Genealogy Chat

I have just tried to decipher a request and because of mis- typings and poor punctuation, I gave up. It only takes a moment or two to read what is written.

I suspect there are several problems. My own is that, sometimes (especially if it's my own work), I read what I expect to see, and I don't notice the transposed letters until too late and then I don't always feel like going back to put the letters in the right order if the meaning is fairly obvious. If you know what you meant, you may not realise that someone else could put a quite different interpretation on your words. This is why you should never ask someone to proof-read anything they've prepared themselves. The second is mis-keying - I transpose letters, for example: "the" comes out as "teh" and even "eth"! Sometimes I don't press the shift-key hard enough, or don't release it soon enough so upper-case gets missed or over-used. I have to say that I find messages in all upper-case unreadable! (Like one long SHOUT!) Some folk are dyslexic and wouldn't be able to recognise a mis-spelling, and there's no spell-checker (which couldn't pick up the errors such as their/there anyway). In recent years, so much emphasis has been placed on freedom of expression (substance) that grammar and spelling (form) has gone by the board. In fact you need both form and substance for communication to work reliably. The formatting of the GR e-mail and thread-headers means that you are wasting your time if you try to set out your message in any clear way by using paragraphs. I agree that careless drafting of messages does make them unnecessarily difficult to read. Christine (I bet - just as soon as I press "Add Message" - I shall spot something wrong in this, too!)

I like about quater of the country am a Dyslexic (the only way I could spell that was becuse of the above.) Spelling is a major problem for us, I do not even know if all of this is spelt right. I mostly remeber what a word looks like more than if its spelt right. So plese give us some slack.

Peter, your message is perfectly intelligible in spite of four small spelling mistakes. You use sentences and grammatical construction correctly, unlike so many people. People who write as though they are sending text messages are the least intelligible. Most people can make out a word if the writer gets the first and last letters correct, but if a writer can't string words together, they will never succeed. Regards Stan P.S. My brother sent me this: I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are,the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorant!

We have had threads like this before and it has been pointed out that not all people are able to spell or use grammatically correct punctuation. where possible we do not want to discourage people from asking for help. I find that, if I am unable to understand, I ask a few clarifying questions the person can sometimes reword it. I have problems with not being firm enough with the shift key, so I often find I have posted a message with lots of lower case 'i's. Ann Glos

I agree with you Ann. We have, quite recently, had a similar thread. Jan

Stan, thats absolutely amazing!!!! I could read it all with no problem. I've just copied it to Word to show my hubbie - surprisingly its all underlined in red!!!!! Anne

I understand what Jill is saying - the odd spelling mistake, or grammatical error or even typing error doesnt really matter. What DOES matter, and makes complete nonsense out of any message is what I call "The Breathless Rush". No punctuation, no explanation, makes messages difficult to read and almost impossible to understand. YOU, the writer, may understand it but I, the reader, do not! Take a moment to read what you have written and see if it makes sense, don't worry about the spelling mistakes, after all, there's always one of us on here to spot your spelling mistakes!

I do not want to boast, but I was always good at spelling, however, sometimes our fingers do not coordinate well with our brain, and the words can come out all wrong!! I`ve done that many times. I would never criticise someone for their spelling etc, possibly (like one of the replies above) they could be dyslexic, I had a nephew (dead now) but he had this problem and when he was a child, it was not recognised then, and the poor wee soul was then marked as "backward" even his own father would ridicule him and say "och he`s daft.." how cruel to do that to your own child. That boy however grew up to be quite a rich man, and when he died, he owned several properties, not so "daft" was he? so, we should think hard before we run someone else down for their faults. I agree however, that a little thought can be taken when writing, to split up things a bit more so that it will make sense, but again, how were these people educated? perhaps they were never taught to do that (considering the teaching standards of today!!! words fail me!!)

Stan et al - Now I know who's being doing all the transcribing for Ancestry :O))

Well I have always said, I can spell perfectly well. Its my fingers that can't (lol) Margaret

Hi Jill, I think one of the biggest problems on this site is the thread headers, and the messaging system. There is no respect for paragraphing! Sometimes, it doesn't matter how carefully a message is spelt, or how well it is punctuated, the lack of paragraphing still makes it extremely hard to read. Made much worse by the lack of punctuation, I agree. It's something I have been groaning about for ages!! So I finally put fingers to keyboard, and asked GR to consider altering the format of these two items. In my 'simple' world, I can't see that it would be that difficult to change this, as all the 'answer' boxes accept paragraphing?? I have had a reply - they will look into it. Debbie

Maud I know exactly how he felt. I'm 51 now and Like him was thought backward becuse of my Dyslexia. But some years ago I had an IQ test and was given a score of 135 Not a genius but defenetly not daft. When asked how i spell Dyslexia I reply ANY WAY I WHANT.