Spelling Errors: Stupid? Lazy? Or A-OK?

[Morrigoon]

Originally Posted by Alex

Wouldn't normally do this, but you used the bolded word incorrectly and exactly opposite of its meaning. Epidemic is what you wanted (spread throughout the environment as opposed to native or localized to a very specific environment).

I suppose I wasn't aware that Canada and the UK were likewise having issues with apostrophe abuse. But I see your point. I was more focused on the fact that it meant it was prevalent and fully ingrained in the culture.

American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
en·dem·ic Audio Help (ěn-děm'ĭk) Pronunciation Key
adj.

1. Prevalent in or peculiar to a particular locality, region, or people: diseases endemic to the tropics. See Synonyms at native.

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by CoasterMatt

Proper punctuation and capitalization is the difference between "I had to help my uncle Jack off a horse.." and "I had to help my uncle jack off a horse.."

How does punctuation help in this case?

[CoasterMatt]

Damn it... fixed.

[€uroMeinke]

Its all about communication, and so while I am a "C" speller I use whatever tools to help me out sometimes, not with success. I'm Aural, so when I write, aside from the usual typos, I tend to dictate from the voice in my head and thus make lots of errors with homonyms, or mixing of with have. I don't over think it though because I'd otherwise not write anything.

That said, while spelling and grammar help create standards that facilitate communication, the fact that one can correct someone else's spelling and grammatical errors implies that the intended message got through just the same - so the corrector - outside the academic environment - comes across as self-righteous and annoying.

[CoasterMatt]

The following snippet of text has been circulating on the net for a while: "... randomising letters in the middle of words [has] little or no effect on the ability of skilled readers to understand the text. This is easy to denmtrasote. In a pubiltacion of New Scnieitst you could ramdinose all the letetrs, keipeng the first two and last two the same, and reibadailty would hadrly be aftcfeed. My ansaylis did not come to much beucase the thoery at the time was for shape and senqeuce retigcionon. Saberi's work sugsegts we may have some pofrweul palrlael prsooscers at work. The resaon for this is suerly that idnetiyfing coentnt by paarllel prseocsing speeds up regnicoiton. We only need the first and last two letetrs to spot chganes in meniang."

[flippyshark]

Fcuk taht.

[€uroMeinke]

Watching the Olympics I wonder what spelling and grammar issues the Chinese have

[CoasterMatt]

Originally Posted by €uroMeinke

Watching the Olympics I wonder what spelling and grammar issues the Chinese have

You mean like this?

[flippyshark]

Ah, Chinglish!

[JWBear]

Originally Posted by Alex

The Oxford or serial comma is completely a choice of style...

Originally Posted by Kevy Baby

Either way is considered correct.

I simply don't agree. Every writing class I have ever taken taught that it is proper usage to include it. The practice of omitting it was started by newspapers in order to save space.

Originally Posted by Kevy Baby

I often wished I understood the proper usage of "whom" - it is one that I seem to not be able to properly grasp.

Use "whom" when referring to the object of a sentence, and "who" when it is the subject.

"Who was given the book?" (Subject)

"The book was given to whom?" (Object)

Originally Posted by Kevy Baby

Somebody (possibly someone on this board, but I cannot recall) taught me this quick reference: any time you are going to use "its" or "it's", test the sentence by using "it is." If "it is" works, then use the contraction "it's." If it doesn't work, use "its."

Remember that possessive pronouns have no apostrophes, and contractions always do.

its, whose, his, hers, theirs = possessive

it's, who's, that's, what's, he's, she's, etc = contraction