Why do some people on this site continue to pour scorn on people with poor spelling, language use etc?

Question

I work with children who are dyslexic. Many of these children find reading and spelling really difficult yet they are extremely bright. Would you laugh at them? It does make some people's questions and answers more difficult to understand but should that mean they are not allowed to put their thoughts and ideas across?? We should be careful who we laugh at.

Answer 1

Good and sensible question. I think there is a tendency of "I know better than you do" among the people everywhere. The rule applicable even with Yahoo Q&A as they enjoy finding the fault. Its a kind of human psychology and since we are to live under one roof, we better to live with this condition. I myself have met such people nosing into sentences to check the spelling and grammar instead of going to the core of the problem. I do remember a women of 40 years tearfully submitting her problem about her marriage, and naturally she was not in mind to cope up with her spellings and grammar of problem. But there were lots of answerers (mind you this includes female too) who were busy to find spelling mistakes rather than coming to her real problem. This is pity actually, but we are helpless.
Since you work with children, I am sure how difficult you are finding to go alongwith their standard of spelling inspite their brightness among other things. But still you have not left the ground...thats the spirit.
Hope more and more yahoo Q&A participants will keep their attention to the real question or problem without commenting heavily upon typographical mistakes.
(Hope I made no such mistakes in this rather lengthy answer..lol)

Answer 2

It is not necessarily the spelling that is "attacked" it is the often self righteous question that accuses someone of some other "fault" giving the asker the appearance of superiority. And sometimes the spell checker is not working. I must admit that once I gave into temptation and made a comment that could've been taken to heart, especially in a venue where the only communication is the written word leaving no consideration of body language or facial expression. The asker did respond and actually cursed me out, I took no offense because I had instigated the whole matter by a smart alex response. Had I been able too contact her I would've profusely apologized and assured her that I was only having a spot of fun and I was very sorry if she felt it was at her expense. The question was "Why are people so stupied?" and I couldn't resist after seeing some of the other posts.
BTW: I take into consideration the spelling and grammar usage, helps in determining age and other factors so that a genuine answer can be given. Vulnerable members should always be dealt with compassion and understanding, intelligent adults who proclaim self-righteous attitudes are fair game. As I have been. Peace.

Answer 3

Yahoo Answers exists somewhat in the realm of ideas. Where ideas exist you will always find psuedo - intellectuals. Since these people have such an arrogant view of their own intellingence, it is only natural that they will denigrate others if they perceive a lack thereof. I don't worry about spelling as a general rule, accept in cases where the misspelling changes the content or meaning of the post. In these cases I usually try to preface a statement about spelling with the "did you mean". However, in some cases you see attrocious spelling, or riduculous abbrievations, and in these cases it makes it difficult to understand anything the questioner is trying to say. In these cases I have been known to say learn to spell. There is no right or wrong here in my opinion. If you don't like the way people spell, just don't answer the question.

Answer 4

I do it because, yes I find some of the questions difficult to understand. I know some people say they don't care so much of grammar or spelling, I just want to show them that if they don't do a fair job, people will have a difficult time understanding what it is they are trying to express. Since it sometime is so difficult to understand, are you sure they are getting their thought or ideas across?

I'm not laughing at them when I'm doing this. I'm just trying to help them. They should know how important it is to get it right if they want others to understand them.

Answer 5

Makes people feel better about themselves I guess?!
I don't mind general poor spelling as everyone has different abilities but I do believe its getting a bit ridiculous that intelligent teenagers use text type language all the time, they are going to be a generation who cannot read or write properly. Obviously I don't have this view of anyone dyslexic etc who can't help mispelling things.

Good point though, keep up your good work x

Answer 6

The fact is most people use poor spelling and punctuation nowadays because they are merely reproducing the way they 'write' when sending text messages. 10 years ago, when hardly anybody had mobile phones, we would not have experienced this problem on a forum such as this.

Such ones either don't know any better, are lazy, or have the misguided notion that a display of ignorance is in some way meritable. None of these attitudes are particularly impressive.

Mind you, I can't deny my life (and I daresay the lives of many of the people who cop abuse for their poor wiriting skills on these pages) was improved immeasurably by '*** on feel the noize'

Interestingly I note that Yahoo will not allow me to spell 'come' as c-u-m. The asterisks were not put there by me !

Answer 7

then half of the yahoo answers population is dyslexic.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=ApTSlfDs9VwAvwHrpnAw2B_sy6IX?qid=20060808092606AAyvNKr

I do it because I feel this language is being abused. Many kids don't seem to know the difference between their, there and they're. Your and you're also seem to fall into that category. I correct the obvious, blatant, human stupidity mistakes, I could care less about missing a letter when they spel something (yes that's spel for a reason).

Also I met a Russian girl on here who was trying to learn Englishas her second language. She was a real sweetheart and tried hard to do her best at spelling everything correct and having the proper grammar. She did 10 times better than most of the kids I've seen on here.

To furthermore prove my point, here is a question I saw yesterday.

"OK its SO annoying WHEN ppl DO this...do u think so?

i hate it when ppl JUST add u out over no where and there likes lets be freinds and im like wtf i dont even know u !???! do u hate THATS cuz i do! sometimes i dont but most of tha TIME i do "

I feel the need to correct that.

Answer 8

Two words:

CHECK SPELLING

If they can type words in English they can see the big blue two words above the box that they type into.

CHECK SPELLING. It only takes a second.

I left school at age 15years and went straight into work, no college or university for me but I can read and write and do take notice of spell checking, so as not to annoy people with text message abbreviations. For the most part I am self taught from the position of drivers mate to transport manager I did not do to badly and English is not my strong point as you can no doubt tell.

I have just checked this with spell check and found two mistakes which I rectified.

One type of typing a question that does annoy me is this:

wat ya doin down da town wen u shud be hom wid da mamy?

Answer 9

You are so RIGHT! The grammar and spelling is NOT important.

Why do SOME people here set out to RIDICULE the person who ASKED the question? I THINK they are expressing a lack of self-confidence and self RESPECT. What they need is a BIG hug. But this isn't the WAY to get it.

You're dyslexic CHILDREN need a BIG hug too.

Answer 10

.

For those that find spelling problematic there is a facility
called " check spelling" attached, If it were to be used then
there would be fewer occassions wherein someone would
leave themselves open for critisism.

With so many 'joke' / non-serious questions here it may be
that others like myself look at how the question is phrased
as a rough and admitedly flawed measure of how sensible
the reply offered will be from myself.

At least an attempt to make sense would, in my book, go a
long way to alleviate your causes feelings of being
unnecessarilly or gratuitously derided.

.