Re: Bad Spelling


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Posted by Peter H on August 10, 2008 at 11:19:22 user Peter_H.

In Reply to: Re: Bad Spelling posted by Mike Dennis on August 10, 2008 at 08:59:56:

I can't spell that well, but I do think it is very important

(I'm cutting in above Owen because I want to pick up a different point in Mike's post.) An honest admission, Mike. I agree with you, but perhaps I should explain where I am coming from on this. I have had a lifelong interest in words, how they are spelt, how they are used, and their origins. This interest was also professional - most of my working life was spent in the editorial department of a large London publishing house. Every single day, I had to correct the mistakes of the authors. I am retired now, but find it difficult to stop doing this!

Obviously, it would be tedious and churlish constantly to correct the postings of others. It would also invite retribution, and I make mistakes of my own - bags of them. But I can’t see anything objectionable about commenting sometimes when an error throws up a bit of inadvertent humour. The late Humphrey Lyttelton did this too - there's his famous thought, when someone wrote in error "orthinology", that it was not so much bird-watching as word-botching. On the same principle, I could not resist joking about "Pennance" a few weeks ago, and I’m glad to say that other TarBoarders saw the joke. Another word enthusiast, it seems, is Roger Walker:

Words, and their correct use and spelling, are the way some of us approach AR, just as other TarBoarders approach AR via steam railways, or higher mathematics, or baking bunloaf. Aren’t we all “trying to help”?




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