English and all that
 

Reading this thread over at the Seventeen or Bust forum

[url]http://www.free-dc.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=94564[/url]

made me wonder if there are non-native speakers here who don't want to pick up txt spk or wrong spellings but have no way of telling the difference.

So I am opening this thread for all the grammar and spelling Nazis to register correct usage without having to point fingers.

Misspellings that I have seen on this forum - that are not typos as the same person has used the incorrect usage repeatedly - are

Incorrect-> Correct
sence->sense
transfering->transferring
Mabey->Maybe

Others?

[QUOTE=garo]
Misspellings that I have seen on this forum - that are not typos as the same person has used the incorrect usage repeatedly - are

Incorrect-> Correct
sence->sense
transfering->transferring
Mabey->Maybe

Others?[/QUOTE]
Be careful! Be very careful!

Some spellings are "correct" in British English but not in American English, and vice versa. Well-known examples are color/colour and sulphur/sulfur.

For some words, at least two spellings are correct but one may be more common than the remainder. Again, precisely which is more common may depend on location. An example is realize/realise.

Some words are spelled correctly (i.e. that spelling is the correct one for a word) but used inappropriately. The English words weather/whether/wether are all correctly spelled but they have very different meanings!

English orthography is notorious.


Paul

Or the ubiquitous "loose" - my pet peeve. "And viola!" is another.


Alex

[QUOTE=akruppa]"And viola!" is another.[/QUOTE]

What, you have something against musical instruments? :razz: :whistle:

Paul, it's all good. We can use this thread for pointing out all those things as well. In fact let us make posting a common orthographical error a prerequisite for every post in this thread :devil:

Will makeing a common error do?

Alex

Heh, I should have said correcting an error that has been made by someone on the mersenneforum.

Solecisms? Your for you're is common, but the one we see all the time here is the challenging and violence inside two processor boxes => using duel when the writer means dual. :wink:

A nice list (which Paul already mentioned once or twice) can be found here:

[url]http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/[/url]

[QUOTE=Jeff Gilchrist]What, you have something against musical instruments? :razz: :whistle:[/QUOTE]

Heard that from a guy at the conservatorium:

Q: Why do so many people take an instant dislike to the violin?

A: It saves time.

Alex

[QUOTE=Jeff Gilchrist]What, you have something against musical instruments? :razz: :whistle:[/QUOTE]

Is that a habit of Canadians as well as their southern neighbours?