Fun with Spelling and Grammar

[joywitch_m_curmudgeon <joym999@aol.com>]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Mary Ann <macloudt at y...>" 
> To be honest some of my friends think I'm a complete spelling and 
> grammar snob.  However, when they're writing something official and 
> need it proofread, who do they run to?  Yep, me.  Talk about fair-
> weather friends. ;)

You too, Mary Ann?  That happens to me a lot -- they snicker, call me 
compulsive, and always seem to have something that they are sure "I'd 
just love to read." 

> However I do think that spelling and grammar are gifts.  I've 
always 
> been good at spelling and phonics.  I can look at a sentence and 
know 
> whether or not it's grammatically correct.  I may not know *why*, 
but 
> I know it's wrong.  On the other hand my husband, who is 
intelligent 
> and reads an awful lot of historical non-fiction, has been known to 
> spell his own mother's name wrong.  

I think that's true.  Some of it has to do with the way different 
people process information, IMO.  I tend to have a visual memory, so 
if something is spelled wrong, it simply doesn't *look* right to me.  
According to stuff I've read, other people remember information by 
other means, such as its "sound" or "feeling," so may have a harder 
time remembering how to spell.

But the biggest problem, IMO, with bad spelling and grammar, is 
simply that it makes it difficult, or even impossible, to 
communicate.  I recently joined a Yahoo group for a computer game I 
like to play, and at first I thought I had stumbled into a foreign 
group who was speaking a language I wasn't quite familiar with.  
After determining that I was not actually in the Serbo-Croatian or 
Irdu-speaking game fans group, I tried in vain to understand what 
people in the group were saying, but it was just impossible.  The 
posts were so poorly written -- full of words that weren't words and 
nothing resembling punctuation or paragraphs or even sentences -- 
that I could only understand maybe one out of every ten.  I don't 
quite get why it doesn't bother the people in that group that they 
can't understand each other, but there you have it.

I think that the poor writing skills of many, if not most, Americans 
is a very serious problem.  I have had several jobs in which I was 
responsible for hiring, and as a result I have read hundreds of 
poorly-written resumes and cover letters.  In fact, I would say that 
most of the cover letters I've read, even from college graduates 
responding to ads for writers or researchers, were so poorly written 
that I wouldn't even consider calling them.  It's depressing.

--Joywitch, who compulsively proofreads even her shopping lists