OATUS: Problems caused by the Internet (part 74)

I'm one of those annoying people that can scan a page of text and instantly spot a spelling mistake. This can prove annoying to someone else who may be reading or writing something (e.g. interrupting my wife while she's busy typing an email without looking at the screen), but it can also distract me from concentrating on what I'm actually reading. Admittedly in the majority of cases it's a non-issue and everyone makes mistakes (even best-selling books contain them), but I do find it worrying how elemental some of the mistakes are. I'm not convinced that dyslexia is the root cause either (on another note why is dyslexia so hard to spell?).

If you're crap at spelling and typing, AutoCorrect is your friend!

There are several common words which, for reasons unknown, are often misspelled, particularly on the internet. Here are some examples that really irritate me (of course, AutoCorrect had to be switched off before typing some of these):

Tounge instead of tongue – why people choose to move the ‘u’ two places to the left is completely beyond me...do lounge, scrounge and tongue rhyme? I don't think so!

Brought instead of bought – this is when the spell-checker doesn’t come to the rescue unfortunately. E.g. “I brought this great new guitar yesterday!” Yes that's wonderful but I'm really not interested that you had your guitar with you or where you were taking it!  By the way, I'm not inferring that guitarists are any worse at spelling and grammar than anyone else, it was just a made-up example - I just wanted to make that point clear before I get any abuse from my guitar-playing friends...;

Opps instead of oops – I can only assume that this was originally a typo but it seems to have been inexplicably adopted by many internet users, particularly those of a younger generation (who obviously make lots of mistakes and have to publicly apologise for them);

Alot instead of a lot – ok this may be just due to carelessness or attributable to 'txt' speak but I do see this alot (sic);

Suprise instead of surprise – this could be accidental, but again, as in “oops”, all people have to do is take a little bit of time to read the word out loud to work out how to spell it correctly...or maybe they now pronounce it wrongly as well?

"Opps...I just brought a new camera, I took alot of pics & found this one with my tounge hanging out - what a suprise!"

I could add plenty of other examples (particularly involving incorrect use of the apostrophe) but I think I'll stop there. Which brings me to my second bugbear, namely the excessive use of acronyms, emoticons and exclamation marks (IMHO!!!! ;-O))) etc. etc. etc.)

Whilst I'm all in favour of adapting and modernising the written English language to accomodate new-fangled methods of communication, some people seem to have got a bit carried away with these newer forms of expression and use them at every opportunity. So what's wrong with it? Well apart from making you look like an over-excited 12-year old that's just discovered internet chat, in most cases it's simply superfluous.  Yes, smileys definitely have their uses, but only if used in moderation.

Some acronyms are also useful, especially when typing quick emails and texting. One of my favourites is RTFM, which is used quite a lot at work. But some are so obscure they seem pointless, especially when you then have to spend time searching Google for a definition, and some aren't really much shorter than the words they replace. My least favourite at the moment though has to be YMMV (which I originally believed to mean “You're Making Me Vomit” because they were the only words I could get to fit). So far I haven't ever found a use for it and don't think I ever will. On a slight tangent, I also find the American phrase “My bad” to be rather irritating (what's wrong with saying “my fault”?).

When driving a car, YMMV.  There, I did it!

In my next blog I will be continuing the language theme by discussing American-English language idiosyncrasies with particular regard to the naming of tasty foods, such as jello/jelly/jam and fries/chips/crisps.

Just kidding...

P.S. I do hope that some of you spotted my deliberate spelling mistake above - if you did then you'll be pleased to know you're officially just as irritating as I am. If you didn’t, I had misspelled the word ‘accommodate’ using only one 'm'... As a disclaimer I should point out that any other mistakes in my post are purely accidental :-))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))