I before E (For our resident spelling experts)

[Quicksilver]

A British prof seems to have given up on his students' spelling ability — or lack thereof.

Bucks New University lecturer Ken Smith says academics ought to stop wasting time correcting errors, and just accept "variant spellings" of the words students most commonly misspell. (That's misspell, buddy, not mispell.) As long as it's understandable, he says, who cares if it's spelled "occured," "their" or "truely"?

We're waiting eagerly to see if his mathematical colleagues join the cause, because really, who cares if the cosine is tangent to the, er, infinitive derivative? Or is that the cosin, the tangint and the derisitive?

[AzNMpower32]

No. Correct spelling, grammar, and capitalisation are important.

German grammar is far more complex (and sometimes illogical) but I don't complain about that either.

[RastaGurl]

Originally Posted by AzNMpower32

No. Correct spelling, grammar, and capitalisation are important.

German grammar is far more complex (and sometimes illogical) but I don't complain about that either.

It's important to master the language one speaks. How can we "say" that foreigners living in this great country of ours should learn English if we ourselves can't speak or write it properly? From a personal standpoint, in my business, the reports I generate reflect on me, and, essentially, comprise advertising. If those reports are unintelligible, that's bad for business. Just my 0.02c.

[Meiac09]

Originally Posted by AzNMpower32

No. Correct spelling, grammar, and capitalisation are important.

German grammar is far more complex (and sometimes illogical) but I don't complain about that either.

the only way you can get that from me in electronic communication is when i'm using my iphone because it defaults to it.

[Ishniknork]

Originally Posted by AzNMpower32

No. Correct spelling, grammar, and capitaliZation are important.

Originally Posted by RastagGurl

It's important to master the language one speaks. How can we "say" that foreigners living in this great country of ours should learn English if we ourselves can't speak or write it properly? From a personal standpoint, in my business, the reports I generate reflect on me, and, essentially, comprise advertising. If those reports are unintelligible, that's bad for business. Just my 0.02c.

Absolutely.

That British professor ought to deduct points for poor spelling, grammar and punctuation. Maybe if his students got dropped a letter or two on their grade they would pay more attention to the "basics" of written language.

[AzNMpower32]

Originally Posted by Ishniknork

Privatise, realise, specialise. I don't see anything wrong there. I wonder who's gonna say I spell "metre" incorrectly.

[Ishniknork]

Originally Posted by AzNMpower32

Privatise, realise, specialise. I don't see anything wrong there. I wonder who's gonna say I spell "metre" incorrectly.

Ooooo-Kay... what's a "metre"?

[JCL]

Originally Posted by AzNMpower32

Privatise, realise, specialise. I don't see anything wrong there. I wonder who's gonna say I spell "metre" incorrectly.

I appreciate you spelling metre correctly. I can live with meter, it is a variant that we get in Canada from the US, and while not really correct here, it is understood.

I like your metric kick. It is logical. About time to live up to the law passed in 1866 making the metric system legal in the US. In the meantime, you are in good company with Liberia and Burma as the last three holdouts.

What I don't get are your spellings that are Commonwealth standards, but not in Canada. Are you going for Australian or Kiwi? Or are you paying homage to Samuel Johnson? Does this extend to Commonwealth words? How do you spell the element represented by Al? Are you trying to create con-tro-versy. Do you raise the bonnet to check the oil? Why don't you reference tyres?

Anyway, just kidding, I enjoy your posts.

[JCL]

Originally Posted by AzNMpower32

No. Correct spelling, grammar, and capitalization are important.

It is a sign of respect. Not caring about spelling and capitalization means you don't care about the reader. Anytime I read a post with no punctuation I automatically (and subconsciously) discount it a certain amount, as the poster has lost credibility.

I hear that "it is just the web, spelling doesn't matter" Seems to me like a load of BS. This isn't text messaging. It is communication. If the spelling used in a post causes the message to be understood less so than if it was presented correctly, that is a communication failure to a certain extent.

Just my $0.02

[erick_c]

Teacher: Bryan, what's the 'I before E' rule?

Bryan: I before E, always....

Teacher: I before E except after C and when sounding like "" as in neighbor and weigh and on weekends and holidays and all throughout May, and you'll always be wrong no matter WHAT YOU SAY!"