RE: Friday Fun: What Pet Peeve makes you puke?
Bonnie Granat wrote:
> I think it's just a question of speed in typing and not reviewing
one's
> e-mails before sending. I've done it myself, and I've seen others who
> definitely know which is correct do it, too, so I know it's
> usually not a lack of knowledge. With some it might be, but by and
> large, I think it's the
> speed demons forgetting to double-check their messages before
> clicking Send.
I have to disagree with you, Bonnie. I think many people are writing too
much in "IM speak" and are forgetting how to spell. If you spell
something incorrectly or abbreviate it for long enough, that spelling
starts looking correct to you.
I agree with David Loveless that many people today read much less than
people did a generation or two ago. There are too many other non-verbal
things competing for people's attention. I think that contributes to
poor spelling ability because they just haven't seen the words as often
as someone who reads more.
Donna
This is not a one-size-fits-all problem, but I don't see it being IM speak because substitution of either one for the other does serve any purpose I can think of. If it gets sent wrong, then it wasn't checked, of course, but we don't need to pillory people when they do it. I've typed "their" for "there" many times, and vice versa. I've caught myself doing it, and here's my theory. When we get to typing at speed, we're not thinking about spelling; another part of the brain is handling typing in the background while on another level, we're thinking about the ideas we're trying to convey. Yes, we should check our spelling better, but sometimes we're in a hurry.
My two baht,
-kb
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RE: Friday Fun: What Pet Peeve makes you puke?: From: Jones, Donna
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