I got involved in an interesting discussion with @ciarancurran76 and @rougeit on Twitter which I’d like to share with you. I might be following it up with a longer article soon as well. Let me just add that both lovely gentlemen are totally worth following too!
ciarancurran76 What is really sad is that you know the difference between your and you're, and most English people don't!
EwelinaGonera I know, they're both pronounced the same so I can see why people get confused! Similarly with they're/their/there too.
ciarancurran76 It's lazy though - especially when people here rarely speak another language - you should at least get your own right… But I am intolerant of bad grammar!
EwelinaGonera I make mistakes myself all the time as a foreigner plus I try and explain things to people rather than preach them. They'll never learn otherwise as we are all sensitive to criticism!
ciarancurran76 I make mistakes too, and I wouldn't preach - but here in the UK there seem to be many people who don't want to learn. It sounded like I hated people making mistakes - I don't, it is the only way to learn!
EwelinaGonera Agreed. I sometimes get the impression that spelling things wrong is even considered "cool" nowadays. Why? It's a puzzle.
rougeit it's not cool. It's the evolution of language. Wasn't spelling 'set' by the invention of the printing press?
EwelinaGonera I agree, some of it is very inventive and clever, e.g. homophones such as gr8 or acronyms LOL etc., however, some of it is simply the fact people can't spell and it has nothing to do with evolution but illiteracy.
rougeit may not be illiteracy. Chaucer sometimes spelt same word 3 different ways in same sentence. Illiterate. Him?
EwelinaGonera No but people could spell as they liked before the late 18th century and writers would rely on their own phonetics when spelling. This has changed with the era of dictionaries of Johnson and his ilk. If we started spelling things as we like again this would mean we are regressing rather than evolving.
rougeit we communicate in many more ways than ever. Language is evolving again after centuries of stagnation. Cultural values change too. Spelling is much more fluid again. Color/Colour both aceeptable in UK now. Not to mention email/e-mail. Late night/nite and even lite.
EwelinaGonera I totally agree but evolving and not knowing how to spell something are two different stories!
rougeit why shouldn't we spell how we want, so long as we are understood?
EwelinaGonera I ask myself this question as Polish is a phonetic language and we don't encounter as many difficulties when spelling. Also in English it would ‘’maek mor sens to spel wurdz the wae thae sound.’’ Unfortunately there are lots of dialects of the English language and people pronounce things differently anyway.
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