Anty-Intallecshualizm

'Dont loose this blog, its to importent. Your going to need it latter'.

I am sure my fellow Spelling Nazi's are freakin' over my horrid spelling, coz it pains my spleen to read it. I purposely typed it like this to get a reaction from those who know better. Those of you who spell badly might not notice a thing and wonder what I am on about, but we'll get to that.

See, the Interwebs is basically a world of text with pretty pictures. All the bad-spellers of the world may have wished they paid more attention in English and spelling. Your mistakes are out there for all to see, and I am referring to native-English speakers here.

The thing is, does the person with bad spelling know he/she is making these mistakes? Clearly not, otherwise something has to be seriously wrong to know you have a spelling error, but be unable or unwilling to fix it. Bad spelling on the InterTubes™ is sorta like being in the middle of a massive stadium with a piece of toilet paper on your bum. You may be oblivious, but everyone else can see it and will be snickering away whether you know it or not.

Ok, sure, some small percent of you are actually learning-disabled. Some of you talk about being learning-disabled when you're corrected, probably in an effort to shut people up. I don't think 'lazy fucker' has been diagnosed as 'learning disabled' has it? When I correct someone on his spelling, I am doing that person a favor. I mean, I already know how to spell, and I assume others want to improve their spelling since errors are so obvious. I correct people because I find it super annoying...but I really do want to help the person fix a glaring, simple error. It's kinda like seeing a Coke can on the ground, I have an urge to put it in a recycle bin even though it's not my can.

We're not talking typos here, we're talking people who routinely mix up your/you're or there/their/they're or too/to, lose/loose and general spelling mistakes. Spelling, whether we admit this to ourselves or not, has a lot to do with how we're perceived when it's so visible in emails, forums, twitters, blogs, etc. Why *wouldn't* someone want to be as precise as possible?

It's not the spelling-errors themselves which bother me as much as the anti-intellectualism I sometimes see when the spelling is corrected. Here are some of the excuses I've heard:

'You can understand me, right?'

Yes, I fucking understand you, but what I am not telling you as that I have determined that you're uneducated, lack attention-to-detail and are probably not a reader, but I didn't tell you that.

Here's another good one: 'Who cares, you don't spell everything right either' (as they scour months of posts to find the slightest typo, as if that fixes the glaring ignorance leaping off the page from their posts and response to a simple spelling-correction).

Another favorite is, 'it was a typo' when months of logged-conversation show the same spelling mistakes, over and over. Sorry mate, a typo is a mechanical malfunction of your fingers, not a recurring error...that comes from your brain.

Another doozy is, 'I just spell like that to save time'. I see, nothing like typing like a moron to save a little time, learning bad habits which might come through when you really need to spell correctly. Yeah, good thing you saved those collective 2 minutes over the course of your Internet life because we all know you have to catch that private jet to the summit meeting....or maybe PornHub.

See, the response to 'Hey you spelled that wrong, here's how you spell it right' should NOT be more fucking ignorance. This just makes the person look ignorant and on top of that, militantly-ignorant. If someone points out a piece of crap on my car, do I scream at them about their car being dirty, and does that help my piece of crap? Should I distract them saying I am 'cleaning disabled' even though my car looks pretty good otherwise? Or, do I secretly wipe the dung off and pretend it was never there? NO.

I'd thank them, take care of the issue and move on. Spelling corrections (like any valid corrections) should be welcomed. Acknowledge it, fix it and never make the mistake again ever (unless you have the memory of a fucking gnat).

What bad spelling says to me, straight away, is much more than a simple mistake. It's the person not being observant, not being a reader (or they should notice correctly-spelled words being different than their own) and not pursuing accuracy. When that person is corrected and they react with ridiculous ruses or more ignorant distractions it just shows an inability or unwillingness to learn or improve. Somehow it seems like this would carry over into other areas of life and should be a red-flag.

With some jobs there is little room for error, and certainly no room to coddle mental-weakness or intellectual dishonesty. Sure, if you work in the business of religion, you're used to suspending your brain and not letting facts get in the way, but if you're a rocket-scientist you better fucking get it right, metric or imperial better be understood, you better get those decimal places right and don't act like a retarded asshat when a colleague corrects you (especially when you know he's right).

If one cannot accept the correction, then one is simply hiding from the truth and it's obvious. The person is embarrassed but chooses to react with anger in a silly attempt to distract the correcting party, and the distraction is obvious. In addition, the hostile reaction often does not result in any type of research and correction of said spelling and thus the person is clearly too dense to deal with simple words they use commonly, or too apathetic and lazy to bother.

I used to spell 'equation' like 'equasion'. Not an egregious error, but when discussing this in an email, I immediately noticed someone responding with 'equation'. I noticed their word didn't match mine so I looked it up. Yep, I was wrong, and had been spelling it wrong for 20 years! I fixed it and never spelled it wrong again since (barring typos). See? It's that simple. If you live long enough your spelling should be near perfect by the time you die of natural-causes, right? Shouldn't an observant person who cares about accuracy fix spelling pretty much the minute they notice others spelling it differently, assuming there's something to correct?

Words affect how people perceive you and effective language will let your thoughts flow better. Bad-spelling is confusing and/or distracting.

Here's an example:

'I had to much dessert!'.

OMG it's a trap! The word 'to' is used as a preposition, but in this example it's meant as an adverb to describe 'too much'. I was all ready for a preposition but it was a bait and switch! I had to backtrack and re-read the trick-sentence with the correct meaning. Sprinkle enough of these in a few paragraphs and it's annoying and distracting to the reader. The lack of effort and accuracy will quickly annoy people and could make them take their ideas less-seriously.

What also gets me is 'there, their, they're'. These are common words. Someone who is 30 had 20+ years to get this right. I mean, these are COMMON words. How difficult is it to get it right, and what is the downside of getting it wrong? Is it wrong to think someone is a fucking retard, lazy, unobservant, etc. when he/she gets this wrong *consistently*? Harsh, I know.

When one is corrected about spelling, and it's verified as a good correction but the person continues the bad spelling...that is not just a mistake. It's anti-intellectual, plain and simple. Sadly, it seems fairly common nowadays, and not just with spelling.

/rant.

If you find any spelling errors, please let me know because I will thank you. Seriously.


-dB-