I think it's a great question. I've noticed the same and never cease to be amazed that some people are either ignorant or just lazy. Let me be more to the point: It seems to me that poor spelling signals ignorance (lack of education), sloppiness, laziness, and low self-esteem (lack of caring how others perceive you whose opinion you must value or you would not be participating).
In the business world, if your e-mails and presentation white boards are fraught with spelling errors, you are viewed as unprofessional and possibly stupid (because you can't spell and because you would so foolishly jeopardize the good opinion of your colleagues who hold your career in their hands).
There is no excuse for bad spelling. You just have to care. This program red-underlines words that are misspelled. There are dictionaries and spell checks.
Spelling is not optional; it's either right or wrong. And if it's wrong, then you risk the consequences, whatever those may be. They can range from my not interviewing you for a job because you had spelling errors on your resume (as the Cal business school recruiter for my company, that was not uncommon) to my not believing your ideas are worth trying to understand because if you can't even spell why should I believe you can form a cogent thought.
BTW, typos are a different, but related, issue....
Jb
I was not going to get in on this discussion, but I decided I would after JB made an excellent point: When we speak to people who use bad grammar, the education of that person is immediately brought into question. The same happens when people cannot or do not spell correctly. It is obviously a case of "judging a book by its cover" since I know educated people that cannot spell. The difference is, people who are educated and cannot spell, very rarely submit something official that has spelling errors because they take the time to edit their work. This front is a little different in that we have many people with many education levels who may or may not care that their grammar is perfect, and I have no idea how may people feel like editing their posts to ensure totally correct grammar and spelling. I do because I am an anal butt-hole, but I don't expect that from other people. Even with my editing, I always find errors after I submit my post and sometimes I will edit them and other times I decide it's not worth it.
I have to say that some people on this board remind me of that annoying know-it-all at school/work that is always correcting other people's grammar to make themselves seem smarter. If a person is book smart but socially inept, there is still an issue. In this setting, why do we really care if someone spells 'there' when it was supposed to be 'their'? How many of those are simply typos caused by thinking of the right word but typing the wrong word? More importantly, why do we give a **** and why do some feel the need to correct others' mistakes.
Do those people think the now embarrassed typists are going to go back and correct all their grammar? Some members may not have the education some of us were blessed with and are doing the best they can in what is supposed to be a "fun" environment. Some may even have some type of learning disability and just cannot get any better. Personally, if my grammar was corrected every time I posted something, I would remind the correctors that they could kiss my ***. If this was a job posting site, I could understand all the stress; however, since this forum is supposed to be about motorcycles and the fun/problems/issues/mechanics of having one, we should probably chill the Hell out.
For those that are chronic correctors: If the need to constantly correct other people's mistakes is that bad, go correct your wife. Better yet, grow a set of balls and go correct your boss, your mom, or your dad. I think it's pretty chicken-**** to hide behind a computer and drive people away because of your insecurities. If someone's badly spelled, grammatically incorrect post bothers you that much or it is not understandable, move on. Nothing says any of us have to reply to any posts submitted here, and there are ways to ask for clarification without being elitist.
Finally; maybe I missed it because I started skimming though, but I saw lots of posts blaming our education system, but none blaming the parents of the child. I did not learn anything because my teacher wanted me to. I learned because my parents hounded my ***, read to me, made me read to them, taught me how to do math in my head, made me understand the value of an education, and spent the time with me to actually fit all that in. This whining about parents having two jobs and no time is ********. My parents both worked, and neither my siblings nor me suffered for lack of attention. On top of learning in school, I learned the importance of hard work. Teachers can teach all they want, and although some are very lacking in their dedication, most of today’s problems can be traced to bad parenting skills by parents who probably should not have kids.
Edit: After all that, I found about 5-6 errors/typos and stupid spelling mistakes 12 hours after I posted this. It's fixed now. For some reason, I spelled 'grammar' 'gramm
er' and I know better...WTF?
