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Do you find that misspellings of common words set your "bozo bit"?
For many years, I have noticed that when a person chronically misspells a very common, not at all obscure word ("break" vs. "brake", "pour" vs. "pore", etc.) that person's writing tends to set the "bozo bit" in my head and I find it difficult to take their arguments seriously. My best theory explaining why this happens is that such mistakes are generally proof that the person who made them never reads for pleasure and is thus almost certainly an intellectual lightweight. Am I being snobbish/foolish by making the connection? Or is there something to this litmus test?
- msie 18y agoAdd "lose" vs. "loose" to your list. I am noticing this too often. I'm wondering if people are learning to spell by reading other people's misspellings.
- ksvs 18y agoIt does for me. But you can get some false positives this way. There are some smart people who can't spell well, e.g. because they're dyslexic.
- jurjenh 18y agoWorst thing for me (and I think quite a few people) is the misplaced apostrophe. We have a big sign just outside the town here that has "Special's" in big bold writing - now I can't even take the store seriously....
- earl 18y agoThese things do make me think less of people, but you have to be careful to filter for non-native speakers. And of course, there is a big difference between a single error and systematic errors.
- asciilifeform 18y agoI'm a non-native speaker myself. The words in question, however, are very basic ones.
- ram1024 18y agoa lot of the homonyms are commonly misspelled because when reading it back in your head it "sounds" fine, so it passes check. i don't make these mistakes because they irk me so much when i find other people making them. i'm practically analretentive about getting it right in my writing
- Raplh 18y agoMy tendency was to react the way you do. Upon years of reflection and experience, I concluded I was being a snob, and that there was very little information I could use in those errors. Despite my own genetic predisposition towards words (kiss me, I'm half Irish) it was not until the advent of spell checkers that I discovered I had been writing "signifigant" all my life. And I am/was a snob about this stuff! I still identify strongly with the more articulate, but I actually think this works against my B.S. detector rather than in favor of it. The amount of B.S. emitted by the verbally competent is almost certainly reams more than by the verbally challenged. IMHO