Instead of fully adopting Julie Tarp's suggestion of a daily word blog, it's going to be a lot easier to call it "Words of the Day." I can't imagine it drawing high readership, and that's probably a good thing. The last thing we need is a flame war where the remnant have to defend against the language anarchists...although it might be interesting to read an argument against proper word usage.
It has been argued that a call for maintaining standards somehow chills free expression. I'm not here to argue. Don't like it? Don't read it.
As always, W.O.O.D. has no intention to single out individual posters on Open Salon. Don't assume that any particular installment is aimed at you or any specific individual. My interests range, thankfully, more widely than this site, and my inspirations may come from before there were personal computers, much less online writing communities.
As promised, today we're going to discuss a common misspelling.
SEPERATE
or
SEPARATE
Although I don't misspell this word, it does represent a stumbling block for me. Unlike with most words, when I reach the "p" I have to stop and think. Part of the reason is its similarity to the word-pair below.
DESPERATE
or
DESPARATE
Readers/writers who are invested in orthography (spelling) can easily pick the correct spellings within each pair. But not everyone is so invested.
Here's what Malusinka had to say when I previewed this post: I learned there is 'A rat" in separate. I've never had trouble with operate, since the E is more of the norm.
That mnemonic doesn't work for me, but I understand that many people use that as a lifeline.
No, for me, I first refer to the word "operate," one which I don't stumble over. I take the word I know, remember that separate is not spelled that way, and go on. Simultaneously, I envision a "par"ing knife, which separates one thing from another, such as the peel of an apple.
Separate, of course, has two common American pronunciations and represents two parts of speech. The verb (to) separate, and the adjective separate. I (verb) sep-a-rate an orange into multiple segments, each of which can be served to (adj.) seperate guests on (adj.) seperate plates.
sep-a-rate [v. sep-uh-reyt; adj., n. sep-er-it]
Origin: 1400–50; late ME (n. and adj.) < L sÄ“parÄtus (ptp. of sÄ“parÄre)
The second word pair sets off a jangle in my brain. For a microsecond, I grow desperate. You see, at the root of the state of being desperate is despair. Intuitively, one would think that if you despair you would be despairate. We know that's wrong, but still are tempted to write desparate. My only trick is to know better and resist the temptation. Don't despair.
desperate [des-per-it, -prit]
Origin: 1350–1400; ME < L dÄ“spÄ“rÄtus, ptp. of dÄ“spÄ“rÄre
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Can't promise "tomorrow," but I'll add it to the list. I appreciate the suggestion, too. That's one-half of the equation of making this both sustainable and useful. My ability to write something interesting is the other half.
Keep the suggestions coming.
I'm thinking judgment and judgement. The latter was once the American standard and is still the British standard. Not as extreme as colour, favour, labour, humour - but still a difference that can knock a kid out of a spelling bee.
Do Canadian PC's have Canadian spell-checkers?
Granted, misspelling judgment doesn't interfere with understanding, or show poor judgement. And the more widely you read, the more likely it is that you'll have seen priviledge at some point.
You have to "make your own kind of music" is my guess. You wouldn't ever misspell prestige (a P word), so maybe that's a mnemonic for priviledge.
The only real way to spell with facility is to read voraciously. That's what worries us, the remnant of slippery-slope advocates. If a community like Open Salon, with high standards for content (in my opinion) albeit no barriers to entry or filtering editors, begins to slack off on spelling and word usage, with the excuse that "well, everyone understood what I meant," then more and more people will begin to doubt what they think to be right.
The vocabulary level at OS is high. The writers are bold and honest. It is the kind of place where a call for spelling standards is attacked as being snobbish or anally retentive.
But it's also a paragon Web site, a site where one expects knowledgeable people to be writing. If a favorite writer spells exalt as exault, readers may doubt - either the writer or themselves. And when the precision goes, or the attitude is "it doesn't matter," communication breaks down.
No one would say that imprecision in Morse code is OK, that it doesn't matter. S.O.S. means something different from S.O.P. No one would say that it's OK to garble a line of computer code.
I'm a big fan of apocalypse fiction. The record we create today will be read by someone in the far future. If it's our writing that is the one fragment left to the future through some quirk, I would think we wouldn't want to miscommunicate.
Imagine that archaeologists or archivists in 3035 unearth a midden where we've planted the seeds of a new religion based on what we write.
I had a friend who wrote in a poem that he was filled with ennui. To him, that meant he was bursting with joy. When I mentioned to him that ennui meant something entirely different, he said it didn't matter - the poem meant what he meant it to mean and if that didn't communicate itself to others, that was their problem.
Sorry I didn't catch this last week, it's calving season here and evidently I'm a hired hand.