4 ms·
Or nobody ever cared, since forming an opinion of someone or an organization solely based on whether they can reproduce standardized spellings is myopic at best
by lgessler 4y ago
Or nobody ever cared, since forming an opinion of someone or an organization solely based on whether they can reproduce standardized spellings is myopic at best.
- WalterBright 4y agoHaving an egregious misspelling on a prominent sign in letters 8 inches high that every student sees going into the building every day reflects what on the school? That the school does not care about education. After all, if I find a misspelling on a headline on one of my web pages, I fix it. Wouldn't you?
- lgessler 4y agoIt is true that it will make one's passage through society easier if they are able to reproduce standardized spellings. Insofar as this sign is a signal that teachers are failing to equip students for life in that way, sure, it's concerning. Spelling is different from other domains of education like mathematics, however: an explanation of "correct spelling" is not to be found in natural law, but rather in a Katamari ball of historical contingencies of chance, intervention, and everything in between. (Why'd we keep the _-ough_ in words like _through_? What if the Simplified Spelling Board had succeeded in its aims and totally reformed English spellings? What if Scots, not the English, had had linguistic dominion over the United States? Etc.) Moreover, in large part because "correct spelling" is derived from one very peculiar and privileged variety of English that not everyone speaks, your ease of access to correct spelling is going to be facilitated or hindered by facts about your SES, race, and ethnicity. This is why I don't really care when I see a spelling error anywhere, unless genuine confusion results, or stakes are high enough that adherence to a rigid standard must be maintained. In many ways, nothing is gained from imparting it to a small child compared to something like basic arithmetic. And moreover, in some contexts I think it's not unfair to call an evaluative insistence on standardized spelling a vehicle for linguistic and therefore ethnic chauvinism. I understand your original reaction--having proper spelling is a display of fitness to teach, in the same way that, say, having won some Kaggle tournaments is a display of fitness to do data science. But spelling is a rather peculiar thing to insist on, and I'd have been much more interested if the teachers had been writing out multiplication tables on sandwich boards. Spelling is sociologically thorny, and there are bigger fish to fry.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- WalterBright 4y agoIt's a signal about caring what your job is. It's not a sign in front of a coffee shop. It's a sign in front of a school that's supposed to care about teaching the kids.
- SQueeeeeL 4y agoI love simple short retorts to long confused pseudo intellectual nonsense. It makes me feel like I'm reading a Confuscian parable
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- chitowneats 4y agoOkay. Go ahead and form that organization and let us know how that goes for you.
- lgessler 4y agoFull-throatedly acknowledging that people with nonstandard language practices are discriminated against is not really the look I think you want to have.
- chitowneats 4y ago[flagged]
- Ztynovovk 4y ago[flagged]
- chitowneats 4y agoAs I already mentioned, the 2010's are over! This tactic of trying to belittle people with words like "insecure", is so, so tired. Good luck out there!
- Ztynovovk 4y ago^Read over this response and tell me it doesn’t sound insecure. Not my intent to belittle, just giving my impressions.
- chitowneats 4y agoPretty sure you have no idea what that word means.
- pandaman 4y agoSounds more inconceivable than insecure to me.
- naveen99 4y agoThe compiler cares, and bash will happily mess up your file system. Programmers should atleast care about spelling.
- plsbenice34 4y ago"atleast" isn't a word
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- naveen99 4y agoat least I won’t defend atleast.