quote: But Vos Savant has written it in such elevated language, using so many five-dollar words, that it's for darn sure she didn't write it for people who actually have serious problems with spelling.
I'm actually a really good speller, but I have a sister who just doesn't get it. The girl misspelled "poop" once. And she's a bright girl, the only one of our family full of genii to attend the state's summer scholar program. She was the youngest of us at the time of her college graduation. All I'm saying is that a person can be brilliant but have a deficiency in the area of spelling. That said, I don't know if a book such as the one reviewed would help.
I don't mean to imply the OSC is uncompassionate, I just wanted to present an example of someone who is really very "intelajent" but can't spell worth a "dame"
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I think it's ultimately a matter of pet peeves. If I recall correctly, Einstein couldn't spell worth a "dame". Sounds to me like OSC's just saying that MVS wrote a book to educate the ignorant, but she forgot to speak their language. I'm a freak about spelling, and particularly about the use and abuse of apostrophes. We're all quirky.
Posts: 262 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
Here's a stupid question: do bad spellers have trouble reading? I mean, if you don't know the difference between they're, there, and their, how do you know what they mean when you read them?
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
I sometimes mix those (there and their) as I type, especially on IM. It is because my brain thinks the word as it sounds not the particular spelling I need. I know the differences, but when typing fast as a stream of consciousness it often gets lost.
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I don't know what it's like to be a bad speller, but I know my sister likes to read a lot more than I do. I'm fairly sure it uses different parts of the brain. I have a theory that our reading capacity is actually shape-based, like chinese, and not phoneme based as the alphabetic spelling structure might suggest. Certainly listening and speaking functions are separated in the brain. Even grammar and meaning are assigned to different centers in the brain.
And I could write perfectly well before I could type.
When I do calligraphy, my spelling is frequently messed.
Edit: man, why do I start threads that attract proofreaders?
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Gotta admit, except for stupid abbreviations such as "gotta," spelling is important to me as well. The problem is that I read very quickly, and spelling errors stop me.
I don't think less of someone who has a spelling error, unless they have access to a spell-checker and did not avail themselves of it, such as a business email. There's still something to be said for taking a moment to proofread before hitting the send button. Computers really make it easy.
My pet peeve is misplaced apostrophes. It seems like using an apostrophe for a plural is acceptable now. I plead no excuse for this particular nit-pickiness.
When I was in grade school, my mom used to have me type her college papers, because she knew she had spelling trouble, and I could catch the errors and fix them as I went.
quote:I have a theory that our reading capacity is actually shape-based, like chinese, and not phoneme based as the alphabetic spelling structure might suggest
Some studies suggest it is. This is why it's obnoxious when people type in all caps - it's harder for us to recognize the word when it's a different shape than we're used to seeing.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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I'm fairly somewhat smart and make a lot of grammar errors at time and spelling mistakes. Perhaps because I like freestyle poetry with no grammar rules. Or maybe because there are certain words I can never spell right. I don't know why. Perhaps, nessasary are just two of them. I am also horrible in math to the point of embarassment.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I'm a little perplexed by the way "dysgraphic" is being used here. Let me explain:
My spelling ability has always been excellent. Always one of the last ones to sit down at spelling bees in school and I perform very well on those parts of standardized tests.
However, I make mistakes in spelling all the time when writing in cursive - I know the second I've done it that I've made the wrong letter. It's an issue of the motor instructions to my hand getting confused.
It's a separate issue from my abilities regarding spelling.
I've always understood "dysgraphia" in terms of "production" - making errors or having totally unreadable handwriting.
Has someone been messing with definitions while I wasn't paying attention.
I hate it when that happens. Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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When I was younger, I had some difficulties with spelling - despite the fact that I read a tremendous amount. It was actually when I switched from using pen and paper as my standard method of writing to using the computer that I finally learned how to spell; those red lines in Microsoft Word, as well as the fact that my fingers "remembered" how to type specific words, taught me which letters belonged in which words. To this day, if I blank out on how to spell a word, I'll "type" out the word on the nearest surface.
Posts: 196 | Registered: Jul 2002
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The thing about me is that I am a careless speller. I am in AP English and I read very frequently, but when it comes down to spelling I am just sloppy with it.
I can find my errors after I reread my papers but within my first draft, I always make the typical spelling blunders (such as Jon Boy's "theres" and words such as noble [nobel] and grammar [grammer]). They are relatively minor errors but nonetheless irritating for someone who has a good background in english and especially for a English Nazi.
As I grew older, I got worse. When I was younger, I prided myself on my good spelling but I guess it was after I began typing a lot over at Microsoft Word, I started relying heavily on the spell checker. I didn't care whether the word was correctly spelled but only that it was spelled closely enough to the word so that my spell checker could catch it. It's a bad habit, yes.
Posts: 181 | Registered: Aug 2001
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quote: Here's a stupid question: do bad spellers have trouble reading? I mean, if you don't know the difference between they're, there, and their, how do you know what they mean when you read them?
Uh, context? And for me, it's that my memory sucks. I recognize a word when I read it (occasionally saying, ah, that's how it's spelled), but I can't recall that organization of letters when I want to use it. Yay for dictionary.com when I'm writing formal stuff. In conversation, I don't bother looking words up because I don't want to disrupt the flow by pausing to check everything I'm saying. I think I had said in the chat, once, that I could look up a word someone had corrected me on, but then I wouldn't be accuratly representing myself. I'd be trying to look smarter than I am. In posting, it's kind of the same. I'm here as me, not as the smarter, cooler version of me.
Posts: 3956 | Registered: Jun 2001
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I second Annie's recommendation! I finally got my hands on it this past weekend. I loved it! It's hysterical!
I guess I misrepresent myself online, because the first thing I do when on a strange computer is install ieSpell. It catches both the words I can't quite remember and the weird typos. When they come up with one that catches me when I use the wrong homophone (of late, no/know has been the worst offender), I will die happy. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Thanks for the recommendation, Annie. I was looking at it on my way out of Borders just the other day, and trying to explain what I loved about the title to my 7-year-old.
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sndrake, your definition of "dysgraphia" is correct; it's not the inability to spell, but the inability to write coherently. That is, letters come out misformed, reversed, and so on.
quote:Uh, context?
I mean, when you read a sentence like "They're going to the store," do you have to stop and ask yourself if the mean the place, the possessive, or the contraction? Do you misread it as "Their going to the store," realize that you've misread it, and have to go back and reread it? That's the kind of answer I'm after. It seems to me that people generally don't have problems like that. It's only when they're thinking of a word and trying to come up with a spelling that they get tripped up, not when they see a particular spelling and try to attach it to a word.
You know, I've never thought of checking one's spelling or looking up words as misrepresentation. Though I suppose that since I'm a compulsive looker-upper in real life (and not just about words), it's probably a dead-on representation of me if I check every word to see if I'm using them right.
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I don't really worry aobut spelling too much. As long as I can get my point across, i don't mind. The only time i really pay attention to it is when i'm writing a paper for school, or when im writing letters, etc.
Posts: 1401 | Registered: Jun 2004
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One of my best friends is brilliant (graduated university with honors). She is also dyslexic, and can't spell very well at all. She is worse at it when she is tired than when she isn't. Finally one of her college instructors (who is also brilliant and also dyslexic) told her to get a proofreader, that it wasn't cheating. So I proofed her papers (and corrected her spelling; nor for nothing am I known among my friends as the Human Spell-Check) for the next three years.
Not spelling, however, does not get in the way of her reading. She does, however, tell me that she has to read something substantial every single day, or she begins to lose the ability to read again. Not something she wants to do, considering that she didn't learn how to read at all until she was in fifth or sixth grade.
Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
My little brother is also definitely a genius and can't spell at all. He misspells words like arm and door. Short easy words. I used to teach him his spelling before spelling tests and his brain just handles this whole thing very differently than mine. I would always make easy As on spelling tests. At most I would have to take a few minutes to get down one or two words spelled a bit oddly like "rhythm" or "calendar". However for him the whole exercise was a random thing. He would memorize spellings only with great difficulty, about the effort level it might take me to memorize a random string of numbers associated with each word in the list, and forget it with ease after the test was done.
He reads quite well, and is as addicted to reading as any of us, though he did take longer to learn. I think he was six before he could read, when all of us were 4 or 5.
His brain is organized differently, and part of the difference is that he's extremely brilliant, funny, and creative. Everything he writes is well worth reading, whether one needs to take a few extra moments to decipher his handwriting (which is also terrible) and spelling or not. The thing that's cool is that his alternate spellings often generate some associations, through possible alternate etymologies, that are richer and more meaningful in the context he's using them than the standard spellings. So I totally love how Mikie spells, and think his writing rocks. I would not have him change it for anything, though I believe it embarrasses him to be like that.
Anyway, people who think it matters a lot will miss the coolness that is Mikie's writing, but they'd better not say anything mean to him about it or they will have me to deal with!
[ June 30, 2004, 01:28 AM: Message edited by: ak ]
Posts: 2843 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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These days my dad uses a spell-checker, and it catches most things. But back when he wrote things in long-hand, we used to joke that he could misspell "Israel" three different ways on one page. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote: Everything he writes is well worth reading, whether one needs to take a few extra moments to decipher his handwriting (which is also terrible) and spelling or not. The thing that's cool is that his alternate spellings often generate some associations, through possible alternate etymologies,
Is it just me, or is this forum full of hopelessly idealizing romantics?
and, more to the point
why the adoption of pop-derived "been there, seen that, not interested in an ecumenical outcome" cynicism? *flogs self for these sins*
quote:The thing that's cool is that his alternate spellings often generate some associations, through possible alternate etymologies, that are richer and more meaningful in the context he's using them than the standard spellings.
Huh? Like what?
Posts: 586 | Registered: Jan 2003
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Like using hypocracy instead of hypocrisy, especially when talking about a government official.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Of course, that's not actually an etymology, especially in light of the fact that etymo- comes from the Greek word for true.
Posts: 586 | Registered: Jan 2003
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You wanted an example, I gave you an example. Although I guess the word would actually mean "too little government" and not "too little critical thinking" in that scenario.
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I was just wondering what Anne Kate meant. I don't see how a misspelling could be an alternate etymology, and I was hoping she could provide one that worked.
Posts: 586 | Registered: Jan 2003
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quote:Everything he writes is well worth reading, whether one needs to take a few extra moments to decipher his handwriting (which is also terrible) and spelling or not. The thing that's cool is that his alternate spellings often generate some associations, through possible alternate etymologies, that are richer and more meaningful in the context he's using them than the standard spellings.
This is the case as well with my dyslexic friend. Some of her misspellings (and, sorry, I don't have any examples at hand; it's been at least year since I've proofed anything for her) were much more appropriate (and often much funnier) than the word that needed to be there for the particular assignment being worked on.
Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
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My husband is dyslexic as well and is the most horrible speller I have ever seen. His typing is bad but his longhand is worse, considering that you can't reverse typed letters. He loves books but reads very slow, so I try to find audio books (unabridged) for him to enjoy. I will also read to him from time to time. He is a big fan of OSC, and I've been having a devil of a time trying to find Xenocide and Children of the Mind for him to listen to.
quote:I have a theory that our reading capacity is actually shape-based, like chinese, and not phoneme based as the alphabetic spelling structure might suggest
I think so as well, he's often told me that part of his problem is he can't remember how the word is supposed to look. I find that interesting when you see how he confuses "d" with "b", he can't always tell which one looks right. And transposals, when he types "holle" and reads it as "hello" it seems to be a problem with word recognition.
That said, he's also one of the most intelligent people I know. He's also left handed and an artistic sort, something most dyslexic people seem to have in common. When we were first going out he didn't send me flowers and candy. I got a few pages of handwritten poetry (beautiful stuff, and somehow more endearing with the mispellings) and a exquisite handpainted D&D elf miniature. He kept painting them for me all throughout our courtship.
I'll take that over correct spelling anyday.
Posts: 262 | Registered: May 2004
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quote: if you don't know the difference between they're, there, and their, how do you know what they mean when you read them?
So Jon Boy, does this mean that you can't tell the difference between the three when they are spoken and you can't see the difference?
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
Misspellings in informal situations, like message boards, don't bother me at all. When I'm reading a novel, or computer manual, or something that should have had a proofreader, I get a little annoyed. It disrupts the flow of reading, and is evidence that somebody wasn't doing their job.
Personally, I type kinda fast, and my fingers just get ahead of my brain. Usually, I realize I've made a mistake and will go back and correct it, but not always. I think the backspace key gets more exercise than the spacebar on my computer.
Posts: 159 | Registered: Jun 2004
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Rabbit, I don't think you understand what I was asking. If you can't keep them straight when you write, can you keep them straight when you read? And if you can't keep them straight when you read, can you figure out the meaning contextually without any problem, or do you get tripped up and have to reread? That's all I'm wondering.
Posts: 586 | Registered: Jan 2003
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Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe and the biran fguiers it out aynawy. . WOW!
quote:I mean, when you read a sentence like "They're going to the store," do you have to stop and ask yourself if the mean the place, the possessive, or the contraction? Do you misread it as "Their going to the store," realize that you've misread it, and have to go back and reread it?
No and No. I thought you meant that if I spell akimbo, ikinbo, do i recognize the correct spelling when I see it or do I think it's a new word. Homonyms are totally different animals. Those are mistakes I make when I'm typing slower than I'm thinking, not because I don't know which is which. I guess I can't help you with that.
quote:I guess I misrepresent myself online, because the first thing I do when on a strange computer is install ieSpell.
Maybe that's just part of who you are? It's not part of me, though. It would be like me in make-up.
Posts: 3956 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Sounds to me like OSC's just saying that MVS wrote a book to educate the ignorant, but she forgot to speak their language. I'm a freak about spelling, and particularly about the use and abuse of apostrophes. We're all quirky.
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