It is time to STOP with the typing errors criticism!

james the baker wrote:

Anytime anyone posts, the first response is usually smoething along the lines "Hey Troll, learn how to spell" "it is then, not than", "our not are" or "you're not your"

If you are one of those people who looks for english errors in a post before you even consider what the person is trying to say, then YOU are the TROLL!

Not everyone is an english major, and quite frankly, some of us have more important things to do rather than proof read and spell check stuff all day.

So, stop crticising and go back under your bridge and troll your life away.

Words have to be spelt correctly and English has to be spoken as it should. That is why we went to school.

Don't you love reading a well written piece? I do.

james the baker wrote:

Anytime anyone posts, the first response is usually smoething along the lines "Hey Troll, learn how to spell" "it is then, not than", "our not are" or "you're not your"

If you are one of those people who looks for english errors in a post before you even consider what the person is trying to say, then YOU are the TROLL!

Not everyone is an english major, and quite frankly, some of us have more important things to do rather than proof read and spell check stuff all day.

So, stop crticising and go back under your bridge and troll your life away.

Your title indicates that we should stop correcting typing errors, which is fine. However, can we infer that you are "okay" with the continued practice of correcting usage mistakes?

Pamela Andersons Left Nipple wrote:

...can we infer that you are "okay" with the continued practice of correcting usage mistakes?

More importantly, Wejo isn't "okay" with the continued practice of correcting usage mistakes.

A significant endorsement wrote:

More importantly, Wejo isn't "okay" with the continued practice of correcting usage mistakes.

Not to present a challenge to the letsrun founder, but he doesn't really seem to care much about it, as it's been going on long after he presented the question on whether or not to ban those who do it.

William J. Clinton wrote:

Not to present a challenge to the letsrun founder, but he doesn't really seem to care much about it...

Just because people aren't actually being banned from the web page doesn't mean that he does NOT care about it. If you look within this thread, less than two hours ago the clown who corrected Blown Away already had his post deleted.

Cicero wrote:

Thank you! ;) Are you a medievalist, by any chance?

Unfortunately, my tertiary education in the United States wasn't specialized in Medieval history; I don't possess a graduate-level background, much less a specialist's knowledge. And no, I don't know Latin well, although one picks up a considerable amount when reading Medieval primary sources, which I did quite frequently when I look Medieval history courses (for pleasure) at university.

If you were talking to someone in PERSON, you do not correct him over and over with his word usage. But like everything on here...you cowards are not face to face with the guy. A wrestling match few months ago, a guy popped off to another guy correcting his usage of the word 'idea'. The guy said ideer..like some people do. Then again on another word. The other guy turned and hit him so hard it sounded like a baseball bat against a wall. I THOUGHT OF ALL YOU COWARDS. The guy he hit lost all his teeth in front, blood spattered on everyone. ...the guy is still in a coma and is done. You screw with people, don't pick the wrong guy. But you cowards can hide behind your computer. So now correct this from your hidden room...and sneak out to your cowardly life...bet you won't do the same to some guy on the street that you don't know.

What gets me. wrote:

A wrestling match few months ago,

It's nice to see you are firmly entrenched in reality.

Maybe I'm not tough guy...but I'll bet the dude that got hit had a real REALITY check. Why don't you go out and talk to men, like you do on here. You will be in touch with reality real fast. Would you advise your son to talk to strangers with corrections of their word usage. I hope not.

I'm going to weigh in here in the minority, but I think that proper grammar and spelling matter. One of the problems that I think has happened today is that younger people in particular have become so immersed in using the net and in text messaging that the use of proper grammar has suffered as a result. People tend to use short abbreviations while writing in order to save time. The problem that arises is that it begins to bleed over into circumstances where they really do need to use proper spelling and grammar, but they don't. It's one thing to write short notes here on letsrun and not worry about whether you have made a letter transposition by mistake; it is another when it is apparent that you do not know how to spell- the simple presence of a spelling error diminishes your argument not because of the spelling error but more because it casts into doubt your ability to present your argument effectively. So, when I see someone use "definately" instead of "definitely," it just screams at me, because it is such a common error.

Now, understand that I spent 20 years as a medical editor, where words and spelling really matter. I try hard to make sure my posts are clear and well written, because even here I think that courtesy alone mandates some attention to how I present my thoughts. Other people obviously have other ideas, but in the end I think that when you do not bother to even try, you reduce the strength of whatever you are saying, and shirking it off is giving up and saying it does not matter. But it does, because it is part of how you are judged by others.

I understand your thoughts and I agree that people should make an effort to use proper grammar when writing at all times. However, many different people of many diverse backgrounds post on this board. I post on many other boards and have never observed this constant correction. The posters get along fine and we all understand and accept that WE ALL are going to make these mistakes sooner or later. We stick to the exciting topic and have fun. Even you will make mistakes sooner or later. I just think we can all accept this a little more. In person however, this could bring you a violent reaction...sooner or later. In line at a Zales store a man wrote a check in front of me. Apparently he wrote 'Ninedy' or something on the check. The clerk corrected him. The guy said "Thats how I want to write it, do you want to eat that damn watch." I say correct your friends and family, not strangers.

Although I agree with you on this point of not correcting strangers, I don't think this is a solid argument for what has been brought up here. If you are engaging in debate amongst several people, you are, in fact, putting yourself up for criticism. What should be focused on is the intent of the statement in "spelling and grammar" question - not the spelling and grammar itself. Sure, it is nice and courteous to spell correctly, but if the point is made appropriately, then why "dumb" down the conversation by pointing out mistakes? I certainly believe that a "correction post" can be AS BIG a buzz kill as the misspelled words themselves (if not a larger buzz kill), therefore taking away from the original point further.

With this in mind, if the misspelled word or error in grammar does present a question of intent, it should be corrected or called out for correction in order to ADD to the thread.

And, on a personal note, I feel these attacks on "youngsters" as the cause of this downward spiral of the English language can easily be flipped around and have fingers pointed at the adults who have guided them: what happened to your influence over your kids? Those who are pointing the original finger at the "youngsters" may respond "well, I have taught my children well" only miss the point even further - each generation has its own hand in the creation and breeding of this epidemic known as "slang".

Typo personalities

Armed with Sharpies, erasers and righteous indignation, two apostles of the apostrophe make it their crusade to rid the world of bad signs

By Christopher Borrelli | Tribune reporter

May 21, 2008

Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson have not wasted their lives.

They fight a losing battle, an unyielding tide of misplaced apostrophes and poor spelling. But still, they fight. Why, you ask. Because, they say. Because, they must.

For the last three months, they have circled the nation in search of awkward grammar construction. They have ferreted out bad subject-verb agreements, and they have faced stone-faced opposition everywhere. They have shone a light on typos in public places, and they have traveled by a GPS-guided '97 Nissan Sentra, sleeping on the couches of college friends and sticking around just long enough to do right by the English language. Then it's on the road again, off to a new town with new typos.

Picture a pair of Kerouacs armed with Sharpies and erasers and righteous indignation—holding back a flood of mixed metaphors and spelling mistakes and extraneous punctuation so commonplace we rarely notice it anymore. But they are 28 and idealistic. Graduates of Dartmouth College, they are old friends with a schoolmarm's irritation at conspicuous errors, and despite their mild and somewhat nerdy exteriors, they have serious nerve. Deck lives outside Boston; Herson lives outside Washington. And together, they are TEAL—the Typo Eradication Advancement League—and they are between jobs.

So they approach a cafe, a shoe store, a visitors center.

They identify a typo on a sign, a label, a poster.

They point out the typo. They await the reaction.

This next part varies. They are greeted warmly (sometimes). They are told to go away (sometimes). They are gently blown off (usually). "We have not yet encountered fisticuffs," Herson said. But it's always a possibility. Often they make the needed alterations themselves, with compliance from a manager or supervisor. And when ignored, they have resorted to guerrilla tactics—slipping in a stray letter here, removing an errant comma there. They have found about 400 cringe-inducing examples of bad copy mistakes—on church signs and at Rockefeller Center, on sandwich boards and at the Grand Canyon.

That is, 400 examples they have brought to the attention of the powers that be. They have gone as far as correcting graffiti. Their tour ended this week.

Their route was circular. Deck began March 5 in Boston, drove to Virginia and picked up Herson; from there they worked their way clockwise around the country, from Atlanta to Texas to Seattle to Madison, with many stops in between. (Their blog is at jeffdeck.com/teal and will be updated regularly, typo trip or no typo trip.) They swung into Chicago in late April—the town that gave birth to their guiding light, "The Chicago Manual of Style." They headed straight for Wicker Park. They tend to hunt for typos in "high-density text locations," in spots with more independent businesses than chains—indies being generally less attentive to flagrant sins against grammar than corporate conglomerates.

Deck, who decided to launch the tour after spotting typos in his shower curtain (it was covered in math terms and equations), arrived wearing an Indiana Jones hat. He had a watchful manner and rarely seemed to blink. His foil, Herson, a kind of Ratzo Rizzo of proper usage, was jumpier, squirrelly, eager to push Deck whenever an encounter with a store employee got awkward (which was every time).

We started down Milwaukee Avenue.

Immediately, Herson spotted an offense—a second-floor awning outside a tarot shop that advertised "Energy Stone's." They climbed the stairs to the second floor and approached a middle-age women with a quizzical expression. "We happened to notice the sign for energy stones," Deck said, "and there happens to be an extra apostrophe. 'Stone's' doesn't need the apostrophe."

"And?" she asked, her voice flat with annoyance.

"And we wanted to bring it to your attention," Deck said.

As they spoke, the woman's daughter stepped into the room and shouted: "Oh my God! I saw you guys on 'Good Morning America.' Tell me, tell me—what did we get wrong?" She sounded genuinely thrilled. (Actually, they were on "The Today Show.") Herson explained the typo on the awning. Deck said he understood that the mistake is out of the way and not easy to fix, but he asked them to promise that they would fix it—soon.

"Don't know if we can ..." the woman said.

Deck said they've heard that a lot.

Back on the street, Deck said poor use of the apostrophe was their most commonly encountered typo. "It's like a virus," he said. Herson agreed: "It really is contagious, I think. Especially the lack of them in possessives." (For instance, parking lot signs explaining that any unauthorized vehicles will be towed "at owners expense" have been particularly pervasive.)

They continued down Milwaukee.

A block later, they stopped. Outside a clothing store, Deck noticed the lack of an apostrophe in the window type—it read "Women's & Mens." They entered, and two clerks with white-blond hair perked up.

"Hi, we're driving around the country fixing typos," Deck explained, "and we noticed one side of your sign out front has an apostrophe and one doesn't for some reason. So we were wondering if you have a spare apostrophe we could stick in there. Or I could just do it."

"My, that's specific," the first clerk said.

"I'm not sure we keep spare apostrophes," the other said.

"Very observant," the first clerk said.

"Amazing, actually," the other said.

Deck reached behind him for the clear plastic pencil case attached to his camera strap. He asked if he could add the apostrophe, and the clerks huddled, then shrugged. Inside his case were dry erasers for white boards and Sharpies and different colored markers and chalk and bottles of Wite-Out and a few pens and a handful of crayons, because you never know. Deck crouched down in the window and carefully painted a matching apostrophe on the glass with a Wite-Out brush; then he stepped back.

"Thank you for making our window a better place," one clerk said.

"Thank you for letting us."

They continued on.

Their mission, Deck said, is to raise typo awareness—after each stop Deck has blogged about the goofs found and the typos corrected. "I've always noticed typos," he said, "and one day I just decided to take action. I thought it would be great to go national and see if there were patterns." He said he detects a general erosion of good grammar, from coast to coast, region to region. "If we can inspire enough people to carry Sharpies and help out, then we will be satisfied and happy."

Until recently, Deck did administrative work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Herson worked at Borders. But they had saved a little money, and so they set out. Of course they want a book deal—they've had interest, they say. But they are also sincere in their goal. Maybe too sincere. There's an element of performance art here—an invisible line between genuine and absurd that they approach with each fresh encounter. They press their faces close to even the most innocuous handwritten neighborhood leaflet and scan carefully. They don't smirk. But you detect one anyway, studiously smothered.

They entered a men's clothing store near Ashland Avenue. The large faded metal sign out front read "Mens Clothing." They swung open the door. An older man was resting his elbows on a shirt rack. They approached. Deck spoke. "We noticed your sign."

The man said nothing. Deck explained it needed an apostrophe. The man is Robert Marks, the manager. He is 60 years old and said he had been coming to this store (founded in 1914) since he was a child. (He said the sign is at least as old as he is.) He listened to them explain why the grammar on the sign was wrong. And then he shrugged, never changing his expression.

Deck asked if he had a ladder, so he could climb up and ...

"Don't worry about it," Marks said.

"We could jus ... "

"Leave it alone."

Outside, back on Milwaukee, I asked Deck if there wasn't charm to certain mistakes—that didn't his drive to eradicate honest goofs from the awnings and sandwich boards of every neighborhood mom and pop remove a little charm from the landscape. Isn't he unintentionally helping to hide the human hand in cities that are quickly succumbing to a slick numbing sameness? Is all of this really worth it?

He stopped.

"Well," he said, considering the point. "We worry there are cases when someone is trying to say something and they won't be taken seriously because their sign is riddled with mistakes. We don't want to see more chains. But a grocery store that can't spell grocery [as he encountered in California] makes you question the food they sell. I think charm can manifest in different ways."

Chicago, Deck would say later, had been nice—as nice as New Orleans. But at the time of the hunt, they fretted that their percentage of typos corrected to typos spotted was being thrown. They had been at around 50 percent, but again and again they encountered clerks who said the boss was not around, so no changes could be made. Deck and Herson looked pained.

Then they looked stricken. There, high above Milwaukee Avenue, was a sign for Milwaukee Furniture. And Milwaukee was spelled "Milwuakee." "Wow," Deck said sarcastically. "Wow. I mean, Milwaukee is far away and everything. I mean, isn't this Milwaukee Avenue too? Oh, I think they need to be told about this." Herson checked the opposite side of the sign—misspelled there too. They entered a store full of furniture but devoid of customers. Behind a metal desk covered in stapled receipts sat a large guy in a black T-shirt. He squinted as they approached.

"We couldn't help notice your sign," Deck said. "The one that juts over the sidewalk?"

Related links

*

Sign language

"OK," the guy replied.

"The name of the store is misspelled."

"OK."

"It's correct on the awning, but the letters are inversed on the sign," Deck said.

"And?"

"And we were wondering if there was any way you could get it fixed," Deck replied.

"The manager is not here. Tomorrow."

"It's huge," Deck said. "Believe me, if we could fix that thing we would. If it were within our power."

"Could you let your boss know?" Herson asked.

The man smiled and looked toward the street. "I never noticed."

" 'Dining room' is spelled wrong too," Deck said. The store sign was a big enough goof that the mistakes he had spotted on the awning seemed small. But he couldn't help himself. "['Dining'] has too many letters," he told the man.

"I'll tell him."

"He'll change it?"

"I'll tell him."

"You guys should get a refund from your sign guys."

"I'll tell him."

They left. Herson started down the block—headed for a "matress" in need of a "t."

But Deck spun on his heels and turned back to the furniture shop and stared at the looming "Milwuakee." He'd learned a lot during this trip—walk away from a human powder keg, never bring up a typo on a menu until after you've finished eating your meal, our understanding of proper punctuation is shaky at best. And generally, people don't care.

He groaned and walked to the window. He pressed his forehead to the glass, then gently banged it against the pane. He stepped back and stared. "It's bigger than my head," he said, incredulous. "And you know it's not going to get fixed either."

Good points. I agree that "anybody who criticizes a post’s *ideas* because of the post’s spelling and grammar needs to rethink his/her priorities."

I agree with you on the final point. I think that high school English classes have done a poor job of preparing students to write well and to present their ideas clearly. I say this as a person whose mother was a high School English teacher and a good one, and whose older kids are both high school teachers themselves and good ones. Of course, the issue is actually far more complex, but it combines this with other cultural changes, and I do feel that we have seen language abused in many ways, not least of which is in the political process. But that is well beyond spelling and grammar. On letsrun, the main problem is not the spelling; it is the level of just plain stupidity that enters into most posts, the trolling, the name calling and so on. If that did not exist, I think we'd all allow the spelling alone a lot more. But how do you argue with someone who simply is going to keep throwing crap at you regardless of your logic? You find whatever means you can, and sometimes spelling helps derail a deeper idiocy.

Check #99......

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/

Kids are weak these days wrote:

Well said, and thank you.

People also need to keep in mind that while typos get annoying, it's much more annoying to see the systematic errors that many many people make, such as "your" vs. "you're" and pluralizing words with apostrophes. These aren't slips of the finger on the wrong key, these constitute blatant disregard for - or worse yet, blatant ignorance toward - the most fundamental and basic rules of elementary grammar.

What it essentially comes down to here in this argument is the uneducated vs. the educated. Of course the uneducated, ignorant individuals are going to argue that their repeated showcases of stupidity are irrelevant. Wouldn't you if you were in their shoes?

You folks are a bunch of elitist bastards! If it weren't for the fact that I like Track and Field so much, I would spend an extra minute of time reading this board. So many people discard the comments of another who appears "slow" by some unknown running standard as well as attempt to discredit other posters for not using perfect written language skills. I find it amazing that the person who does the correcting smuggly posts what "should" have been written (which obviously implies he/she knew what the poster intended or was attempting to communicate) and then discounts the value of the intended post. This amounts to posting snobbery. The fact is, the poster in error COMMUNICATED! Otherwise, the correcting poster would not have known what to correct. Furthermore, it is also a fact that not everyone has a fantastic education (maybe that is their fault) or an organized mind (which is helpful when trying to apply the miriad of rules to remember in the English Language) It is possible the poster in error did not do enough repetitions in english ...who knows? Really who cares? If a turd-bag poster comes on and can't communicate the message, there is nothing to which to respond. If the poster communicates poorly but gets the message across so another turd-bag can correct it, then they did communicate and at least have chance at creating a decent discussion. To kill what otherwise might have been a half way interesting discussion for the sake of a damned apostrophe or capitalization in a desparate attempt for self promotion and poster board superiority is foolish and childish at best...To which I say "Up You'res!!!! (yes I know)

Correcting spelling and failure to communicate at eighth grade level on letsrun = snobbery/elitism

Defending charity runners and joggers who run over 2:40 in the marathon on letsrun = dumbing down the sport