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Perplex -> RE: spelling (10/25/2007 7:18:27 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: CuriousLord
So, yeah. Spelling matters. I'm typically one of the first to knock it as a zero-order mental feat, largely being little more than memorization, but, hey, even that's indicative of some sort of mental proficiency. The grammar accompanying that spelling can be argued for as a first-order feat, so the two together can be telling.
PS-
One should also keep in mind that some people use spell check, so perfect spelling cases- those cases which, despite length, lack typos or so- might be tossed as not actually an indication of spelling but use of a program.
let's look at this for just a second, and look at "mental profciency"...a PS, is a post-script, it is what is added after you have closed a missive and signed your name..another thought on the end of a message without a close or conclusion & signiture, is a paragraph....
spelling is an art, not science. It is an agreed apon vauge tabulation of set values for given words, Mr. Webster defined many of those set values but even he and Mr. Franklin disagreed, so at least in english, the wonderufl bastardized langauge that is it, it's guess work...agreed upon guess work, but not more or less than that. Folks who have an anal compulsion about spelling, have at it, I don't pay your bills or tell you who to hang out with, but please don't take it like a sign of doing something right, you're just doing what they told you in school..the same school who told you to hide under wood in case of a nuclear blast and that ketchup is a vegatable.
It amazes me that spelling sticklers rarely know how to fix their car, or how to find someone they actually trust to do it, how to do long division in their head or how to build a brick wall without having to take a load of bricks away or have to bring another load up to the worksite. Researchers tell us that intellgence is at least part problem solving, so knowing how to use a dictionary would come under that heading but so is the art of communication. As someone said much more elequoently than I above, if the message is clear the form is secondary.
The ability to write clearly is more important than to spell perfectly.
It always amuses me on this board to see this arguement that a bunch of sexually adventurous people would blindly, willingly, happily, follow a puritanical prude in his little venture into the definining the language for the rest of us. but perhaps its the same people who will spend 400 dollars buying a set of stocks rather than making one.
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