queerbychoice | Can You Tell I'm a Former Two-Time Schoolwide Spelling Bee Winner?

Current Mood: really quite distressed. honestly.
Current Music: The Jets: "Rocket 2 U"

Can You Tell I'm a Former Two-Time Schoolwide Spelling Bee Winner?

Okay, that's it. No more suffering in silence for me. It's high time I call your attention to an urgent social issue - the dangerous epidemic of spelling errors in LJ interests lists, which is threatening to render the entire neat little hyperlinked interests system worthless, because whenever you click on the links in your interests list, all you'll really find is the people who made the same spelling errors as you.

More to the point, if you're on my friends list or I'm on yours or I know you at all, and you have a spelling error in your interests list, then you should be aware: I am obsessed with this spelling error of yours. I'm so obsessed by it that if only you really knew how obsessed I am with it, you'd start worrying about getting a restraining order to keep me away from it. You need to realize that every other day for the entire time I've known you, I've been clicking on your userinfo page just to stare in obsessed exasperation at that spelling error for an hour or more, debating in my head again and yet again as to whether I know you well enough to get away with informing you that you can't spell, whether now is the right moment to do so, whether I'll come across as rude or petty or condescending, whether you won't like me anymore once you find out what a shallow, surface-oriented, spelling-obsessed person I secretly am. But I can't keep it quiet any longer. I'm coming out of the closet to plead with all of you to relieve me of my spelling-error-induced agony!!

The following is not necessarily a comprehensive list of all spelling errors occurring in the LJ interests lists of everyone I know. It's merely a small collection of the ones that I'm sufficiently obsessed with that they came to mind when I sat down to make my list. These spelling errors keep me awake at night. I have nightmares about these spelling errors.

abstracted misspelled "Emily Dickinson"

allyx misspelled "narcissism"

asrai_d mistyped "intuition" (but she/they also list(s) "incorrect spelling" as an interest so, um, it's fitting . . .)

dlfke misspelled "Paul Cézanne"

eeek mistyped "electronica")

frankepi had previously misspelled "civil disobedience" and "first amendment," but he has obligingly corrected them already because I pleaded with him to relieve me of the extreme mental distress they were causing me. You can observe the extent of my former distress, however, by the fact that I still remember the exact spelling mistakes he had previously made, even though three or four months have now passed since the time when he obligingly corrected them for me.

khudirambose misspelled "Howard Zinn"

lentrot mistyped "atheism"

moistgrrluk misspelled "weird people"

ohandrea mistyped "reservoir dogs"

theobscure misspelled "existentialism"

tikarass and transientdyke both misspelled "Audre Lorde" in an identical manner to each other, and to five other people plus a community, though in a different manner from the manner in which arapahoe_centro and one other person misspelled "Audre Lorde."

Again, I plead with all of you: Relieve me of this agony, for I cannot endure it another second!

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

thats the best stuff i've heard on Lj in a while!!!
do you think you could check mine for me?
i think i have it all right.
now that you've mentioned something i may have to go re-check it.
lol
thanks :)

You have no idea of the kind of things people misspell in their interest lists. It's absurd. Sometime, when you're bored, try doing searches on random flagrantly misspelled words.

Or see how many people are interested in "and [interest]" or "i dunno" or similar.

Don't...don't...don't...be a spelling snob, in LJ

Words are for communication. If the words that people use to communicate do just that, that should be enough. OK, it's not enough in real life, but it's fine in LJ.

A brief look through a few dozen LJ's should convince you that you are surrounded by people who can't spell perfectly. Many can't spell properly. But they are communicating what they are trying to say, OK, and in their own words, so put up with it. Be happy that they are communicating at all. They (or most of them) don't want to be told that this or that world isn't spelt like that. Put up with it.

Emm

Sorry, word not world!

Thanks... noted and fixed. ;)

*smirks*
Well, i was going to write about how I sympathize with you, dear, but it seems someone has a problem with our ilk...

Hi, Emm. You don't know me. I'm Stephanie. =)
I am a spelling and grammar Nazi. Sometimes, it's painful for me to read other people's journals because of the spelling/grammar mistakes therein. In some cases, it's okay...I mean, quite often I've been known to write things completely in lower case, but that's more a case of laziness than anything else. Ah, but I digress...

Chances are that when our friend here wrote her entry, she felt comfortable enough with the people listed to point out their errors. I imagine there are a great many others who didn't make the list, simply because she didn't feel comfortable enough to point out their errors. I've done the same thing myself, with my own friends, in the past. It's not condescending at all; it's just that some of us are really obsessive about these things. In fact, that's one of the primary reasons I stopped browsing through random journals. Sometimes, the twitching would go on long after I'd closed the journal. ;)

No one's trying to be a snob...at least, not a hateful one. *feeble attempt at humor* What is happening is that Gayle realized she had a problem, and is addressing that problem. It's the same concept as writing in someone's journal about a problem you have with something they wrote about, or something like that. The only difference is, Gayle wrote it in her journal, instead of theirs. Cheers!

i was gonna change everything on my list to, y'know, be incorrect. Just for you... But man, that's a lot of work.

I didn't make it to your list...whew!I get very annoyed too when I see spelling errors in interests lists...some people spell the word corectly,and then include a semi-colon,which can be more distressing.

I hate spelling errors in LJ lists too and somehow had missed that I spelled that wrong... Thanks for calling my attention to it :)

*blows raspberries at Gayle* Dear , you come from a nation that seems to view the butchering of the English language as a sport , so my misspelling of wierd is of little consequence - note humour , and colour as the most glaring examples !

corectly = correctly

Feel free to point out any of my mistakes, I won't mind :) I misspelt "Spiritualised" for the first few months of having a Livejournal but luckily I spotted that one for myself.

Forgive me if this comment isn't up to much...I'm a little tipsy.

I was relieved to see my name's not on that list.

"...No one's trying to be a snob..."

Well, I think this posturing is. Or on the road to it, anyway. It is saying, for practical purposes: "Now look, honey, there's a right way to do this spelling stuff, and I know the right way, and you don't know the right way, and you're therefore uneducated, and I'm therefore superior... so there, now we both know our true places!"

Lots of people out there can't spell, but they are nice people, and they're trying to communicate, and the communication's clear even if the spelling's not quite making the grade, so show a bit of tolerance and don't go rubbing their noses in it, huh?

Emm

I think he/she was trying to do correctly incorrectly deliberately there.

It was not a sp.

Emm

"Lots of people out there can't spell, but they are nice people, and they're trying to communicate, and the communication's clear even if the spelling's not quite making the grade, so show a bit of tolerance and don't go rubbing their noses in it, huh?"

At the risk of speaking for Gayle (when she's perfectly capable of doing so herself), I'll reiterate: comments are made only to those with whom a level of comfort has been achieved. I don't go into random journals and patronize the owners, pointing out all their mistakes. I also don't base my opinion of any person or their abilities based on their syntax. I can't say the same for Gayle - you'll have to ask her about that - but I'd be willing to bet she's of the same mind. I point out mistakes to my friends, and they graciously accept my advice, with no hard feelings. I also have my own mistakes pointed out to me, and it's no big thing.

If you'll notice, someone else actually asked her to check over theirs...and so far, none of the listed individuals have indicated that they've felt hurt or belittled by her advice. I may be proven wrong on that later, but for now, no one really seems to have taken offense.

I can see how you would feel upset or agitated about this. I also think it's really cool you're standing up for the countless LJers whose intentions are far better than their spelling or grammar skills. Honestly, had I felt the same about the issue, I would've just rolled my eyes, cussed under my breath, and moved along to the next journal. But this, I think, is nothing more than friendly criticism...kind of like when you tell a friend that a certain outfit makes her look fat, or something like that. I'm sure Gayle didn't mean to come across as superior to anyone...and if she did, I shall proceed to beat her savagely about the head and shoulders with a large trout until she's good again. ;)

Also, part of me wonders if the whole thing wasn't done more or less tongue-in-cheek...?

Glad I made the cut, I hate it when I misspell things. My spelling used to be wonderful, but then I started taking Spanish, and it got worse. Then I took Russian... and Japanese... and Latin... and it's just gone downhill completely.

Your point makes a lot of sense when applied to journal entries - if the meaning is clear, going out of one's way to nitpick can convey an attitude of superiority. However, misspellings in interest lists defeat the point of interest lists - if you're trying to find other people with the same interests, it's going to be pretty hard to do if everyone spells them differently. So in this case, I think pointing out the errors is quite constructive. And, as another commenter said, no one's seemed to mind so far.

Yes, spelling errors in actual journal entries don't bother me so much. For one thing, they disappear off the screen so I don't have to keep looking at them. ;) And spelling errors do defeat the whole purpose of the interest list hyperlinks.

Uh, she was correcting her own spelling error. I think she'd know if she meant it that way.

I was both serious, and also making fun of myself for being serious. It does bother me, but I'm also aware it's not the most important thing in the world to worry about . . . but still, spelling things correctly does serve a purpose, particularly in the internet world where we search for things and if you spell them wrong then they won't show up in searches unless the person searching spelled them wrong too.

And I listed the errors all together in my journal because it seemed more polite, so everyone would know they weren't the only one, and wouldn't feel singled out.

Yes, yes yes,... but you are missing the point, surely.

These LJs are peoples' journals. They are not intended to be works of literature, they are only intended to be peoples' records of themselves.

Many of the people who write them are at school or on a learning curve. Many others who write them can play numerous musical instruments (I can't), take an engine out of a car, repair it, put it back (I can't), rewire a house (I can't), run a farm (I can't), and so on and so on.

Merely because the medium they are using to record their lives is the written word (this is the only medium on offer for practicable purposes on LJ), and they may not actually be particularly adept at the use of the written word is NO reason to criticise them. The logical conclusion of the critic who says, "God, these people...they can't even SPELL" is to say that they have no right to have an LJ at all.

The point you are missing is that people are perfectly entitled to have an LJ even if their spelling is atrocious, and you should be delighted that they have LJs, not concentrating on the fact that their spelling is atrocious. Am I making sense? Or are we only purists, here?

It's like watching some guy finishing in six hours in the Boston Marathon and saying, "God, that guy shouldn't be in that event" -- surely that's his choice, not yours, and if he gets something out of it, then all is well.

Emm

I would have thought that, taking your argument to its logical conclusion, it would be quite helpful to you that people who can't spell often mis-spell their interests too. If they do so then it saves you from having to associate with them, with all of the frustrations that would entail. The uneducated mis-spellers are kept apart from the educated spellers because the mis-spellers can't even spell their interests, so they won't get into the same lists as the purists such as yourself.

See, mis-spelling has it purposes!

Emm

Well, I felt just the same as you when I found LJs.

I thought, I can't believe some of these people: the spelling is really atrocious.

But then I realised that I was being a snob, and I realised that I was missing the point.

I'm just trying to pass on my own enlightenment in a way. Live and let live.

Emm

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