Is Typing Ruining Your Ability To Spell? 494
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the my-spellchecker-sure-thinks-so dept.
from the my-spellchecker-sure-thinks-so dept.
NSN A392-99-964-5927 writes "My handwriting abilities have deteriorated over the years. Putting a real pen to paper, I get frustrated over how to spell correctly, as I am so accustomed to using a keyboard and knowing where the letters are. Having spoken to a few friends, I've found that this has become apparent to them, too. I've noticed that my grammar is also affected; maybe this is because I spent too much time on IRC and lowered my standards. Hand-written words are now becoming obsolete. There is often no need to think about writing anymore, or about how something is spelled. Are other Slashdotters having the same problem? (I'm used to Telex machines, which should give you an indication of how old I am.)"
It's not the typing (Score:5, Informative)
It's a lot of things, but not typing. Of course, tyling produces typoos, but that's not a matter of spelling, it's a matter of hitting the worng keys. A little proofreading fixes that.
Spill chuckers oar bad four spilling. Eye wish pee pull wood stoop ewe sing them.
Personally, when I see someone using the wrong homonym, like "the ball is in there court", it has a negative effect on my opinion of their intelligence. The same goes for the misuse of apostrophes; WHY do people think you need an apostrophe for a plural? Sometimes I'll reply with a link to the Bob the Angry Flower cartoon "Bob's quick giude to the apostrophe, you idiots" [angryflower.com].
Maybe it's being innundated by posts from sub-adults who are texting in class instead of paying attention to the teacher.
2 L8, brb
Re:I don't know, but... (Score:5, Informative)
That said, I rarely write anything these days and it's often just a scrawl when I do. My writing was never up to much anyway, without practice it's deteriorated.
Re:I find my spelling has actually improved over t (Score:5, Informative)
Your problem isn't that it's rote memorization -- I'm terrible at anything requiring rote memorization. Your problem (and a lot of other peoples') is you don't read enough books. I urge you and everyone else to acquaint yourselves with you local public library, or if you're in college, its library.
Readaholics never have trouble with spelling, unless all they read is the internet.
FingerWorks TouchStream (Score:5, Informative)
It's a multitouch keyboard that does dynamic spelling correction based on what you've already typed, what you type next (it issues backspaces to correct prior keystrokes), and the fractional location of a finger-tap within or between key areas. It's slick beyond words. Apple bought the tech, and is ever-so-slowly dribbling it out in their iPhone/iPod Touch and trackpads.
Re:Absolutely! (Score:3, Informative)
Was that intended as a joke? Otherwise it appears that you can't spell "affected"!
Re:I don't know, but... (Score:5, Informative)
I even have difficulty signing my name sometimes, but that's mostly because cursive is my most unpracticed form.
You obviously don't sign your name that much then.
:)
My signature used to look like a vaguely "signaturey" version of my handwriting. At some stage- I think it was around 10 years ago when I had to sign things a lot as part of my job- it became detached from my handwriting and got more and more stylised.
Nowadays it's bordering on a meaningless squiggle; only the first letter is remotely legible. I can still see parts of it, but that's mainly because I know my own name and know what it's meant to be.
Its only *real* value- and the only intended one!- is that it looks like my other meaningless signature squiggles.
But back to the point- my signature has very little to do with my (not bad) handwriting these days. (^_^)
Re:I don't know, but... (Score:2, Informative)
inKel isn't answering to the uncle Jack comment, but to
Moderated as follows
Re:My handwriting has ALWAYS been crap (Score:2, Informative)
It's not a plural verb; it's a subjunctive verb.
"If I were an optimist" and "If I was an optimist" are both correct, but they mean different things.
If I was an optimist when I was younger, it was only because I had seen too little of the world. If I were an optimist now, I would think it likely that you would return to this thread and read my reply despite the intervening hours.