Spelling, Shpelling

Sorry about the mistake on the last post's headline. (Vengeans? Sort of like vengeful vegans?) Spell-checkers have turned my brain to mush.

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Not often I have the opportunity to make the same comment to two brothers, each of whom has an admirable blog. To quote myself from OUPblog ...

My sympathy is limited.

Now that we have good tools which allow us to reduce the burden of careful proofreading, we whine because we don't like the results of not proofreading what the tools suggest...

Yes, yes - I know you weren't whining. That part was really directed at a piece of the article on which I was commenting at OUPblog.

By Scott Belyea (not verified) on 02 Nov 2007 #permalink

Spell checkers saved my spelling ability. Really. But for it to work, you have to actually look to see what got corrected, and imagine how the error crept in. Do you really not know how to spell it? Do your fingers automatically add an extra letter?

But only careful proofreading will save you form all mistakes.

But only careful proofreading will save you form all mistakes.

Well put ...

By Scott Belyea (not verified) on 02 Nov 2007 #permalink

Over on Language Log, my other blogging home, we'd call that an example of the Bierce/Hartman/McKean/Skitt Law of Prescriptive Retaliation: "any article or statement about correct grammar, punctuation, or spelling is bound to contain at least one eror."

Prescriptivist Retaliation!

By David Marjanović (not verified) on 03 Nov 2007 #permalink

Carl, Ben, David:

Take it easy.

One of the forensic tools to detect plagiarism is to look for the repetition of an odd error. Somebody will be looking for "prescriptive retaliation" and "vengeans" in future masters and doctorate theses.

I have a friend who works for a public policy non-profit, and whenever she gets a new computer (or a new version of MS Office) she immediately goes into the dictionary and deletes the word "pubic"...

Everybody knows that Vengeans come from Vengea. Didn't you study world geography?

:-)

By David B. Benson (not verified) on 05 Nov 2007 #permalink