Spellings

[womanofdulwich]

Is it just me - or are more and more people posting with atrocious spellings? is it mistyping/ laziness/ poor English? Discuss.

[maxxi]

Discuss? http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/97/Discus_Thrower_Copenhagen.jpg/220px-Discus_Thrower_Copenhagen.jpg

[womanofdulwich]

Don't get me going Maxxi.

Poor spellings hurt!

[Alan Medic]

Why are there no spaces in your user name WOD?

[Voyageur]

Isn't it atrocious spelling?

[womanofdulwich]

Not in this case Voyageur-spellings are countable nouns- but you are correct it could be the verb "spelling".

[PeckhamRose]

I still can't spell vodaffffff -- ffffffffffff... Nope. Can't do it, it's wrong!

[El Pibe]

Tori Spelling, she was really poor!

[maxxi]

Apologies WOD but I was under the spell of a spelling-fit for a spell there even though I knew it could spell disaster.

As Shakespeare/Shakespere/Shakespear/Shakspeare/Shackspeare/Shakspere/Shackespeare/Shackspere/Shackespere/Shaxspere/ Shexpere...etc. himself and other Elizabethans took a fairly relaxed approach to spelling, and sometimes relied on phonetic spelling to get their meaning across, I, as a modern Elizabethan, take a similarly relaxed view.

But the next person to say "Would of..." or "Could of..." will get shrift of the shortest kind...

...and thus risk remaining unshriven.

[ibilly99]

That's dyslexics fIcked then...

[Chippy Minton]

Shakespeare couldn't careless about spelling....just ask Topshop

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/03/05/article-2110534-120A039E000005DC-488_468x673.jpg

[Atticus]

I'm with voyageur here, 'spelling' should have been used.

[Burbage]

womanofdulwich Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Not in this case Voyageur-spellings are countable

> nouns- but you are correct it could be the verb

> "spelling".

Atticus and Voyageur are delightfully correct.

"Spelling" is the gerund of a verb. You can, if you wish, use it as a verbal noun, such as in "her spelling is poor"; that is what gerunds are for. But to claim a gerund as a countable noun, and then to pluralize it, is a manifest error that would once have warranted corporal punishment.

Would a jogger take "runnings" in the park, or a diner take their "eatings" in a restaurant? The line between grammar and insanity is finer than many think and, with respect, I suggest that the orthographical mishaps of others should be the least of WoD's worries.

[Voyageur]

Thank gawd [sic] for that! Thought I had lost my touch :(

[Saffron]

Burbage Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> womanofdulwich Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Not in this case Voyageur-spellings are

> countable

> > nouns- but you are correct it could be the verb

> > "spelling".

>

> Atticus and Voyageur are delightfully correct.

>

> "Spelling" is the gerund of a verb. You can, if

> you wish, use it as a verbal noun, such as in "her

> spelling is poor"; that is what gerunds are for.

Grammar and insanity, indeed! Ending a sentence with a preposition, whatever next I ask you?!

;-)

[Atticus]

Truss would be all over this, God, she annoys me!

[ianr]

> "Spelling" is the gerund of a verb. You can, if you wish, use it as a verbal noun, such as in

> "her spelling is poor"; that is what gerunds are for. But to claim a gerund as a countable noun,

> and then to pluralize it, is a manifest error that would once have warranted corporal punishment.

Cf entry 2b below.

From the OED Second edition, 1989; online version March 2012:

spelling, n.2

1.

a. The action, practice, or art of naming the letters of words, of reading letter by letter, or of expressing words by letters.

[... eg]

1809?10 S. T. Coleridge Friend (1837) III. 343 There is one branch of learning without which learning itself cannot be railed at with common decency, namely, spelling.

1871 J. Earle Philol. Eng. Tongue ii. 121 That which we call a settled orthography is a habit of spelling which admits only of rare modification.

...

2.

a. Manner of expressing or writing words with letters; orthography. Also fig.

[... eg]

1697 C. Leslie Snake in Grass (ed. 2) 112 By some unusual Spelling of some words.

1894 W. M. Lindsay Lat. Lang. i. ?12 However natural it may appear for the Romans to have adopted Greek spelling.

...

b. A particular instance of this; a special collocation of letters representing a word.

[...eg]

1738 Swift Compl. Coll. Genteel Conversat. p. l, Of these Spellings the Publick will meet with many Examples.

1758 J. Armstrong Sketches 18 An Author seems reduced to great Extremities, who flies to new Spellings to distinguish himself.

1811 Scott Let. Sept. (1932) II. 543 All the licenses of using obsolete words and uncommon spellings.

1894 W. M. Lindsay Lat. Lang. i. ?8 The dates at which these spellings are first found on inscriptions.