I thoroughly enjoyed your column this morning; however, I had to write to express my concern over another issue that seems too prevalent these days - improper grammar or word usage. In your opening sentence, you used the phrase "more then 325 comments", when you should have used "more than 325 comments". It is a small error, I admit, but one of my pet peeves regarding the usage of my native language. I am no English scholar, but I was taught that spelling and grammar count. I applaud your efforts to enlighten us all through humor. Please tell me that you were deliberately trying to humor us with your first sentence (or blame the typesetter, if you must).

I'm kind of embarrassed to say that the dollar mean you made me laugh.

JRS, I'd like to say that using "then" in today's newspaper column (a variation of this post) was clever and intentional, but it wasn't. Just a typo in a bad spot. As someone said in another blog post: That's actually an internet rule - if you criticize someone else's grammar/spelling/punctuation, you will make some sort of similar error in your correction. It's called Muphry's Law.
Mea culpa.

I have taught Middle School Physical Education for 18 years and have come across some wonderful spellers when grading my tests. For example:


awfence = offense

strait = straight

jelly latters = agility ladders

git = get

out of balance = out of bounds

shuddle = shuttle

Dave,
I started reading your 3/29 READ STREET piece & got stuck in the first sentence: "I ask the question after re-reading more then 325...". "Iz spelling finely ded?" Seems you've provided yourself with the answer.

Dear Dave,

I read your column this morning and could not agree more that proper spelling (to say nothing of grammar and usage) is in mortal danger. Take the first line of your column, where you stated that you had re-read more "then" 325 comments. I was hoping you would continue with "Many are teaming with mispellings, the sort that great on the sole", but unfortunately it seems it was just an error. It made me laugh, though. Also, I didn't know fried chicken was supposed to be hyphenated. Alright, I'm done being a smart ass. There is a sign that has always driven me crazy on Harford Rd. It says "Look! You All Most Missed Us!"

I shudder as well when confronted with poor spelling: my pet peeve being misspelled do-it-yourself company signs.
(ie: "Whopper Wensday")

In my past life as a retail store manager, any job application handed in to me with obvious misspelled words and bad grammar
was put immediately at the bottom of the pile.

My husband's and my favorite was an entry into a suggestion box at his work--we actually made it into wallpaper for our home computer
featuring a couple of confused-looking owls. Here it is, in all its glory, misspellings, and punctuation-malfunctions:

"Some of us are college graduates and are making 8.00 an hour with our knowledge?
Doesnt make sense to make the same as another person who hasnt spent a day in there life at a college instituation whatsoever"

Nuf sed...C U L8R!

YOWZA !!!! ( Yeah Ded ) !!
Here to stay - Young Kids can't read or write - don't know difference.

Dave: I find it ironic that you made a grammatical error in your first sentence. You said...."re-reading more then 325 comments......." I believe it would be correct as ...."re-reading more than 325 comments......."

Have a nice day.

Dave, wut r u sayin'?
OMG...the dollar mean you made me lol...

A line in your entry reminded me of a science finction short story I read years ago. A spaceship landed on a planet whose intelligent life form was vegetable. They were plagued by a vampire. The ship's crew solved the problem by driving a steak in the vampire's heart. No misspelling there.

Each time, I would notice the sign at the bridge over one of the streams we crossed: St. Jones River. Each time I would wonder how it got that name. Then one time I mentioned it to whoever was riding with me, and when I heard myself say it out loud, it suddenly all became clear. There are two misspellings; one of them is a missing apostrophe.

In recent years the sign has been corrected. But every time I cross that bridge, I think of some state roads worker being told the name to put on a sign and writing it down the way it sounded in the world he or she was familiar with.

Tonight, I was watching the movie "Mr. Brooks" starring Kevin Costner and Demi Moore. During the scene where Mr. Brooks is looking up information on the internet about Demi Moore's character, a police detective, I spotted on her profile,
"Clearence level." It was only visible for a moment, but I caught it. And that's Hollywood!

When I lived in Harford County, I used to drive past a business on Route 40, which stated, "Physic." I always laughed and thought, if she were truly a psychic, wouldn't the spirits contact her to let her know her sign was spelled wrong? I don't know if it's still there. I haven't lived there since 1991.

Enjoyed your column,

Dave, your column was music to my ears - I am always finding misspellings and incorrect usage everywhere I turn. Just a few examples:

At a Towson High School event - sign informing theater-goers that "refreshments are THREW here".

In an email from my sister-in-law, a teacher: "I wore heals to school" when explaining why her knees were sore.

Pretty much everyone in my husband's family writes "to" when they mean "too".

There is a sign in the window of our local Chinese carryout that says "UNDER CONTRACTION". I'm assuming they mean CONSTRUCTION, but who knows?

Sad thing about it -- they paid for that sign.

A co-worker of mine would always complain about her bathroom sink "linking", I thought maybe i was hearing her wrong until she asked me to read the letter she was sending to the manager of her apartment complex. There it was in bold print, " I have a link in my bathroom sink". Sad to say, I was too afraid of embarassing her to point it out to her,

Logic oopsies offend me more than misspellings. My jogs through a nearby park are marred by a sign warning NO TRESPASSING AFTER DARK. The clear implication is that trespassing is allowed during daylight, but how can an act that by definition is illegal be allowed?

I know a a good speller who edits menus whenever he eats out. I knew an editor who claimed to have once been a good speller, before becoming confused by the zillion variations that reporters came up with. Some words, such as yacht, cannot be found in the dictionary unless you already know how to spell them.

I thought you all might appreciate this "prove you're not a robot-commenter impossibly unreadable bunch of random letters" I encountered five minutes ago:

"dedlyt"

Not in my classroom, although I certainly wonder if it is at the Baltimore Sun and the New York Times.

I was once told in a staff meeting at an art museum in New England that I was unnecessarily concerned with spelling. (I had pointed out errors in a letter sent out asking for donations.) I am one of those people who notices spelling errors on restaurant chalkboards and suffers a rise in blood-pressure when a new book and the daily newspaper are riddled with obvious errors.

Whatever the case in the past--the past defined as the era prior to the publication Mr. Webster's first dictionary--when "creative" or "intuitive" spelling was the norm, widespread illiteracy was also the norm. In industrialized nations, literacy is, more or less, the norm today, and abandoning spelling, like abandoning grammar and syntax, poses a real economic and social danger.

We talk about the economic gap between the classes but we rarely address the economic implications of educated expression between the classes. "Standard English" would be better described as "Business English." Those who cannot communicate orally and in writing in traditionally correct form are severely disadvantaged in getting jobs and moving up through the ranks.

But back to spelling. Why is it that I never hear about the connection between spelling and pronunciation anymore? Is it because we don't feel that there is such a thing as "wrong pronunciation"? The development of vocabulary is a linking of text on the page to heard sound (at least for the hearing and sighted majority).

Anyway, I provide an itemized rubric when I grade essays. There is a spread of positive points that add up to 100 for such elements as a clear thesis statement in the opening paragraph, description and interpretation of art works discussed (I teach art history), attention to the topic assigned, general organization, sentence structure and grammar, spelling and capitalization. Then there is a section devoted to penalties. There's a long list of these, most pertinent to the assignment, but one of them is "obvious failure to use spell-check".

I agree that spelling is arbitrary, but like most social mechanisms, it functions to facilitate communication and promote understanding. The etiquette of good manners is arbitrary, too, but known the basics makes it much easier to interact with strangers, workplace supervisors, and the parents of one's beloved in an effective, safe and positive way.

I enjoyed your article and have been saying the same thing for years. There is nothing more annoying than to read spelling errors in memos, websites, marketing previews, etc. The part that bothers me the most is when it is politely pointed out, and the people who cannot (or will not) spell act like it is no big deal!
Here is my most favorite example: texting my boss about a situation at work, his response: "Bare with me" My response: "that is totally inapropriate" He did not get my joke. Ha!

Hey Dave, I read your article in the paper Sunday and I have to say that I agree 100% with your assessment. I think that part of the problem is people just do not read anymore, I am sure that you have probably noticed the declining newspaper and book sales over the last decade. Also on a sad note all computers have a spell check so there is no excuse for the constant misspelling that occurs online and in emails.

The same colleague who sent email saying that “We overknighted a CD to a customer” also sent me email asking “Wear should I stay when I go visit the customer in New York?” I don’t know whether to laugh or cry so will share with you instead.

It saddens me that adults automatically 'point the finger' at the "younger generation" when it comes to lacking in the English department. We mustn't all be tarred with the same brush: some of us still take pride in how we present ourselves, both in writing and speech.
I'm sixteen and believe that good grammar, spelling and punctuation is completely paramount if you want to get somewhere in life. I never was one for the ludicrous "text-talk" and have a mere couple of friends who use Standard English when communicating over the Internet.

The rest of them, well... See you at the Dole Queue; I'll be waving from my Mercedes.

I am constantly amazed at the lack of thought a lot of people give to spelling. The written word is still an important medium of communication, and we should treat it as such. Talk however you'd like to face-to-face, the feedback you get will let you know if you need to elaborate or cut short your presentation. When you're not face-to-face, though, you have to work a little harder at getting your point across.

With the rapid-fire pace of today's texting/IM-ing/twittering communities, it feels like nobody cares about the reception, they're pretty much only blasting. Get it done & over with here, so I can go blast over there. Say more than everyone else, & say it faster. Quantity over quality.

English is my shared first language. I learned two at the same time, and English was not primary. But I am irked, sometimes, when I am subjected to mis-spellings. Or bad grammar. Incorrect use of punctuation. I am no English teacher, nor guardian of the language. But for goodness' sake. If it's your ONLY language, what's the excuse?

As a follow-up to your recent article (March 29th SUNPAPER -- the subject of which is dear to my heart), how about the following:

gonna - going to
nothin' - nothing
ya' - you
lotta' - lot of
gotta' - got to
What's really sad is that I found many of these words in a current best seller mystery novel! My old teachers would absolutely die if they saw what was happening to our English language!!

Dave, I feel so strongly about this. I can't make my peace with Facebook or other online abbreviations such as LOL, OMG, etc. I think they're lazy and diminish the beauty and precision of our language, although no more so than authors who use four letter words indiscriminately throughout their writings, rather than search for that illusive, beautiful, perfect word. If we as authors accept a lazy, sloppy way of expressing ourselves, then what will prevent the richness of the language we use to express our deepest thoughts to erode. I love language. I lived in France and Italy for twenty years and learned to speak and appreciate both languages. When I came back to the states and spoke English again, I was like a foreigner learning and loving a new language. Language is one of our great treasures. As writers, I think we should do all we can to protect it.

As an avid Stephenie Meyer fan, I have to say that it isn't fair to point out just Meyer fans as poor spellers. There are high level managers in my company who constantly send out messages that contain misspelled words and poor grammar. In my graduate school classes, the amount of misspelled words is indeed horrifying, especially when there is a Spell Check button in the classroom discussion chat room. To me, it isn't so much that spelling is dead as it is the fact that people do not seem to care as much about how they appear in print. These people seem to feel that Spell Check is a fail safe that will catch all of their errors. They also do not bother to take the time to learn the proper spelling because of Spell Check.

However, I do think there is a bit of a cultural influence at play here. For better or for worse, our society these days is built around speed. Taking the time to spell something correctly is seen as antiquated or old-fashioned (because spelling jealous without the a is such a time-saver). However, you still do not see actual newspapers or magazines using this spelling. Nor do you see it on TV or in novels. As long as the educated written word still is presented properly, I think there is hope. I refuse to succumb!!

"a steak through the heart" is funny. Sad, but funny. I don't think spelling is the major problem. We all misspell words, be it typos or not knowing how to spell a word. The major problem is why the misspelling goes uncorrected. I believe it is due to laziness. I know I have issues with grammar and am not the greatest speller in the world. However, I do know when I misspell a word. It just doesn't look right. When a word looks "funny" I go back and fix it. Why are there so many uncorrected misspellings? Perhaps it is due to a lack of proof reading which also can be attributed to laziness. At least I hope it is laziness. The lack of knowing how to use a dictionary is just too unfathomable for me.

Misspellings grate on me, too - like fingernails on a chalkboard.

I'm a terrible typist and do sometimes unknowingly leave typos in casual comments or discussions, but I try to proofread before I hit the send button (you wouldn't believe how many mistakes I've made just typing this!).

It makes me crazy, though, to see poorly spelled, sloppy writing in places where people are intending to publish and publicize their writing online. Too many and I just leave.

Thank goodness my own two sons are both excellent spellers!

I have, and probably will again, put down a book I'm reading if there are misspellings or grammatical errors in it. I have turned down review requests by authors if they can't string together a coherent sentence in the request. My time is very valuable to me, & I do not like to spend it wondering what the author is trying to say. Maybe I'm too picky? Oh well...

My biggest pet peeves as far as spelling goes are :definately for definitely and your instead of you're and the famous their instead of there. If I was instead of if I were also irritates me. There are more but these are some examples I have seen lately quite often. I had no idea so many people cannot spell definitely correctly.

okay..i belong to SHELFARI and have a couple of friends under 18..we do the cyber-spell..but both of these kids READ..so they know their way around the Grammar maze
otherwise, i am sick of people too lazy to spell correctly..and Grammar Errors, especially in Printed matter, makes me go Pissy (not Postal)..i have a useless BA in English Lit and love Alternative Fiction...but, c'mon...learn your tenses people...learn to spell
12-year-olds i can excuse (if they are cyber-friends) but Published Authors??? who set themselves up for Criticism? NOT!!

Kaye, I agree with you - I cringe everytime I see definately. Certainly there's text speak, but many people just simply cannot spell. There was an article on Yahoo News several months ago and, while I can't recall the author's name, she was supposedly a "jobs expert" and said that typos in a resume were now completely acceptable because we had transitioned to a more informal society. I couldn't believe it (neither could several other hiring managers).

When I was young and asked my parents how to spell something, they always said "go get the dictionary." While it was pure torture back then, I'm glad they did. :-)

Shame on us all. I admit to being a poor speller, but I know to use spell check. As a teacher, I know Pennsylvania has the infamous PSSA tests that they're thinking of using for a graduation test and guess what? Spelling is of no importance on that exam. Neither is punctuation or grammar. It's all about the content. I won't say spelling is 'ded' but it's very ill.

I don't mind when someone accidentally misspells a word (I have no room to be upset with others for small mistakes since I'm so bad with punctuation) - but deliberately misspelled words annoy me so much. I guess I just don't understand the point of it since writing out the correct word doesn't usually take that much longer than the fake word does.

I have very good grammar, but I have also noticed that some people don't get the difference between formal English and conversational English. When your writing an email to your friends, it's okay to shorten words and sentences t and use emoticons when writing. Though that is okay, you have to be able to turn it off that second, otherwise you shouldn't do it at all. I was reading comments on another blog and I'm not alowed to text. So, I had no idea what emoticons were, like xD, which is kind of like laugh out loud. That kind of thing and text talk (myob, ttyl,lol,etc.) annoy the crap out of me, so I don't use them which means my grammar is pretty good. So, leave the computer, shut off the text talk part of your brain, and you'll be just fine.