.
I think most people can.
Hello Andy:
Yeah.. When I see words spelled rite, I get a boner.
excon
More likely they can't spell so they know the difference.
Some are concerned with appearances. Others look to the substance.
They do stand out, but I don't feel like they look horrible. When there are a lot of mistakes it can make things hard to read. If there's a typo, or one word mispelled, I can easily compensate and focus on the meaning rather than the presentation. Anyway, standardized spelling is a relatively recent human invention. There's nothing inherently "right" about a particular spelling; it's just what we've generally agreed on.
From the Intertubes:
"Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteers be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."
:D
But the human minds of some love to feel superior and point out the "mistakes" of others.
Not for nuthing Andy...Maybe its because they are typing on a cell phone and its a little challenging to see there typos?
The only thing that get's me worked up is when people confuse There, They're and Their. There are boundaries that one don't cross
I guess I just don't fantasize about them that much :)
This reminds me of my dad when I was a kid..."Your did a great job, but..."
"There's nothing inherently "right" about a particular spelling; it's just what we've generally agreed on"
No, it's what we were taught in school. It's what it says in the dictionary. Of course it's right.
"They do stand out, but I don't feel like they look horrible"
Well, ever since I was a child I have always had these bad reactions to anything incorrect. It really is offensive-looking. How could it be anything but?
I remember seeing something like that in several profiles on Answerbag. That paragraph is carefully written in such a manner that, even though the words in it are jumbled-up chaos, it is still possible to tell what it is supposed to be. Most incorrect postings on the Internet are not written in such a clever manner. That's because whoever wrote that paragraph has a brain. Lol:)
I don't do it to feel superior, I do it because I have a natural instinct for everything to be correct and precise. If I wanted to feel superior to them I would add a tirade of insults to my comments, but as you may have noticed I don't do that. I don't name-call people for getting something wrong, not even when they do it repeatedly. From all this plus the fact that I'm a Pisces, how could you accuse me of wanting to feel superior?
As I said, the standard English spelling was arbitrarily contrived many years ago. With the invention of the printing press, and modern analogues, it seems to be settled, but my point is there are no facts with respect to spelling other than what human beings decide. It's a philosophical point, to be sure, but if you feel so offended at misspellings and typos and whatnot, maybe it will make you feel better if you alter your perspective, rather than expecting everyone else to cater to your sensitivities.
Just because it's "offensive-looking" to you, that's no concern to anyone else. You have to take responsibility for your unreasonable sensitivity, that few others care about to the extent that you do.
I don't get that one either, GoatJumper, especially not "they're" because that word obviously has a verb within it while the other two don't. Also, "they're" is not even pronounced the same as "there" or "their". "Their" and "there" are both one-syllable words that rhyme precisely with "pair", while "they're" is a two-syllable word that rhymes precisely with "player". Since all this is so glaringly obvious, how could anyone possibly confuse "they're" with either "there" or "their"? The mind really boggles at that one.
If I see a scar on a woman's arm I am more likely to look away from it and focus on something of greater interest, like her shoes, for example. Lol:)
It is not necessarily self-righteousness that motivates people to be pedants. There can be many other reasons for it.
That is one anal-retentive mind you have there. Just about every word on earth can be spelled better than it is presented.
You are just brain-washed. Starving for any rules no matter how cockamaimie they are (did I spell that right?)
I don't fantasise about incorrect English, Fork, I never did, but when I keep seeing it every day on the Internet it becomes as far removed from fantasy as possible and instead becomes a frightfully hideous reality. Lol:)
