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How can one even say then that a spelling a punctuation is wrong in English if there is no authoritative ressource with which one can answer the question?
by wolfgke 11y ago
How can one even say then that a spelling a punctuation is wrong in English if there is no authoritative ressource with which one can answer the question?
- unlikelymordant 11y agoas long as you are consistent, it really doesn't matter. Even in academic or technical writing (i am in Australia), you can use american spellings or british spellings and noone really cares. Perhaps you have to let go of the "one true way" of spelling/grammar, if things seem to work fine without it.
- wolfgke 11y agoI rather think about school: How can teachers even mark wrong spelling if there is no standardized spelling? The same holds for punctuation of course, for which up to now I really could not find any ressource with authoritative character where to put commas in the English language.
- GunboatDiplomat 11y agoThere are specific guides within certain contexts. An educational setting may use the Meriam-Webster dictionary as the definitive for spelling, and the English textbook as the definitive for punctuation. Outside of specific contexts, there is no absolutely correct way of doing things.
- GunboatDiplomat 11y agoThe metric is "Did the message get passed, and did I not sound like an idiot?"
- vanilla-almond 11y agoThere are many authoritative resources. Pick a dictionary or thesaurus or a grammar guide from the version of English you want to learn and use that as your reference. When I say a version of English I mean British English or American English or Canadian English or Australian English or some other version of English. They all have differences in spelling (colour vs color etc) and differences in phrases and idioms. English is so varied because it has travelled all over the world and changed in so many ways as a result - hence the forementioned varieties of English. For better or worse, it has become the international language of science, technology, business, and entertainment. In our internet age, that means it changes even more rapidly than other languages that don't have such global reach.
- gozur88 11y agoThere's pretty wide agreement among textbooks and style manuals for English spelling and punctuation. They do differ a bit at the edge cases, but particularly when it comes to spelling people are going to assume you're uneducated if you go your own way.