An apology is called for

[Enigma]

I have been suitably admonished by the admins for the "Spelling" thread which, in all innocence, started out as a simple complaint agints tye standard of spelling IN THE MEDIA. However when I saw the reaction and being a bit of a prankster [amomg other things] decided to turn it into a wind-up. As you can see this descended into acrimony as folk were taking all personally.

That is just an an example of how people are all so stressed out today that they have no time for the fun side of life. I don't blame anybody for getting heated but suffice to know that OF COURSE I don't hold any of the views I took on the thread but it did achieve two purposes. Firstly it gave you all someone to hate and despise [me]. So you could vent all your venom on someone useless and snot someone who mattered. This in turn possibly made you see that your Lecturers, teachers, instructors are not so bad and you will therefore warm to them.They will that and help you a lot more individually. Secondly it has made you think "Well you old bastard I WILL complete my course and acheive what I want so b*ll*x. In othere words remotivated you and dispel any doubts you had about carrying on.


Anyway APOLOGIES to all for the wind-up

[Mark]

Without this spiraling out of control again, Im posting one comment and thats it.

Please dont insult us further by saying 1. It was a wind up we cant have fun, 2. You've done us a favour by allowing us to focus more and complete our course. :l Nothing you said will change my work ethic.

Enigma its alright for you to say sorry and that but dont expect me for one to accept. All respect I had for you is gone, and thats why I think it was harsh went hyde was picked up on for saying dude, how can we show respect if we get none. But anyway, too little too late.

From this post onwards I personally want no contact with you, view this as immature if you wish, for me being insulted in such a way you did, and by you having the views you hold over us, it just says that you are the type of person I try to avoid.

From this Enigma id like to say farewell.

[wouldlikemuscle]

I'm afraid, Enigma that I can't accept this 'apology' either.

For the reasons Mark gave... it is somewhat insulting that you want us to believe you meant it as a wind-up, and that you think your words had any impact in our lives.

Also, saying that the thread started out because of spelling errors in the media is false... your first post mentioned the standards of teachers and unis slipping. You also quoted something you found on the net which was obviously a young person declaring Will Young to be fit.

From your original post...

Even teachers and Uni graduates can't spell.

Being a uni graduate myself... I found that to be quite insulting, but I just laughed it off and didn't bother responding to the thread until you overstepped the mark and then made my reply. And I'm sure your words would insult others who read them... as an eg... Media Studies students which you coined as a Mickey Mouse degree. Hey, some people might agree, but it diminishes all the hard work that those students put into their course.

As I said before... you really need to think before you speak. I DO agree its good to be able to debate... but debating doesn't go down the line of insulting others. Make a statement... "Standards are slipping", back it up - you never did that. Saying that which I've already quoted above is just rude, along with many of the other comments you made in that thread, so don't be surprised when rudeness was directed back at you.

[Shadow]

... and from my perspective, whilst I acknowledge that you accept that what you said did upset and offend many of the people that read it, I also find the suggestion that you did it largely to wind people up even more difficult to swallow than if your point of view were one you held to be genuine, as that suggests you deliberately sought to antagonise people, and ultimately achieved none of what you cite as your main objectives along the way ... which begs the question "what was the point !?!?!"

Therefore, my advice is, a) don't bother trying to wind people up as that isn't the purpose of the site, and many people (myself included) do not take it kindly or lightly; b) as has been said to you by Wouldlikemuscle, and as I myself have also said before, please think before you speak as you did upset the vast majority of people that read your thread, and whilst I'm sure that wasn't your genuine intention, it happened because of what you said ...

That being said, thanks for apologising, and hopefully everybody can now get back to being on civil terms !!

See you around !!

!?!?! Shadow !?!?!

[Stephen55]

Well I didn't learn of this before the topic was locked so this would be my reaction.

I was willing to give you the benifit of the doubt at first, but such an instinct dwained throughout that three page thread. Then this, supposibly you felt like antagonising the whole student demographic of gayspeak just for shits and giggles. I don't think so... a more sincere appology may actually have worked on the reasonable people here whom you offended but yours was simply more insulting.

I am a college student working long days to pass 3 demanding courses in a hope of entering a career in media studies, which requires me to work harder than the majority of my friends since the three courses are very academic. I don't have time to spell proparly and function on the 'if its legiable it will do' ethic that is rightfully acceptable practice. I'd argue in this age of mass communication spelling has never been less important, language has never stayed constant (look at Geoffery Chauser or William Shakespeare) so I welcome a simplified form as long as its readible.

So how about you stop insulting the intelligence of me and my student friends and instead talk to a lecturer or someone who has a credible opinion? my college teachers would surely agree that the enviroment students currently function in is unneccasarily stressful and the exam boards overtly perdantic.

I bet you read the daily mail, you seem like that sorta person...

But I know what public humiliation on a forum is like and you do make some good contributions around here, so I have no problem with you.

[princealbertofb]

I'd argue in this age of mass communication spelling has never been less important, language has never stayed constant (look at Geoffrey Chaucer or William Shakespeare) so I welcome a simplified form as long as it's readable.

That thought is quite debatable.
If spelling has never been less important than today, you'll have to explain to me, Stephen, why it is that if I make a mistake in your name or e-mail address, you'll NEVER get my e-mails? (I don't actually mean you, Steven55, but of course you, as anyone else I might need to write to)(I'm not sure you'd want to read me).

I would disagree with you, if only for the reason stated above.

In the days of Geoffrey Chaucer and later of William Shakespeare there were tons of people who could neither read nor write... What would it have mattered how they wrote? The language has evolved, ok, so has spelling. Words have slipped to new meanings. That's all part of a natural process. At some point, some academics decided it would be better to organise spelling, to standardise it in order to make things easier to catalogue and file, surely. Some countries, such as Turkey or the Netherlands, decided to simplify their language spellings, which was probably fine then. There were still fewer people who used the written word than today. I think that today it would be difficult to go back. I'll grant you that it may be true that CAPITAL LETTERS are on their way out (it's possible after all) but can we simply do without spelling? Can we , in this computerised age, do without some standardisation of spelling? I still believe spelling has its place too.

I'll give you just one example of how lack of spelling can hinder one's work: this is a case in point which we tried out with my students, inadvertantly.
Look at the number of pages you can find on the web for, say, The Merchant of Venise... You'll find some pages, to be sure, maybe even quite a few, written by people who misquoted the title. In French Venice is spelt Venise, so not surprisingly you'll find people who don't spell the playwright's title right.
Now have a look at how many pages you can find with the correct spelling: The Merchant of Venice.... You'll see a staggering difference in the number of pages. Why? Because society has agreed that the correct spelling for The Merchant of Venice is with a C, not an S (whether that was how William Shakespeare spelt it himself in his day or not; that's the standard practice) Note that it's not the Mirchent of Venys either. ( and although I quite like that spelling, I doubt that you'd find many pages under that title, but you might.... ) If you misspell, you might be depriving yourself of access to the right information.
I'm not even suggesting that the pages spelt with an S won't give you valid information, because, again, they might, but I'm saying you'll get far fewer pages, therefore depriving yourself of a far more abundant source of material. For something rarer, you might not find the page at all, just as my e-mail never reached you. For the same matter, punctuation also has its meaning. And I'm sure people studying and practising law would agree.

[princealbertofb]

I'd argue in this age of mass communication spelling has never been less important, language has never stayed constant (look at Geoffrey Chaucer or William Shakespeare) so I welcome a simplified form as long as it's readable.

That thought is quite debatable.

If spelling has never been less important than today, you'll have to explain to me, Stephen, why it is that if I make a mistake in your name or e-mail address, you'll NEVER get my e-mails? (I don't actually mean you, Steven55, but of course you, as anyone else I might need to write to)(I'm not sure you'd want to read me).

I would disagree with you, if only for the reason stated above.

In the days of Geoffrey Chaucer and later of William Shakespeare there were tons of people who could neither read nor write... What would it have mattered how they wrote? The language has evolved, ok, so has spelling. Words have slipped to new meanings. That's all part of a natural process. At some point, some academics decided it would be better to organise spelling, to standardise it, in order to make things easier to catalogue and file, surely. Some countries, such as Turkey or the Netherlands, decided to simplify their language spellings, which was probably fine at the time (could they do it now?). There were still fewer people then who used the written word than today. I think that today it would be difficult to go back (even though our minds are capable of interesting things, like inventing new ways of spelling for text messages, for instance).

I'll grant you that it may be true that CAPITAL LETTERS are on their way out (it's possible after all) but can we simply do without spelling? Can we, in this computerised age, where everything thing is a byte [a set of 1s and 0s], do without some standardisation of spelling? I still believe spelling has its place too.

I'll give you just one example of how lack of spelling can hinder one's work: this is a case in point which we tried out inadvertantly, with my students. They couldn't find the information they were seeking, this was why:

Look at the number of pages you can find on the web for, say, The Merchant of Venise... You'll find some pages, to be sure, maybe even quite a few, written by people who misquoted the title. In French, Venice is spelt Venise, so not surprisingly you'll find people who don't spell the playwright's title right (mind you, they don't have to be French to spell it that way).

Now have a look at how many pages you can find with the correct spelling: The Merchant of Venice.... You'll see a staggering difference in the number of pages. Why? Because society has agreed that the correct spelling for The Merchant of Venice is with a C, not an S (whether that was how William Shakespeare spelt it himself in his day or not; that's the standard practice) Note that it's not the Mirchent of Venys either, and although I quite like that spelling, I doubt that you'd find many pages under that title, but you might.... If you misspell, you might be depriving yourself of access to the right information, or to a lot more information.

I'm not even suggesting that the pages spelling VeniSe with an S won't give you valid information, because, again, they might, but I'm saying you'll get far fewer pages, therefore depriving yourself of a far more abundant source of material. For something rarer, you might not find the page at all, just as my e-mail never reached you. For the same matter, punctuation also has its meaning. And I'm sure people studying and practising law would agree.

Baille voeux ouais, does anyone know how to pronounce GHOTI?

[princealbertofb]

If I can make an analogy, here's an example that's a little far-fetched but that springs to mind.

Ok, you type using a keyboard. A pianist uses a keyboard too.

Our fingers are used to typing certain letters by pressing certain keys of the keyboard but they are always in the same place; just like a pianist will expect to get a C if they hit the C keys, or an A if they hit the A keys.

Imagine that letters were random typed when pressing a key, any key, and that anytime you pressed a given key, you never knew which letter would come out? How could we ever communicate?

This is what I obtained when I touchtyped the letters for this sentence with my French azerty keyboard.

This is zhqt I obtqined zhen I touchtyped the letters for this sentence zith ;y French qwerty keyboqrd.

Ok, not too bad, and still fairly legible, fortunately. But put it in a translator like Google and then you're in trouble.

And with the Greek keyboard this was what came out:

Τηισ ισ ζη;τ Ι οβτ;ινεδ ζηεν Ι τοθωητυπεδ τηε λεττερσ φορ τηισ σεντενψε ζιτη ΄υ Γρεεκ ;ςερτυ κευβο;ρδ

which exemplifies how, for every letter I typed, I wasn't sure what was going to come out. For most people this would be illegible. And you can be sure that for a Greek person, it doesn't mean anything either, since they don't use English words instead of their own, let alone with the wrong keyboard settings. It might as well be Martian, as Enigma tried to point out.

I think we could all make better use of the spelling-check tools on our computers, but, then again, you've got to use them.

So what sort of music did you think my pianist played? John Cage???

[Stephen55]

I scincerly cannot be bothered to debate spelling, while I appeciate the effort that went into that post above I find my statement was totally based on genralisation anyway. I don't think I could debate such a broad topic with so much obvious examples to back up any side of the arguement you choose to take.

And im a lazy student, so there

[princealbertofb]

Point taken, Stephen, as long as you're relatively legible, I think we'll agree that we can go on reading you, and you can go on being a "lazy" student... lol. Just mind you put the efforts where they are really needed to survive...

and PASS.mile: