greid@adobe.com (Glenn Reid) (05/13/89)
It is no wonder that people who have trouble spelling don't want to change. The tools they have to help them spell are absolutely horrible. Everybody says "use a spelling checker." or "use a dictionary, just don't insult me with bad spelling." But I don't agree, and I am a very good speller. I have spent a lot of time thinking about this subject, and my belief is that people have trouble with specific CLASSES of spelling, not with spelling in general. That is, some people have difficulty with "ie" vs. "ei", and they consistently have difficulty, no matter how many times they look the words up in a dictionary or spelling checker. You just don't know which one is right, and you can't remember what the rules are, if there are any. In the "olden days", people were taught rules like "i before e except after c." It is amazing how many people still violate that simple rule. Perhaps because people feel it is silly to resort to nursery rhymes to spell. You're supposed to be INTELLIGENT enough to spell well. And, they are always told that there are so many exceptions to the rule in English spelling and grammar that there's not point in learning the rules, so they don't, and they flounder. I think that people can learn to become good spellers. It is not an issue of being a poor speller and that is that, and "I don't feel like using a spell-checker so you'll just have to put up with it." It's not easy, but I think people need tools and rules to help them learn, not just lookup tables. For example, a VERY common class of spelling errors is the difference between these two columnes of words (those that end in "nse" and those that end in "nce"): avoidance license finance defense guidance incense audience expanse essence expense sentence suspense Here are a few of them misspelled. How many of us think that at least some of these words "look right"? licence essense suspence defence (I know, British spelling) lisence expence Those are difficult, but there may be a rule in there somewhere. I can certainly spell most of them right most of the time, but I'll bet you that "license" is one of the most misspelled words. As is "belief", and a few other common ones. Let's talk about how we learn the underlying rules, and how to help people with them. No matter how good a speller you are, you have a weakness like this, and we could all benefit from this discussion. Please, don't suggest that rules aren't worth learning because there are exceptions to them. You are just being silly. There are exceptions to the "i before e except after c" rule, but if everybody blindly followed the rule and ignored the exceptions, they would be right far more often than they are now. Glenn Reid
root@chessene.UUCP (Mark Buda) (05/16/89)
Sorry about having to un-redirect followups, but I don't get sci.lang. (I have redirected followups there, so if you want me to see it, mail it to me.) In article <829@adobe.UUCP> greid@adobe.COM (Glenn Reid) writes: >In the "olden days", people were taught rules like "i before e except >after c." It is amazing how many people still violate that simple >rule. Perhaps because people feel it is silly to resort to nursery >rhymes to spell. I am an excellent speller. If I can't spell a word, it's because I've never heard of it. However, there are two exceptions... I CANNOT remember whether it's wierd or weird, despite the 'i before e' rule. I have to write it down both ways, and even then sometimes I'm not sure (like now). And I can't spell 'friend' without hearing Mr. Rogers singing 'f-r-i-e-n-d special...' in the back of my head. Does anybody else have that problem? :-) Mark Buda hermit@chessene.uucp hermit%chessene.uucp@uunet.uu.net ...!rutgers!bpa!vu-vlsi!devon!chessene!hermit devon.lns.pa.us!chessene!hermit