Twitter spellings test

Humph, 95%, I must have got one wrong, how annoying To be fair 'weird' was one I used to misspell until I got corrected by a stranger on the internet something like 10 years ago.

It's a losing battle trying to correct spelling on the internet anyway. Kids these days have better things to do, innit. Did you hear about the school board in New Zealand who decided to allow kids to use text-speak in their written exams? Apparently they decided that English was 'evolving'.

My own personal spelling bugbear on the net is people who think an apostrophe and an 'S' makes something plural. In fact there are several people on this forum who do it

Well, I am shocked I only got 70% (C-) as a 40 something educated to degree level I am sure I used to be able to spell OK.

I think it must be 10+ years relying on spellchecking has addled my brain. ( Or it's the Medication - I can always blame 'the medication' if all else fails)

95% here, I think I got embarrassment wrong (one s)

You did well stefan, I got 65% and english is my language. Iam also dyslexic.

Sandy

I am ashamed to say I only got 80% I believe I chose the srong spellings for "occurrence, embarrassment and Misspell"

English is a stupidly difficult language anyway

I suspect that young British people would struggle with Stefan's test. Young people for whom English is a second language may well do better - they are still taught grammar and correct spelling.
I have no idea how my nieces and nephews managed to get degrees given their spelling and grammar when they e-mail me.


Funnily enough in Dutch 's is used to signify a plural - so it is not Euros but Euro's (though actually the correct plural is Euro :wink and not ponies or babies but pony's or baby's.

As I said before the greengrocer's apostrophe annoys me, and it is used a lot on the forum. But I have learned to live with it, and a lot of the spelling mistakes which appear - which are unnecessary given spell checkers being normal in browsers nowadays.

I think there is a tendency for people not to re-read what they have typed before they press add comment.

Stefan, if you would speak and spell English correctly, you should eschew any advice emanating from across the pond.

Americans have a woeful habit of including any and all spellings, including misspellings, of a word in what they are pleased to call their "dictionaries".

The reason they do so is not ignorance, as you would be forgiven for suspecting. On the contrary, it is a cynical marketing ploy.

They know that any form of controversy is news-worthy. For that reason they will also include words that they invent, purely in order to have their wretched publications mentioned in the media.

Buy a second-hand copy of the original Oxford Dictionary. Edited by a Scot, of course, it is the only definitive guide to English spelling, uncontaminated by modern abuse and misuse.

G

Indeed George, too bad Encyclopædia Britannica is made in the USA now a days...

I scored 95% as I hyphonated misspell. I should've known better.

I find the most worrying part of "kids today not being able to spell" are some of the teachers I know who openly say "it doesn't matter" but I suspect it's because they can't spell either and won't admit it.

Anyone else noticed that :-

At social get togethers it's quite acceptable for people to admit that they are no good at "sums" - maths - arithmatic etc, which to my mind is equivalent to admitting to being illiterate, which of course nobody does

Bernard

The point is that standards do matter, otherwise we might as well give up trying to communicate.

However, language does grow and develop amongst the literate as well, and sometimes things come full circle and a very antiquated phrase will re-emerge as the latest "street-speak". An example is the phrasing of which the following is an example.

"I was very happy for him. Not!"

This is Victorian English and re-appeared within probably the last ten years.

Ten years? Twenty I fear. These years are flying by.

Fogherder, your score has been reduced to 60%, on the grounds that you can't spell "hyphenated". But I personally prefer miss-spell, so I'm with you on that.

Frankly, English does not need development, other than finding a word for a gender-neutral third person pronoun. I tend to use "their" when neither he nor she are appropriate, but it's not correct.

"Evolution" is invariably the result of mistakes made by the semi-literate.

G

So that's why we don't speak Germanic any more but we have English, Dutch, German, Afrikaans, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, Faroese and those i've missed?
Maybe the old ways are much better, far simpler to just speak one language, it's after all one Europe right?

Haven't you noticed that we are in the process of converging on one, rather bastardised, language?

And all because Britain was the leading sea-faring nation 400 years ago.

Were it not for Sam Pepys, who modernised our navy after your country attacked Chatham in 1667, things might be very different today. Probably, we would all be speaking Americanised French.

We'd have lost an empire, but retained our language.

G

And anyone who wants an idea of how they spoke English should read a few of Patrick O'Brians novels

Revived by Messrs. Mike Myers and Dana Carvey c.1992




English does evolve and always will, there's no point debating whether it should or should not. The same people who bemoan language change will often celebrate the new words Shakespeare brought to written English, i.e. just made up!