dyslexia rant

[Saluki]

I couldnt give a toss about someones spell and grammar in a post, mine is appalling but I do try. My other half is dyslexic, like the OP she holds way more qualifications than I ever could (PhD, chartered something or other, and a very senior management role) What really makes me want to scream is peoples use of 'text' speak, there really is no excuse for it, it comes across as being very thick and/or immature. I have on more than one occasion received an email, from so called professional colleagues, littered with Text speak, I just bin them and refuse to answer them, then the inevitable question about 'did you get my mail?' to which i respond with 'yes but I couldn't be bothered to read it, because it was just gibberish, if your keyboard has stopped working get IT to replace it... ' or some other sarcastic retort.

Well said. If I could 'like' this post 10 times, I would.
I hate text speak and cannot read it, it makes no sense to my fuzzy little mind. When people text me in text speak I just text back asking them to re-send in English please. If they don't or won't, I've lost nothing.
I once got an email from someone wanting a groom, it was all in text speak. I was a bit short of work so posted it up to the Groomer Message Boards for translation. Not only did the groomers translate, they sent me a reply to text back in text speak. I could work that one out though as they spelled the second word, which was 'off' correctly

 

[glasgowcyclist]

...
but here is the thing that gets me mad, is when folk start having a go at posters for the way they have spelt something or the way they use there grammar and punctuation. ..

I'll hold my hand up and confess to having been one for routinely pointing out grammar and spelling errors in the past.

As you say, provided the meaning is apparent, there should be no need to correct someone else's writing. If the meaning is unclear, I try to ask for clarification in a reasonable way, explaining my confusion.

This has come about as a result of two things: learning a foreign language and also becoming more aware of how widespread dyslexia is. More than once I've seen an unpleasant response to someone's post when that person's first language wasn't English.

The one thing I struggle with is large blocks of text with no attempt whatsoever at punctuation. That is very difficult to read, to the point that I'll skip it and miss the person's conribution.

Anyway, good rant!

GC

 

[vernon]

It is an odd one as I can be as pedantic as anyone still with a miss-placed apostrophe.

Let those without sin cast the first stone.....

 

[swee'pea99]

I loath posts picking holes in other posters' spelling, grammar or punctuation. You can just imagine the kind of smug, self-righteous tosspots who make them. Fortunately they almost always contain errors, which I'm always happy to flag up. Every little helps, right?

 

[GetAGrip]

Stuee,

just a suggestion that I have seen work well elsewhere: why don't you mention that you are dyslexic in your signature? If you said something like "sorry if my spelling isn't great, but I am dyslexic", then no-one will bother you with corrections, I'm sure.

The only other thing that you can do, as you have done in your post here, is to keep everything well separated. Lots of paragraphs/ breaks make reading a whole lot easier compared with a wall of continuous text.

My personal feeling to what you say is, fine, do that if you are comfortable it. But be prepared to explain this again and again and again and on whatever forum you happen to be contributing to. It doesn't work anyhow. Ask a certain young man of this parish who it seems is now enjoying a bit more motoring and a little less cycling.

Posters aren't sitting some sort of exam by replying to threads. They're joining in and contributing on an all inclusive and friendly forum, where the main thing in common is CYCLING.
Why should any poster have to 'conform' to what a few grammar junkies suggest!
Unless a poster asks for support to express his/her thoughts better through the keyboard, why should anyone feel the need to take it upon themselves to 'educate' them!
It's all about the subject being discussed in the thread. If you feel you are so inflexible in getting the 'gist' of what someone writes, don't read the post and move on!
Feel free to rip my post apart grammatically, as I too am not one of UK's greatest literates

 

[stuee147]

i love the feed back here.
and i agree @Mad Doug Biker some times is is just an innocent observation about a post that sort of thing is fine i dont mind them it can help me and im sure others would find the agree, i mean if no one tells me then how would i ever learn. its some times you can tell by the way its been written that its not just a friendly comment. and i would like to add at this point iv not seen it as much on this site as i have on others, i been removed from a landrover forum by the moderators several years ago and i was told by one of them that when i learnt to use spell checker i couldn't use there forums. i did tell them the problems i have but they just didn't care and as far as im concerned
if thats how they want to be then they can get on with it. as it happened i joined another forum and they were a lot better, i did hear a lot of complaints about the other forum and i believe it was closed down after about a year, so justice was served.

@CarlP the question marks were a sort of WTF statement but i like to try and make up for my missing fullstops and comers buy adding other punctuation ::::::$$££"!!"" lol

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Worse that that, because they don't 'understand' dyslexic logic the suggestions are 9 times out of 10 completely wrong. In this case Goggle & bing are your friends on this one spell the words phonetically in either of them works quite well for occasional miss-spellings but it gets very laborious if you've got a lot of words you miss-spelt in a post.

yes thank you someone has noticed the spell checkers as with dictionary are only any use if you have an idea of how something is spelt but with dyslexia how i think something is spelt looks fine to me but is miles out.
i also have been told that i can spell the same word different ways in the same bit of text yet to me it looks fine no matter how many times i read it.

i was watching the 1st episode of still game on youtube the other day and there is a bit where jack buys a door mat and they kept going on about it but i thought it looked fine my girlfriend had to tell me the joke lol so iv now been told im not aloud to buy a door mat until she sees it lol

stuee

 

[glasgowcyclist]

the question marks were a sort of WTF statement but i like to try and make up for my missing fullstops and comers buy adding other punctuation ::::::$$££"!!"" lol

This made me laugh, really!

You keep posting as you are and at the end just chuck in a selection of commas, full stops and exclamation marks and tell the reader to' distribute as necessary'.


GC

 

[stuee147]

This made me laugh, really!

You keep posting as you are and at the end just chuck in a selection of commas, full stops and exclamation marks and tell the reader to' distribute as necessary'.


GC

yep its like a DIY post

if im feeling lazy i could just put a jumble of letters and punctuation and then you all have to sort them out in order saves me mucking about with spell checker LOL

 

[SteCenturion]

If only we communicated through the medium of dance......

Very nice sentiment there Vernon...


But please God, no..

Not in my case, I would be laughed out of town for my Dad dancing.

Anyone ever see a duck trying to moonwalk ?

 

[Scoosh]

Very nice sentiment there Vernon...


But please God, no..

Not in my case, I would be laughed out of town for my Dad dancing.

Anyone ever see a duck trying to moonwalk ?

Not quite ...

 

[MontyVeda]

I recall a classmate noticing that i didn't know the difference between thesis and faeces... since the subject was psychology, in hindsight i reckon my constant writing of faeces instead of thesis was relatively accurate, especially where Freud was concerned.

as for spell checkers, I had to keep a screen shot of this spell-check-fail...

that's 12 made up words in the spellchecker... what hope is there!!! ....although i am quite partial to a bit of Frog-rock

 

[SteCenturion]

My posts are absolutely littered with grammatical errors & there are several reasons for this.

Some of this boils down to a little laziness, some intentionally, such as writing in dialect tones which I quite enjoy.

I have a terrible habit of using capitals where not required & I have an unusual affinity to exclamation marks.
Exclamation marks have often landed me with a "who are you shouting at" type of response.

I generally don't get the whole e-mail etiquette, shouting thing & have often replied, "it's just words, poor grammar on a screen, get over it".

My main problem though is entirely different.
Due to my work/homelife conundrum I do all of my internet & forum activity via my smartphone & often while moving & being lurched from side to side on a bus, (don't worry, I am not driving it).
This causes me lots of problems.
I hit reply, send & incorrect keys frequently, then I have to edit & don't always spot the errors.

I am neither thick, nor classically intelligent in an academic sense.

I have two mediocre 'O' Levels in English Lit & Language - a B & C & other mediocre 'O' levels, yet I can hold my own (insert pun) & converse with others across a fairly wide spectrum of society, tailoring my speech or written word to suit.

I implore anyone who posts disparaging remarks to another member, referencing their grammar or spelling not to bother or refrain if you are middle to upper class.

Finally, I will leave you with my 'favourite' 'error' that 'really' seems to 'wind people up'.

Edit.

I am a northern monkey who has never or will ever work in an office, hence I don't understand the office etiquette thing too well.

While I am on, can anyone tell me what IIRC is please, I also don't get all of the modern abbreviations in text.

Thanks.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

I totally understand and agree. People should, but don't always, accept you as you are.

If I am having a bad day (mildly dyslexic but most noticeable with numbers and spoken word) then I will often mention it as a side, just saying something like I'm having a bad day with words today and ask for people's patience/understanding if I am not that clear. What I type out usually goes through MS Word first and I often use the google spell checking option or when that fails (often) simply find another word that explains the same thing.

I don't correct people because both my brother and I had years and years of being nagged by our 'parents', so I know how condescending and inconsiderate it is and as far as I am concerned if you can get the point over/make yourself understood, what is the problem? I do try to remember to add punctuation though (and break up thought patterns into new paragraphs), but it is more as my mind thinks than what is expect, so it doesn't always work. My brother is much worse than I am for written word so I guess the 5 years of extra English lessons every lunchtime at school have paid off in that respect. Ironically my brother is exceptionally gifted (seriously so) at calculus, but hates it! Strangely I have found learning and speaking German much easier than English, but I guess that is just the way my mind works and I think understanding that has helped me.

I have found ways around the 'problems' is presents over the years. I can't write numbers down if someone reads them out to me, but can copy shapes. I don't say the number to myself as I copy it because I know my mind will switch the order of the numbers or change it completely but copying shapes is easier for me. Speaking can be interesting if I am tired. We have a rule (at home) whereby if I start to switch 3 or more words around in the sentence order then I don't drive/use knives/cook etc. Its a sign that I am too tired and I am liable to cut/burn/hurt myself badly (have done). Switching 2 words in a sentence is normal, and people around me just accept it. I get the odd odd look, but normally it is just ignored because friends/family know I don't know I have done it. Very occasionally I will realise I have switched the order as my mind 'replays' the last sentence and I have been known to add "ok, that made no sense even to me". I usually just get the "don't worry, we understood".

One of the other interesting issues I have is left from right. I have sat all of my driving tests (all because I resit every 3 years for my advanced level driving tests) with drivers side and passenger side. That is something my mind has no issues with, left and right are a completely different story! When I used to teach advanced level driving, I used to have to tell the driver to go with what my hands indicate, not what I actually said!

Finally, I always make myself read each and every word, and not assume I know what I have written, before I hit the Post Reply button! That is the hardest part because I have to consciously think about what the word is that I am looking at and not assume and I can't read long paragraphs, so I have to break them up so I can understand what I have written!

 

[Blue]

I implore anyone who posts disparaging remarks to another member, referencing their grammar or spelling not to bother.

How then will the internet nobbers grammar police get their rocks off?

 

[Archie_tect]

How then will the internet nobbers grammar police get their rocks off?

6mm spanner... or possibly an even smaller one.