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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!mcnc!idis!cadre!jay
From: jay@cadre.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame,net.nlang
Subject: Re: "(sp?)" considered wimpy.
Message-ID: <338@cadre.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 23-Feb-85 02:51:43 EST
Article-I.D.: cadre.338
Posted: Sat Feb 23 02:51:43 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Feb-85 05:05:51 EST
References: <311@ihu1m.UUCP> <3667@mit-eddie.UUCP> <608@wlcrjs.UUCP>
Reply-To: jay@cadre.ARPA (Jay Ramanathan)
Distribution: net
Organization: Decision Systems Lab., Univ. of Pgh.
Lines: 28
Xref: watmath net.flame:8537 net.nlang:2623
Summary: 

>It's perhaps slightly more excusable in the case of names, which you can't
>look up, but otherwise, if you don't know how to spell something, you should
>use a word you do know how to spell.  "I don't have a dictionary handy" or
>"It's too much trouble to look it up for a short note" aren't valid excuses.

Just a comment on the above remark.  I, for one, have noticed that a large
number of misspelled words are of the ordinary, vanilla type (eg., "flys",
"recieve", "wierd", etc.), errors that are the result of years of wrong usage,
and of which the writer may not even be conscious.  Another type of
common errors that I've observed is the wrong choice of words (eg., 
"principle" for "principal", "it's" for "its", "who's" for "whose", etc.).
The dictionary may not come in useful in either case: in the former,
because the author feels comfortable with his spelling, and in the latter,
because the word of his choice anyway is correctly spelt.  Of course, I do
feel that, when in doubt, it's a good idea for the writer to spend some time
and check the spelling of the word in question.  (But how does one look up
a word in the dictionary if one doesn't know its correct spelling in the
first place?  That is something I've always wondered about, when I hear such
well-meant advice.)

Jay Ramanathan
-- 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jay Ramanathan, jay@cadre.ARPA  Decision Systems Lab, University of Pittsburgh

"Yes, but I see that even your own words miss the mark...."
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