Spelling disasters

In this day of instant correspondence, has anyone else noticed how many adults lack the ability to spell? E-mails from well-educated people containing misspelled versions of words as basic as “definitely” amaze me. These are some recent examples of misspelled words I have received in e-mails from college graduates: “appriciate,” “oppinion,” “accomodated” and “definately.”

The e-mails that baffle me the most are the ones in which the writer wants to make an important point or argument. I want to respond and say their point would carry more weight had they simply turned on their spell-checker. Of course, there are some that even spell-check software couldn’t help: It’s “misunderstood,” not “miss understood.” And you don’t “ware” clothes; you “wear” them.

(God help me if I get caught misspelling “definitely” this week.)

Lori Potts
Overland Park

Comments

[Geoffrey Stone]

A large number of "internetties" more or less intentionally misspell words, as well as ignoring punctuation and capitalization; so it's often difficult to tell where ignorance or laziness leave off and generation-graphs begin. The latter, I pay the least attention to. But the whole misspelling phenom, in my experience, goes back at least to the 70s, when the public schools were automatically promoting kids on through to highschool graduation, regardless of their competence in the academic basics, so's not to injure their precious self-esteem by, say, pointing out that they could not write or read beyond gradeschool level. The access of everyone to everyone offered by the internet simply makes these folks more visible.

And then, there will *always* be accidental typos to sort out...

[Daniel Andersen]

I participate in many online forums, and it amazes me when people try to make strong points, yet cannot communicate well.

This Unfettered Letters place is similar -- many of the replies here are not well thought-out, and they display a lack of professionalism that is unbecoming of a rational debate.