spelling and grammar, etc.

[Tyler Hewitt]

A flurry of posts about spelling and grammar usage
lately. I was avoiding joining in, but that obviously
hasn't worked well for me!
I hate seeing mispellings and improper use of grammar,
it's annoying and frustating. As an educator who makes
his students write evaluations of every assignment
they turn in (in studio Art classes), I get to se lots
of bad writing.

But, I can also be forgiving, and it is mainly a
question of circumstance. Papers, advertising,
anything published, etc. should be proofread and
cleaned up. E-mail messages, posts to online
digests,etc. are by their very nature more immediate
and ephemeral, and should be treated that way.

I am a horrid typist. I freely admit this. I also
admit to almost never running spell check on outgoing
e-mail messages. I usually proofread before seding
them off, but I often miss things. This message, for
example, has already been corrected several times in
process, but will most likely contain mistakes when I
finally push the 'send' button.

The difference between this message and something more
'official' is one of casualness. I fully accept a
casual tone in e-mail messages.

Another issue regarding English usage is one of
accepting a fluid language whose standard rules
basically remain the same, yet whose common usage is
always changing. I generally accept non-standard uses
of English, a living language should contain these.
This is a matter of degrees for me as well.
'Apostrophe S' errors are lazy, sloppy and annoy me,
but I say 'ain't' all the time. 

Basically,I consider the context before letting
grammar and spelling errors raise my blood pressure.
And, I try not to worry about things I can't control!
Tyler

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