Why can't about 80% of the people on here spell correctly?

Question

Are we really passing these kids through grades just to get them out of school? Some adults have bad spelling skills too. What happened? My mother would be horrified if I didn't know how to spell as language arts is the way we communicate. We do have spell check to use, and that isn't even used.

BUT YOU LIVE in AMERICA! and go to AMERICAN schools Verda.

Well MO.... at least you can spell! Congrats to YOU!! How can you answer a question when you can't read what is asked? I am not judging, just ASKING A QUESTION! :)

OH, your puncuation isn't up to par MO. You need a question mark after you ask a question and a period at the end of a sentence. Agreed?

awesome dubbinchick! I agree.

Answer 1

It's terrible isn't it? You know when we were growing up we didn't have all these distractions (ie tv, ipods, video games, computers)--education was about the 3 R's - Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic.

Kids focused on that. Reading was a passtime. That is how you got educated. Kids don't read anymore and when they do, it's all this illiterate garbage of ebonics on the computer. Top things off, everything is Americanized and most in Canada now write as the Americans do, whereas grammatically it's incorrect. You can't even spell check it because THAT is American too! LOL

So anyhow, I just notice that the teachers make a point of that in our schools.

But there is no excuse for children not being able to read and write. There is something wrong with the educational system. Either the government isn't staffing schools with enough teachers and support to get through to these kids, or teachers are just as illiterate as their students and don't care and are more concerned about doping kids up with Ritalin to make their day easier than teaching them and helping them to be worldly, intelligent human beings.

Here is something of interest too:

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, olny taht the frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pcleas. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by ilstef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

LOL

I tell you what else is SORELY missing in schools, especially elementary, and that is typing lessons. If people learned to type they wouldn't be so LAZY to do the 'two finger' dance, which is why they probably abbreviate, because they have to look at the keys. When you learn to type you never look at the keys at all. I can type 95 words per minute.

Did you know those two little BUMPS on keys F and J are where your index fingers from each hand should rest while typing? Take some free typing lessons online kids and learn to type instead of wasting time yapping on MSN.

And with regards to being a foreigner, it's easy to spot someone whose English is clearly off because they don't know the language that well. Frankly there are free translators on the internet and they would be wise to use them before posting something that makes absolutely no sense at all.

And yes I type so fast that my letters are almost always flipped around and I have to constantly back space to correct. Sometimes I miss entire words too! And I definitely get lazy at times and just don't care.

Answer 2

I normally am very careful about my spelling and punctuation but in Yahoo Answers I would not feel it necessary to run the spell checker. I always reread my input and correct anything glaring but I feel it is more important to give my feedback than to worry about typos where I would consider it unimportant. That doesn't mean I don't care or that I'm a bad speller. It means that I do have a life and I'm taking time out to provide an answer because I feel that I can state clearly my viewpoints and have the knowledge to back me up. I am a poor typist with severe arthritis but I am a knowledgeable person. My mistakes when they occur are often caused by my Fibromyalgia, a disease noted for causing what is referred to as "brain fog" or "fibro fog." I just ran the spell checker and it suggested that I should change fibromyalgia to fibreglass and fobro to fibre.

Answer 3

Learning disabilities aside, I think the reason people don't use correct English or spell correctly is due to the following:

1) Popular Media doesn't use correct English but uses what is considered "cool";

2) Schools have too many students to a class and teachers are unable to give the students enough attention;

3) People write in slang;

4) The art of personal letter writing is dying out; and

5) Some people are lazy and don't care about proper language use

Hope this helps.

Answer 4

It is sad, isn't it? I personally knew two seniors in high school that had a third grade reading level and managed to graduate! It is ridiculous. Kids shouldn't be able to pass onto the next level of education unless they have mastered what was taught at the current level. A lot of errors could be caught by proof reading and there is just no excuse for spelling errors with spell check available. It is evidence that people are lazy and can't be bothered to run it.

Answer 5

When I read the answers from most of these people saying that spelling doesn't matter...let me say this:

Communication is essential to our wellbeing. I'm a communication major, planning to teach and I dread the thought of having to read kid's essay papers, because I'm a stickler for spelling and grammar. It drives me crazy how some people will type "are" instead of "our", or "to" where "too" should be used. It is true that some have their different dialects (someone mentioned ibonics) but for hundreds of years, our spelling of words has not changed. Just because some people speak that way, doesn't justify writing "wit" instead of "with" or "fo" instead of "for".

Simply put, our English teachers need to step up and crack down on this issue, or pretty soon, no one will be able to stand anyone!

Answer 6

Well to tell you the truth, I grew up in a country that English was a second language. We never spoke English in school or out of school. Students only practiced English spelling few minutes weekly, they were not taught sounds of short or long vowels. All in all, memorizing words which we saw once a week was difficult.
Now I live in an English language country and it is so tedious to write an essay in university. I am always self conscious about my spelling and feel embarrass when misspell a word.

Answer 7

The answer to your question is yes, and because people didn't put up a fight when the passed the current legislation in most states, we now allow our children to move from one grade to the next because someone was afraid of hurting the child's feelings, but felt that it was okay that they did not have the skills to even take a simple job after "graduating" ... have a nice day

Answer 8

To be honest with you the only time i can use my spell check is when i use Internet explorer all the other browsers i use don't have it but most of the time my mistakes are typos i think you should give people a break though school was different back in the day like my father at 48 years old could hardly read or spell its not his fault that the school system wasn't as into getting kids to learn as they are today if you find someone that has bad grammar then why not help them instead of trying to confront them about their inability

Answer 9

Most of those who mis-spell have no idea how to spell and no idea how to proofread what they have written. They probably just glance at it and skim over whatever is wrong since it doesn't stand out to them. They probably are too careless to care about spell check and overlook the fact that their sloppy words are the sloppy impression they make to others who read them.

I have also noticed that spell check is not as good as the one in Word. It doesn't have all the words (like "Google") and it sometimes skips some words thinking they are abbreviations (like "phot" for "photo").

Answer 10

C-O-R-R-E-C-T-L-Y

See, I can spell correctly. (OK, that was lame.)

It's often easier to do nothing than to take action (such as consult a dictionary or run spell-check). I think laziness, complacency, and carelessness have poisoned our society. Ours is now a culture of good-enough, and not one of excellence. Sad, innit?

It's my understanding (from what I read and observe) that some subsets of society feel threatened by academic achievement. I don't know why this is; maybe others can cast light on that. Is it because of feelings of being excluded? Is that what makes some hostile?