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> "my desk is actually the perfect height for peddling" Why is it so hard even for native speakers to spell the verb "pedal"? I mean it's spelled exactly like
by Grustaf 6y ago
> "my desk is actually the perfect height for peddling"
Why is it so hard even for native speakers to spell the verb "pedal"? I mean it's spelled exactly like the noun, which most people seem to be able to spell properly.
It's a genuine question, I see this all the time, maybe most of the time actually. It's strange because typically people tend to over-generalise, not the other way around.
- Hnaomyiph 6y agoI’d imagine it’s from lack of use in daily writing, combined with a lack of a ubiquitous context-aware spell checker. I make similar mistakes quite often
- Grustaf 6y agoIt’s not just the seldom used gerund. People even write “peddle” for the present form.
- RankingMember 6y agoProbably the same part of the brain fouling up that causes the loose/lose screwup we've all probably made.
- hoophoop 6y agoAs a non-native speaker I might make other grammatical errors but not the ones related to phonetics. Often I found more difficult to understand English written by native speakers than by others because of that.
- gumby 6y ago"Peddle" is a legitimate homophone for "pedal". Some people hear the words while they read/write so make this class of mistake. Such errors always confuse me momentarily as I don't hear the words, but it doesn't make me think there's something wrong with the author. They can also come from autocorrect guessing, though probably not this case. (FWIW Reading poetry doesn't work for me and I have long assumed it is only a pleasure for people who hear the sound while reading).
- iso1631 6y ago> FWIW Reading poetry doesn't work for me How about Oxford poetry? Or Maidenhead?
- gumby 6y agoI just don't hear sound when I read (in any language) so tools the poet uses such as meter, assonance etc are lost on me. Of course I can carefully read for sound but then I'm so busy doing that that I lose the thread of meaning. I can listen to poetry and musical lyrics, and there cadence and phonemic clues help with memory and recognition and can even be playful or fun (as intended!). I've never grokked how one could read that way though clearly many, and perhaps most, people do!
- Grustaf 6y agoRead aloud! That’s how poetry is supposed to be read.