4 ms·

This is very off-topic, but in the last few years I've noticed more and more intelligent people misspelling words phonetically ("unphased" instead of "unfazed")

by aristus 18y ago

This is very off-topic, but in the last few years I've noticed more and more intelligent people misspelling words phonetically ("unphased" instead of "unfazed"). I can understand someone flubbing pronunciation (eg "macabre", "learned"), but what is causing this other phenomenon? Are people (Harvard professors!) not reading as much as they used to? Are they less concerned about editing? Is this the last great challenge for spellcheck?

jerf 18y ago
For better or worse, drift is inevitable. Words with unique or very unusual phonetics are all but doomed to regularization. Long-term irregularity is reserved for the most common words, in general. Things like that still make me twitch, but we're getting to the point that if you spell it "unfazed" you'll get a "correction" from your friendly local spelling-nazi-wannabe.
kwamenum86 18y ago
The most intelligent people in the world make mistakes...pretty sure spelling error is inconsequential for him.
- aristus 18y ago
  Of course the mistake is not important. I'm just wondering about how it happens. If someone learns most of their words from books, you can tell because they will use a word correctly but say it oddly. I'm wondering what causes someone to use a word correctly but spell it phonetically. Are we speaking more and writing less? Hard to believe, no?
  - rudyfink 18y ago
    I don't know about other people, but I have always heard what I'm writing in my head before I type it out. Sometimes, especially if I'm a little distracted, this produces misspelled words that would be pronounced correctly or homonyms like "hear" instead of "here". On the chance that it might help, I think the funnel is something like: -ideas/shapes which are always moving around->selecting the appropriate/better/good enough one out of these by focusing on it more. this always feels kind of like a sorter appraising different things bubbling up and sinking on the surface of a pool. -this selected one at the fore gets structured to be said probably more precisely that feeling right before you actually say something. if this is going well, little is lost between the thought and what comes out of the structuring, but sometimes the thoughts are much worse from the process. -this structured thing gets more concrete as I touch type it and somehow grammar and punctuation get in there. -this gets a look over as it is coming out for errors. is it gibberish or not, is the grammar correct, do I like it. Depending on what I'm concerned with different amounts of effort are going into those different sections. I think the error gets put in pretty close to when it gets typed out.
    - aristus 18y ago
      That's very interesting... and a little creepy. It's like you are taking dictation from yourself.
      - rudyfink 18y ago
        I suppose so. It's like that for everything though. If I want to draw a drawing, some part of me is picturing the drawing before it flows out, usually looking much worse than it did in my head. If I'm writing a program, some part of me is seeing the structure and how it works and fits together before it flows out. If I'm playing soccer, I see what I'd like to be doing before it flows out. I think it helps that the process almost always feels like a cooperative enterprise. Injury of some sort or another definitely will effect it. Something is always in my head out there a bit ahead (sometimes only very little) of whatever my body is doing. Maybe this is uncommon but I've never really gotten that impression from talking with people or other people's recitations of their experiences. I've never really talked with too many people about it though. "How do you feel your brain and body do things?" isn't exactly the kind of question one asks in the elevator, waiting in line, or on a plane.
  - markessien 18y ago
    A computer science university professor is the type of person most likely to learn a word like "unfazed" from the people around him, and not from literature. As such, he will write it as he heard it. A factory worker is more likely to learn the word from books, and so will probably write it correctly.
    - ovi256 18y ago
      You held factory workers to a very high standard, and I commend you for it. However, I believe even a factory worker is likely to learn new words through hearing them, either from his bosses, or from television. The amount of reading they do is bound to be small, and of common language (think US Today, not the "fancy" New Yorker or NYT). As an interesting side-note, I cannot recall the American equivalent of British tabloids. Are there any ?
      - markessien 18y ago
        Don't underestimate the amount of reading done by factory workers. An average page turner fiction will use words like unfazed, and the person reading it will know what this word means, but will never use it in actual speech. American tabloids? NY Post? I don't know, I'm not American.
      - bmelton 18y ago
        There are many American tabloids. The National Enquirer is a staple at every checkout counter, along with others like The Globe, the Star, and Weekly World News.
        gruseom 18y ago
        Those are not the equivalent of British tabloids, they're just called by the same name. As an aside, someone once pointed out to me that the National Enquirer is distinct from the other trashy tabloids. They never have the wacky "aliens stole my lunch" stories. They're focused on the gossip/celebrity domain and do a good job of it, as measured by: (1) they almost never lose a lawsuit, and thus (2) they rarely get sued. This person argued that the difference between the NE and "serious" papers was not one of accuracy or quality (making allowances for the lowbrow material) but rather in their willingness to pay for stories and photos. I've tested this theory many times since while standing in queues at supermarkets, and I must say it checks out.
  - kwamenum86 18y ago
    Technically both "unphased" and "unfazed" are phonetic spellings. The latter still actually looks incorrect to me. Not very hard to believe. Nobel prize winners spell words wrong. Mensa members spell words wrong. Harvard professors spell words wrong...
ciscoriordan 18y ago
Possibly it's because you're seeing more writing done in-browser as opposed to in a word processor that has spell check?
- batasrki 18y ago
  How would the spell check figure out that you meant unfazed instead of unphased? They're both properly spelled in the sense that they're not a mangled collection of letters.
jrockway 18y ago
In the past, people had editors edit their writing before making it public. Now, they let people like you do the editing for them, saving the expense of having a real editor. And oh yeah, writing comes together a lot faster now. You can have an idea in the morning and be on the front page of social news sites by the afternoon. When things happen that quickly, there is bound to be a brain-o (or typo) in your writing.
batasrki 18y ago
For that matter, there's been a surprising number of people that put "it's" where they meant "its". I've noticed that this is trending up lately, as well.
10ren 18y ago
I don't recall seeing the word "unfazed" in print before (though google says it's ten times as common as "unphased"). Turns out "faze" is a word, since 1830: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faze http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faze The correct spelling was "feeze", but popular usage altered it...

by aristus 18y ago

jerf 18y ago

For better or worse, drift is inevitable. Words with unique or very unusual phonetics are all but doomed to regularization. Long-term irregularity is reserved for the most common words, in general. Things like that still make me twitch, but we're getting to the point that if you spell it "unfazed" you'll get a "correction" from your friendly local spelling-nazi-wannabe.

kwamenum86 18y ago

The most intelligent people in the world make mistakes...pretty sure spelling error is inconsequential for him.

aristus 18y ago
Of course the mistake is not important. I'm just wondering about how it happens. If someone learns most of their words from books, you can tell because they will use a word correctly but say it oddly. I'm wondering what causes someone to use a word correctly but spell it phonetically. Are we speaking more and writing less? Hard to believe, no?
- rudyfink 18y ago
  I don't know about other people, but I have always heard what I'm writing in my head before I type it out. Sometimes, especially if I'm a little distracted, this produces misspelled words that would be pronounced correctly or homonyms like "hear" instead of "here". On the chance that it might help, I think the funnel is something like: -ideas/shapes which are always moving around->selecting the appropriate/better/good enough one out of these by focusing on it more. this always feels kind of like a sorter appraising different things bubbling up and sinking on the surface of a pool. -this selected one at the fore gets structured to be said probably more precisely that feeling right before you actually say something. if this is going well, little is lost between the thought and what comes out of the structuring, but sometimes the thoughts are much worse from the process. -this structured thing gets more concrete as I touch type it and somehow grammar and punctuation get in there. -this gets a look over as it is coming out for errors. is it gibberish or not, is the grammar correct, do I like it. Depending on what I'm concerned with different amounts of effort are going into those different sections. I think the error gets put in pretty close to when it gets typed out.
  - aristus 18y ago
    That's very interesting... and a little creepy. It's like you are taking dictation from yourself.
    - rudyfink 18y ago
      I suppose so. It's like that for everything though. If I want to draw a drawing, some part of me is picturing the drawing before it flows out, usually looking much worse than it did in my head. If I'm writing a program, some part of me is seeing the structure and how it works and fits together before it flows out. If I'm playing soccer, I see what I'd like to be doing before it flows out. I think it helps that the process almost always feels like a cooperative enterprise. Injury of some sort or another definitely will effect it. Something is always in my head out there a bit ahead (sometimes only very little) of whatever my body is doing. Maybe this is uncommon but I've never really gotten that impression from talking with people or other people's recitations of their experiences. I've never really talked with too many people about it though. "How do you feel your brain and body do things?" isn't exactly the kind of question one asks in the elevator, waiting in line, or on a plane.
- markessien 18y ago
  A computer science university professor is the type of person most likely to learn a word like "unfazed" from the people around him, and not from literature. As such, he will write it as he heard it. A factory worker is more likely to learn the word from books, and so will probably write it correctly.
  - ovi256 18y ago
    You held factory workers to a very high standard, and I commend you for it. However, I believe even a factory worker is likely to learn new words through hearing them, either from his bosses, or from television. The amount of reading they do is bound to be small, and of common language (think US Today, not the "fancy" New Yorker or NYT). As an interesting side-note, I cannot recall the American equivalent of British tabloids. Are there any ?
    - markessien 18y ago
      Don't underestimate the amount of reading done by factory workers. An average page turner fiction will use words like unfazed, and the person reading it will know what this word means, but will never use it in actual speech. American tabloids? NY Post? I don't know, I'm not American.
    - bmelton 18y ago
      There are many American tabloids. The National Enquirer is a staple at every checkout counter, along with others like The Globe, the Star, and Weekly World News.
      - gruseom 18y ago
        Those are not the equivalent of British tabloids, they're just called by the same name. As an aside, someone once pointed out to me that the National Enquirer is distinct from the other trashy tabloids. They never have the wacky "aliens stole my lunch" stories. They're focused on the gossip/celebrity domain and do a good job of it, as measured by: (1) they almost never lose a lawsuit, and thus (2) they rarely get sued. This person argued that the difference between the NE and "serious" papers was not one of accuracy or quality (making allowances for the lowbrow material) but rather in their willingness to pay for stories and photos. I've tested this theory many times since while standing in queues at supermarkets, and I must say it checks out.
- kwamenum86 18y ago
  Technically both "unphased" and "unfazed" are phonetic spellings. The latter still actually looks incorrect to me. Not very hard to believe. Nobel prize winners spell words wrong. Mensa members spell words wrong. Harvard professors spell words wrong...

ciscoriordan 18y ago

Possibly it's because you're seeing more writing done in-browser as opposed to in a word processor that has spell check?

batasrki 18y ago
How would the spell check figure out that you meant unfazed instead of unphased? They're both properly spelled in the sense that they're not a mangled collection of letters.

jrockway 18y ago

In the past, people had editors edit their writing before making it public. Now, they let people like you do the editing for them, saving the expense of having a real editor. And oh yeah, writing comes together a lot faster now. You can have an idea in the morning and be on the front page of social news sites by the afternoon. When things happen that quickly, there is bound to be a brain-o (or typo) in your writing.

batasrki 18y ago

For that matter, there's been a surprising number of people that put "it's" where they meant "its". I've noticed that this is trending up lately, as well.

10ren 18y ago

I don't recall seeing the word "unfazed" in print before (though google says it's ten times as common as "unphased"). Turns out "faze" is a word, since 1830: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faze http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faze The correct spelling was "feeze", but popular usage altered it...