Comments on: Spelling, Shpelling

By: David B. Benson

David B. Benson — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 23:22:20 +0000

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

By: SG

SG — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 19:48:27 +0000

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”…

By: JohnX

JohnX — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 14:08:42 +0000

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.

By: David Marjanović

David Marjanović — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 23:20:10 +0000

Prescriptivist Retaliation!

By: Ben Zimmer

Ben Zimmer — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 19:37:24 +0000

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."

By: Scott Belyea

Scott Belyea — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 19:30:03 +0000

But only careful proofreading will save you form all mistakes.

Well put …

By: Stephen

Stephen — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 19:16:11 +0000

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.

By: Scott Belyea

Scott Belyea — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 18:12:12 +0000

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: Ben Zimmer

Ben Zimmer — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 17:26:34 +0000

Oh, sure, blame it on spellcheckers!