Mid-evil or Me-devil?!?

[VIII]

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?

[Merlin the Elder]

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.

[DonaCatalina]

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.

[raevyncait]

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!

[Rowan MacD]

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.

[LadyFae]

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!"

[Bob of the Lake]

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!"

[PollyPoPo]

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. 

[Merlin the Elder]

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!

[Rowan MacD]

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.

 I read 'a canon going boom' as 'bad fan-fiction'. *snort* ; 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).

[Gauwyn of Bracknell]

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!  

[Lady Renee Buchanan]

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."

[Merlin the Elder]

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? 

[Captain Cornelius Howard Duckman]

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!

[Dinobabe]

Tehehe....  I'm bad for posting this.

http://vimeo.com/54477410