p>“Hale Mary” made me laugh. As the expression goes, “she should be well.”</p>
<p>Sometimes, I feel like one of a dying breed of teenagers who still cares about grammar and spelling. I even text using proper spelling and punctuation – but that, admittedly, might be a little bit excessive!</p>
<p>Skull-- you ain’t da only one. My D also uses proper spelling and punctuation in texts. She can’t stand missing apostrophes!</p>
<p>I tend to assume that many of the spelling errors on CC are either: </p>
<p>(a) typos (because, for example, I am a terrible typist – fast but inaccurate, and I don’t spellcheck my posts before sending them, so if I do it, I assume others do too) </p>
<p>(b) “textspeak” - shorthand (ie “prolly” for probably") or</p>
<p>(c) possibly the poster isn’t a native English-speaker. I seem to remember not too long ago a discussion with some of out British posters (apologies, I forget who) having a chat about spelling differences.</p>
<p>Yes, there are some evident errors (their for there, here for hear, etc) but I don’t see it as a big deal. I also often don’t put the apostrophe in when typing here for words like “don’t”. I just don’t bother. So, I tend to give others slack here w.r.t. spelling.</p>