At school I was not only encouraged to spell correctly but to also apply a proper grammatical construction to my sentences. This I did, reluctantly, but my teachers persisted until I got it right.
When I left school I became a secretary. I needed to pull on the knowledge that I had gained from my English teachers especially when my boss dictated a letter and then asked me to “Pad it out a bit.”. I thank them wholeheartedly.
Not long before having my first child I worked for a publisher, typesetting with a Olympia Golf-Ball typewriter, and also proof-reading, which I do automatically nowadays. It has become a most annoying habit as I find errors in newspapers, magazines and books and feel that whoever proofs should be moved to another department!
Why am I writing about spelling and grammar? Simply because I see so many absolutely appalling mistakes written by my countrymen and women on various forums etc. (or is it ‘ect’ as so often used?) Am I wrong with my spellings?
There are so many examples, I recently saw someone advertising an antique chesterdrawers for sale ‘hmmm’ what can that be?
I have seen the word definitely often spelled with an ‘a’ for the second ‘i’ – could it be to do with regional accents? No, I don’t think so, another word I spotted today was religion spelt with an ‘e’ for the second ‘i’ in a response to an article in a national daily newspaper.
I know that there is ‘text’ speak which is being used a lot nowadays – a modern shorthand that is not a lot different to a system used many years ago.
And so it goes on. I encouraged my own children to pay attention to their written work at school and I hope that they are doing the same for their children.
Oh yes, there is always spell-check on the computer but it is usually ‘American’ English spell-check so I have to add words for the correct ‘English’ English spelling. I wonder if the children in English schools who do their homework on computers submit their work to their teachers with ‘American’ English spellings and whether their teachers correct the work to ‘English’ English. Food for thought methinks.
I remember a company I worked for had an employee with the surname of
I don't like to tell you what spell check made of my name.
ReplyDeleteYour kind offer to proof read my manuscript is far outside the claims of friendship...but knowing how meticulous you are I could not expect better from any publishing house..
Spellcheck U.S. drives me mad.
I write engish, not american!
On the subject of spell checking and grammar checking, there is a good program, Spell Check Anywhere (SpellCheckAnywhere.Com) that adds spell checking to all windows programs.
ReplyDeleteThank you Tomer, will add that to my favourites. I just wish that spell check was available to all those on social websites as well newspaper, periodical, magazine editors..... Oh well, nobody is perfect... But I see that Blogstorm has a thread running regarding the English language when used in searches being dumbed down by Google etc...
ReplyDelete