I worked at 'Medieval Inn' and "Medieval Times" for many years in Dallas, Texas.
It astonished me that we would get checks and mail addressed 'Mid-evil' or 'Mid-eval' or even 'Me-devil' at both places.
Now I could understand the phonetics concept of spelling, but the signs are posted EVERYWHERE!!!
Are people really that... ummm... uneducated?!?... unobservant?!?... oblivious?!?
Both companies stated they NEVER had a problem cashing the checks.
I suppose the banks EXPECT people to be... ahh... inspecific?!?
Am I being 'particular' or am I justified in thinking less of people?
No...you're totally justified. It's getting worse, too, with the spelling and grammar. Also, people do not pay any attention to their surroundings anymore. A kid with either a phone or iPod, with ear buds in his ears, was walking along yesterday, and stepped off the curb right in front of me, not once looking up. He's lucky that campus speed limit is as low as it is...and that I tend to be a very observant driver.
You should see some of the customers' email that I have to decipher. And then of course they don't read through the entire response. Something has happened to our education system and people's attention spans.
But as I tell my daughter when she gets frustrated, there are in fact a lot more people at the bottom of the pyramid.
Having a name such as Raenell, well, I honestly don't expect people to be able to spell it, and I've frankly given up on folks bothering to sound it out (RAY-nell is pretty straightforward, I think), and I've been known to answer to just about Rae-anything, as well as Rachel, and Renee (in fact, I'm so accustomed to answering to Renee, that yesterday at the grocery store, when someone said "Renee" in speaking to the clerk, I turned around). On the other hand, our Controller's name is Crissy. I've heard her spell it out a THOUSAND times, at least, "C-R-I-S-S-Y, with NO 'H' in it", and yet when those very same people call back, they ask for ChrisTy, or they REPLY to her email (which has her signature, big & bold) CHRISTY or CHRISSY, or even KRISTY. It continually astounds me how little attention people pay to things like that. I'll even ask people if Brian is with an I or a Y, because I"m that particular about name spelling.
Sadly, I think that technology, especially the advent of texting on phones is contributing to the downfall of spelling in this country, because our children spend so much time using text-speak that they've forgotten how to spell things out. Seeing what they actually write in a paper or online gives me a raging headache sometimes!
Quote from: VIII on January 10, 2013, 10:44:43 PM
I worked at 'Medieval Inn' and "Medieval Times" for many years in Dallas, Texas.
It astonished me that we would get checks and mail addressed 'Mid-evil' or 'Mid-eval' or even 'Me-devil' at both places.
Now I could understand the phonetics concept of spelling, but the signs are posted EVERYWHERE!!!
Are people really that... ummm... uneducated?!?... unobservant?!?... oblivious?!?
Both companies stated they NEVER had a problem cashing the checks.
I suppose the banks EXPECT people to be... ahh... inspecific?!?
Am I being 'particular' or am I justified in thinking less of people?
'Renaissance' is another tricky one for most people- I've seen Renesance and Rennaisance most often. People rely way too much on Phonetics to 'guess' at spelling.
Lucky for the Payee, that banks will cash any check written to any business. They don't pay any attention anymore to the 'Pay to the order of' line at all. It can be made out to 'Micky Mouse' and since they process paper checks electronically now days, it will go through the bank without a problem. That's why if you pay your bills by check, and put them in the wrong envelope, they will be cashed anyway.
Example: About 12 years back, I sent my mortgage payment to my credit card company and vice-versa. Both paper checks were cashed for the face amount by their accounting offices, resulting in a 500$ credit on my card (I don't carry a balance), but worse, a 650$ shortfall on my mortgage and a ding on my credit for a partial (and thus late) payment.
It took me 2 days to figure that one out. Once I got photocopies from the bank I realized that both places had paid no attention to the Payee line at all. Both checks were made out correctly and they even had acct#s on them, but they were accepted anyway. Scary.
I pay my mortgage via ACH now, but still pay most of my bills via mail. I'm much more careful.
Where I work, the only payments that are returned to the payer without cashing, are money orders not made out to us. Apparently that's still illegal.
You are completely justified!
I fully agree with what everyone above me has said, as well. The base of the human pyramid is quite, um, sturdy. ;)
I am an active member on two other forums- one for moms and one for Yorkies- and it is exceedingly difficult to try and figure out what people are saying in some of their posts! Sometimes it's as though they expect the computer to automatically fix their spelling, grammar, and punctuation!
Raenell- my husband's name is Wain and our second daughter is Aria. I see them both as extremely straightforward to say on sight as well as to spell, however others rarely get them correct. I just want to scream, "Come on, people! Both wain and aria are words in the dictionary! Pick up a dang book once in a while!"
You are certainly justified, Your Majesty!
For the reasons others have pointed out here, there is little thought given to spelling by the average person these days. In my mundane life, I'm a writer and editor at a University and believe me, it's no better in academia! The combination of over-reliance on technology, the infernal rush that everyone seems to be in at all times, and the lack of care, has produced a generation of "indifferent spellers." You'd be amazed at what crosses my desk!
Well, my consolation is that at least people generally spell my name correctly. It's pretty hard to misspell "Bob!"
When making short comments or replies on-line I do not always actually see the words on the screen; my brain sees what I meant to type (which explains a canon going boom, when it was supposed to be cannon).
After a few such boo-boos, my posts are now usually typed up in MS Word, then copied and pasted. That way I let the spell checker help these old eyes see typos.
For the most part, I find it easy to ignore misspellings, typos, and various errors on a screen.
On the other hand, when I see a photo of a poster (a cardboard thing held up in the air) containing "If your jealous of ..." it jumps out at me. I can understand typos; I can understand misspellings; I can understand people not knowing the difference between homonyms, possessives or contractions of nouns and verbs. I cannot understand how absolutely nobody bothered to correct a big cardboard sign, especially when the organization is trying to get a point across that the group is worthy of attention.
Perhaps as time goes on we will all start using phonetic spellings such as are being used for short texting, even going the way of the novel 1984, paring down the vocabulary as much as possible.
That would, of course, remove much of the beauty and nuance from writings.
Quote from: Bob of the Lake on January 11, 2013, 10:08:28 AM
You are certainly justified, Your Majesty!
For the reasons others have pointed out here, there is little thought given to spelling by the average person these days. In my mundane life, I'm a writer and editor at a University and believe me, it's no better in academia! The combination of over-reliance on technology, the infernal rush that everyone seems to be in at all times, and the lack of care, has produced a generation of "indifferent spellers." You'd be amazed at what crosses my desk!
Well, my consolation is that at least people generally spell my name correctly. It's pretty hard to misspell "Bob!"
I also work in academia,
Boob Bob. Our department requires theses of its students, and they all come across my desk for electronic storage. Sometimes a particular topic will interest me, and I'll read the thesis. Despite the fact that these papers have been in and out of the hands of several people—primarily advisors and second-readers—by the time I get them, I will sometime find errors, and I find it extremely frustrating. Not even the professors are catching this!
Quote from: PollyPoPo on January 11, 2013, 11:20:06 AM
When making short comments or replies on-line I do not always actually see the words on the screen; my brain sees what I meant to type (which explains a canon going boom, when it was supposed to be cannon).
After a few such boo-boos, my posts are now usually typed up in MS Word, then copied and pasted. That way I let the spell checker help these old eyes see typos.
For the most part, I find it easy to ignore misspellings, typos, and various errors on a screen.
:D I read 'a canon going boom' as 'bad fan-fiction'. *snort* ;D; my mind works strangely sometimes.... Since both 'canon' and 'cannon' are actual words,
speel spell check won't catch them anyway.
When the eye reads a homophone, it 'hears' the same word and tends to substitute the correct one, so most errors are ignored (unless they're funny, of course).
My nephew's wife had a masters in English and when planning their (there or they're -pick one :) )wedding asked what bar-beck (barbecue) chicken was. She had only seen it spelled BBQ. A masters in English!
Or you could be a follower of President Andrew Jackson:
"It is a damn poor mind indeed which can't think of at least two ways to spell any word."
Quote from: Gauwyn of Bracknell on January 12, 2013, 08:25:40 AM
My nephew's wife had a masters in English and when planning their (there or they're -pick one :) )wedding asked what bar-beck (barbecue) chicken was. She had only seen it spelled BBQ. A masters in English!
Can I hear a LOL-men? :P
My real life name is Mitchell. The number of teachers throughout the years who somehow thought it should be pronounced 'Michael' when calling roll... And these are educated people!
Tehehe.... I'm bad for posting this. ;)
http://vimeo.com/54477410
I've heard people pronounce it Medi-evil. 'Medi' as in 'medic' and evil, as in...Sauron is evil. (Mostly, I hear this from British people) It's like they really pronounce the 'i'.
Do you think the people trying to spell it sound out the word this way, which might explain (but not justify) their odd spellings?
I just say it as 'med-evil', but I suppose I could see how people might add in the 'ee' part in the middle. Am I in the minority in this pronunciation? Is everything I know a lie?!
My name is Shanon, with 1 N in the middle. That's my father's fault. I've been called Sharon my whole life, because some people can't tell the different between an n and an r. I could never have personalized pencils or whatever like the other children (and a pencil with a blacked out N just wouldn't do). I swear, I'm naming my kid something with a very common spelling!
Another word that I have heard pronounced 2 ways is "Renaissance"
Ren-ah-sanse
Ren-nay-sanse
Owain Phyfe pronounced it the second way, as do several cast members at Bristol.
From what I could gather, "mee-dee-e-vil" is the most correct of the several accepted pronunciations.
Quote from: Delireus on January 16, 2013, 02:48:02 AM
I've heard people pronounce it Medi-evil. 'Medi' as in 'medic' and evil, as in...Sauron is evil. (Mostly, I hear this from British people) It's like they really pronounce the 'i'.
I've also heard Brits pronounce "aluminum" as "al-loo-MIN-ee-um" with the extra "eeeee" sound.
Quote from: Merlin the Elder on January 16, 2013, 10:28:27 AM
From what I could gather, "mee-dee-e-vil" is the most correct of the several accepted pronunciations.
You and I are in complete agreement, Wizard!
Quote from: Butch on January 16, 2013, 08:24:22 PM
I've also heard Brits pronounce "aluminum" as "al-loo-MIN-ee-um" with the extra "eeeee" sound.
They also spell it Alumin-I-um
Quote from: Butch on January 16, 2013, 08:24:22 PM
I've also heard Brits pronounce "aluminum" as "al-loo-MIN-ee-um" with the extra "eeeee" sound.
If you watch Top Gear they joke about how we (Americans) pronounce it wrong! lol
Quote from: Dinobabe on January 17, 2013, 08:17:26 AM
Quote from: Butch on January 16, 2013, 08:24:22 PM
I've also heard Brits pronounce "aluminum" as "al-loo-MIN-ee-um" with the extra "eeeee" sound.
If you watch Top Gear they joke about how we (Americans) pronounce it wrong! lol
It appears that we truly are, as Sir Winston observed, a common people separated by a common language!
You say po-tay-toe. I say po-tah-toe.
My British husband had to change to the American way of saying potato and tomato, because being an executive chef in a large kitchen with over 350 employees, nobody understood him when he pronounced them the British way.
This may be of interest on more than this particular pronunciation. Try this wonderful site:
http://www.howjsay.com (http://www.howjsay.com)
You type in a word, hit "submit" and your computer speakers will then emit the proper British pronunciation of the submitted word.
As a performer who struggles with his "upper class" British accent, despite hours and hours practicing with Dr. Stern's CD, I find it invaluable.
I think that mid-winter is mid-evil. Bring on the faire season!
Quote from: Norfolk on January 19, 2013, 10:24:44 PM
As a performer who struggles with his "upper class" British accent, despite hours and hours practicing with Dr. Stern's CD, I find it invaluable.
Don't sell yourself short, your character voice is quite good!!
Agreed, Gauwyn. Norfolk is on my A-List of on-cast performers.
Quote from: Craigmeister on January 24, 2013, 11:23:29 PM
I think that mid-winter is mid-evil. Bring on the faire season!
I have to agree with this
Thing that drove me a little nuts was when I studied over seas. As it was a former British colony things were spelled in British English. I would be using my American computer over there and would get papers back saying my spelling was terrible, yet spell check said it was perfect. UNTIL a friend of mine told me to go in and change my spell check to British English. Then I was fine, until I got back home and was sending things with British spellings.
I still get caught up when it is color vs colour and fair vs faire. Both are correct spells but it depends on which side of the pond you are on.
I am part of Toastmasters international. I keep telling the students that are members of the club. If you can do a proper presentation in clear concise English you will score more points with the professor because they can properly understand you. You will appear far more professional to them. Many look at me like I'm nuts.
Gauwyn, Merlin,
You gents are VERY kind. But you definitely made my day!