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Is spelling still relevant?


Clair
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Grammar and spelling still relevant. Perhaps I am old fashioned but I think why should I decipher what is occasionally gobbledy gook. In this day of spell checkers, on line dictionaries in a multitude of languages there is less excuse \ reason for  bad spelling now.

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Grammar and spelling still relevant. Perhaps I am old fashioned but I think why should I decipher what is occasionally gobbledy gook. In this day of spell checkers, on line dictionaries in a multitude of languages there is less excuse \ reason for  bad spelling now.

Having had a look at some of those Facebook comments, rest assured you don't need to take a stupid test to join, they have a fixed quota of dumbos per month.

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Amongst specific groups, variant grammar and spelling are simply codes used to identify their differences from other groups in society and don't matter much. When however it is necessary to communicate generally or across groups, then they are very necessary otherwise we have bedlam and babel.

Of course, variants can and do cross group barriers and even enter the general sphere, usually because they have some interest or power. Look at the hideous word 'innit' which one hears more and more.

A non linguistic example was the originally Caribbean  'high-five' greeting that sportsmen used for a while but which has now apparently disappeared, at least I do hope so.

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"Amongst specific groups, variant grammar and spelling are simply codes used to identify their differences from other groups in society and does not matter much. When however it is necessary to communicate generally or across groups, then they are necessary otherwise we there is bedlam (and babel?).

Of course variants can and do cross group barriers and even enter the general sphere, usually because they have some interest or power. Look at the hideous word 'innit' which one hears more and more.

A non linguistic example was the originally Caribbean 'high-five' greeting sportsmen used for a while but which has apparently disappeared, at least I do hope so."

Add "fotos" to your list of hideous words!
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[quote user="Jay"]

Add "fotos" to your list of hideous words![/quote]

Oh dear . . . . [url=http://balhamfoto.blogspot.com/]my blog[/url]     [img]http://www.anchoredbygrace.com/smileys/blush1.gif[/img] but Foto is word, just not an English word.

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Gosh, that's going back a bit, part of a publicity campaign.

"The origin of the phrase "Balham – Gateway to the South" was a Southern Railway advertisement dating from the 1926 opening of the tube station. The stations connect Balham to both the City of London and the West End".

But me, no, childhood memories there for a while, que ça.

Oh, speling, i stil thinc it iz importent that peeple know how to spel.

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English grammar and punctuation are relatively easy. But English spelling is quite the reverse - probably the most irregular

of all alphabetic systems. Not only can you not tell how to spell a

word from hearing it spoken; you can’t even be sure how a word is spoken

from the written word

http://spellingsociety.org/

Modern English spelling is of course quite recent.

and as someone who has taught English to foreign students for several years  I can vouch for the fact that the illogical spelling of the language is one of the greatest barriers to learning:

http://spellingsociety.org/spelling/irregularities

You have to decide where you live:

http://www.avko.org/free/instructional/british_vs_american_spelling.htm

The fact is that for a great part of the history on English there was no fixed spelling

Some interesting papers:

http://spellingsociety.org/aboutsss/johnson1.php

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[quote user="NormanH"]I associate it with Peter Sellers..

[/quote]

Peter Sellers comes a few years later (circa 1958, a few years after the Southern Railway. I associate Balham with Clapham South, there is logic there or rather . . .

their is lojik they're [img]http://serve.mysmiley.net/happy/happy0006.gif[/img].

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