[Home]WikiSpellingConspiracy

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Someone who corrects other people's typos (useful) but also their spelling  (not so useful).
For example, the other day I used [invidious] and meant it and PT changed it to insidious. Also known to have annoyed ChiarkPerson with interfering with theirs and theres.
Basically PT is the equivalent of scribes involved in biblical mss editing. He sees something he *thinks* is an error and changes it even when the original author meant what they said.

Good spelling is useful, and it is a very good thing that I am not alone in making spelling corrections. If something some thinks is a misspelling was intentional, you could always change it back and add a link to the dictionary (like [Dictionary:this this]) to show that your use was correct. Sadly, it has been my experience that most things that look like typos and/or spelling mistakes are in fact just that. Misuse of the apostrophe and there/their can make text very frustrating to read. If it's worth typing for other people to read, it's worth typing in such a way that other people will want to read it. - MoonShadow

Ok, do I really need to add 'sic' onto my YMMV disclaimer image?  I will if I have to, but I'd much rather just leave stuff.  Pronounciation isn't perfect - why should spelling be?  (Though yes, certain aspects of spelling annoy me - as do aspects of people's accents.  Oooh!  An idea for a Proximatron plugin appears!)  --Vitenka

Pronounciation isn't perfect - why should spelling be?

Imagin if thu entir wiki looked like thi's. No one person needs to worry about their own spelling the entire time, because there's always me to clean up, but I think complaining when someone tries to make the place nicer for everyone is a bit much. - MoonShadow
Wael boi, oi mahneg'd to unnerstan yew purfectloi.  I take your point - but as long as the message gets across, why does it matter that you are exact to ancient rules?  (Heh.  I just typoed that as 'batter' so obviously you have to be vaguely careful.)
It took me three times as long to read that as it would have taken me to read it had it been spelt correctly. In this case, the spelling was deliberate. However, in most cases what this says to me is that the person doing the typing, whether consciously or not, considers their time much more precious than that of their readers; which is not particularly nice, polite or pleasant. WelcomeToWiki; please PlayNice?. - MoonShadow

As has been vocally stated elsewhere, no one is forcing anyone to read what I write.  My same arguments for lcd compatibility apply - but that would mean sticking to single syll.. short link words.  --Vitenka
If someone genuinely doesn't want/care about people reading what they write, why go to all the trouble of making it public? If they do care, why not at least permit others to make it easier to read if they are not prepared to do so themselves? I see the fact that typos and misspellings can be corrected as one of wiki's massive advantages over other kinds of public space. - MoonShadow
Mmm, true - but I can see how someone could get very annoyed over the changing of an intended typo or similar - especially when it's not obvious to the fixer that the meaning has been changed and they don't put a 'the original author said this' warning on it.  After all, you got fairly irate when I changed your sentences to mock - and it's really on the same level as mooing / mooning.  --Vitenka
Oh, I agree. I got quite annoyed with the pedant/pidant saga, for instance. But that's no call to say that all or even a majority of spelling corrections are bad, which is what I am responding to here. - MoonShadow
(PeterTaylor) If a spelling error is intentional, what's wrong with using the established conventions for indicating said intent? If it is unintentional, why complain when it's fixed? ISTM the only legitimate complaint here is that I occasionally make errors in my "corrections". I apologise for this. However, it's not going to stop me trying to keep the wiki tidy any more than the fact you make typos is going to stop you putting content on the wiki.

Whilst the cleanup is in general nice, and I do thank you and others for it and try and keep my own stuff fairly clean - I also think it can be taken too far.  Especially with the land grab 'spelling corrected by' and spelling corrections not always being just such (and thus meaning that you have to view every revision and get annoyed when you find spellfix only ones)  Sensibly though, an anti AmericanSpelling (as opposed to an AntiAmerican Spelling) plugin would be a very nice thing for me.  --Vitenka
I have to agree with you that the "spelling corrected by" thing has really been getting on my nerves (which is why I stepped up my own spelling correction efforts recently). Thankfully I think that's over now.. - MoonShadow
PeterTaylor splits MoonShadow's paragraph to observe that the signatures were a response to whoever wrote WikiIlluminati/Scoring. He has two days' edits to catch up on, so isn't currently sure whether the game is ongoing, nor how seriously others are taking it. He is quietly pleased that others are now fixing typos as well. Okay, scratch that: I just read further down the page and saw that the game is over. The signatures will now stop.
Being OK with people correcting obvious misspellings is all I can ask for, and trying to keep your own stuff fairly clean is a very good thing! I also agree that it can be taken too far - I think people should respect other people's sics, for instance (some don't), and shouldn't change the sense of other people's words while keeping it looking like those other people said the new words. But I still disagree with the original poster, who seems to hold rather more radical views than you on the subject.  - MoonShadow (cont)
Would I be right in thinking that the orginal poster was the same one as kept changing "mooing" to "mooning"?  He/she hardly has a right to complain... --M-A
''Dunno - is the nefarious ChiarkPerson the same as DivinitySam?  --Vitenka
No. I think I know who at least one of them is, and I'm 99% sure that they're not the same person. I thought the original poster to this page was DivinitySam, though.. BICBW - SunKitten
The original poster to this page was DivinitySam, and the person who kept changing "mooing" to "mooning" was DivinitySam.  Where does ChiarkPerson come into it? --M-A
My confusion.  --Vitenka  (Hey, just be glad I'm not calling them both Goku.)


I was imagining PeterTaylor or some other ToothyWikizen would go round removing all of them afterwards - possibly MoonShadow with an AdminEdit?.  But I'm quite strongly in favour of correcting spelling(/grammar) if you're 99% sure it was a genuine error.  I think it's fair for people who want things that look like typos to be preserved to include somewhere either "sic" or a link to Sic (like "[their] state kindergartens").  For those (significant number) of us who do find common spelling errors irritating and distracting-from-the-main-point, I think it's totally fair to allow minor-edit spelling corrections...?  --AlexChurchill

I think it's one of the really good things about having a wiki - everyone can pitch in to make the place nicer for everyone, and so no one person needs to make the full effort on their own.  - MoonShadow

Well I think changing a person's spelling is discriminatory. I personally have good spelling but by correcting, say, a dyslexic's spelling, is implicitly saying you think they are less than perfect and deserve to be openly rebuked for their disability. Somehow they're not quite in the image of God... Troll (ey ) (and the mooing mooning thang (SICCCC) was hilarious ;-) )
(PeterTaylor) If I were trying to openly rebuke people who typo, would I make my spelling corrections minor edits? *slaps own wrist* Shouldn't feed the troll, should I?

Huh?  Isn't that like saying that selling sun-cream to 'Aryans' is racist? -- Senji

No there's something special about celebrating difference. Correct spelling is essentially a tool of the state with a number of functions
1. To try and make everyone much of a muchness - to kill any individuality by insidious methods (i.e. normative spelling rules)
2. To favour the middle classes who are more likely to go to good schools and therefore be able to spell and to exclude poor people (and dyslexics) from society

I know this is the WikiSpellingConspiracy page, but... !!  How about 'To make it easier for everyone to read things'?  Ah d'y'reeli wan me t'b'rite-in' li' thi? -- Senji
TIAJ No, the original poster has a point. God laid a curse upon the people of Babylon for building a great tower; who are we to go against the word of God? Everyone should use their own form of spelling and language, ideally making it completely incomprehensible to everyone else. That is the Only True Path. ;) - MoonShadow
Oooh - I'd totally missed that possibility.  What is the legend behind the TowerOfBabylon anyway?  --Vitenka (GAH!  It took me longer to find the place to paste this edit conflict in that it did for someone to post ANOTHER revision)

Just to try giving something other than the standard set of responses to the above: is discrimination always a bad thing? Consider, for instance, what happens if the DVLA stopped discriminating against the blind when deciding whether to permit someone to drive a car. - MoonShadow

... Um - this whole section is a dubious and obvious troll.  It would make a fun 'what if' discussion, but not a terribly serious one, I feel.  Though the dyslexia thing is a reasonable point.  --Vitenka

The dyslexics I've known have (at least mildly) prefered correct spellings -- Senji

Discrimination against blind people driving cars is ludicrous. It rests on the (frankly false) assumption that you need to be able to see to drive
I think that says it all, really. No further comment is required. I vote we revert the spelling in the above to the original form, for posterity. - MoonShadow

Pray tell, how would a blind person deal with traffic lights, for instance? - ChrisHowlett
Belatedly.  --Vitenka (amongst many other potential one word replies)

It depends whether they were colour blind or not and whether thay had two legs
Do you mean a spotted thay or a greater purple crested thay? - MoonShadow

I mean the parrot thay and I refuse to be governed by Belial of this age of conformist spalling (SICCCC)
I will not be ruled by Europe
(PeterTaylor) Only one spelling error in that paragraph - no points, I'm afraid - but I think you score 2 for the total non sequitur and lead into a rant about Europe.



Themself?


Let's put the ToothyWiki pedantry to good use.  Taking as an axiom that it is acceptable to use "them" as the indeterminate-gender 3rd person singular [accusative form -ed], what's the reflexive form?  Themselves?  Themself? --M-A

Hm. "He is slapping himself." "She is slapping herself." "Them is slapping.."? Yuck! No, sorry, I don't like your axiom. "That person.." - there. "That person is slapping themself." "That person is slapping themselves." They both sound wrong, though the first one's much better, and seems to be [accepted] as a [neologism]. I can't think of a gender-neutral way of saying it off the top of my head though. Can't help. - MoonShadow
"They are slapping..." --M-A
"..themselves". But that's plural, so it doesn't help you. - MoonShadow

Yet another 'neologism' that is actually an archaism. People have no idea.  --PlasmonPerson

The OED has no entry for 'themself'. From the definition for 'themselves': 'In concord with a singular pronoun or n. denoting a person, in cases where the meaning implies more than one, as when the n. is qualified by a distributive, or refers to either sex: = himself or herself'. Citations from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries have 'theym self' and 'theymselfe' and 'them self'; more recent 'themselves'.

No one should take themselves too seriously.

Nope, there's no valid way to say it in english.  Them is slapping itself, is probably the closest you can get.  But your axiom is ugly! --Vitenka
Sigh.  Here was I, imagining that "them" could be taken to mean "they, them, their", as appropriate.  All I meant was that I didn't want people to answer "himself / herself"... --M-A
Sorry - thought you were starting it up as a strange discussion, not as a real discussion.  --Vitenka
No, I'm reviewing and editing help files... bleurgh. --M-A
'They' is much more natural, since it's pretty rare to have someone who is gender indeterminate but not otherwise indeterminate.  --Vitenka (And such people, presumably, wish to be referred to as 'it')
No, they don't.  They really, really don't.  If they're silly, then they go for 'sie' but a friend of mine identifies as androgynous and prefers 'she' (because she was born male - if she was born female, she'd probably prefer 'he').  I still personally find this silly, and I have a high tolerance for GenderFuck?. --ElliottBelser
The above line, is, probably, properly rendered as: "No-one should take oneself too seriously"  --Vitenka
Ah, dratted edit conflict.  What PlasmonPerson said, above.  --Vitenka

''Parsing the axiom the way it was intended as requesting "they/them as appropriate" for 3rd person singular, under that axiom I'd be inclined towards "Themself" as opposed to "Themselves" for the singular. For writing I tend to disagree with the axiom :) --AlexChurchill
I may actually rephrase the sentence in the end.  It's currently "A user cannot delete themselves".  It will become "Users cannot delete themselves", thus removing the problem. --M-A
The active user may not delete theirself!  --Vitenka  (Delete oneself, no-one may!)
Sticking with plurals is by far the easiest option.  --Vitenka
Alternatively, you could also sidestep the problem by specifying what it is they can't delete - "No user can delete their own account" or whatever; making it harder to deliberately misinterpret as the butt of a joke. - MoonShadow

The answer to this seems to be a GenderNeutralPronoun. I'm perfectly happy to have my spelling / grammar corrected. I do make an effort to type correctly but usually mistakes slip through. So thank you MoonShadow and everyone else for making the effort --Indigo
(PeterTaylor) Capitalisation of the first word in a sentence?
Sorry I am a very lazy girl, in the middle of a coursework marathon. That and I'm far too used to MicrosoftWord doing it for me. --Indigo
I'd really appreciate it if you could please help us out with this by having a bit of a try at getting into the habit of capitalising/punctuating things.. Thanks! ^_^ - MoonShadow
Sorry! I am making an effort, promise! --Indigo



CategoryLanguage | Spelling

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