Calrissa 35F

As a Brit I totally agree. We seem to use Microsoft English now adays as a default setting.

But when I come to the US in July I'm planning on keeping a log of mistakes I make in vocabulary and spelling. Thirty years ago a Brit comedian called Jasper Carrott wrote an entire act about a trip to the US and the way he laughed at spelling and word choices. Maybe I can emulate this.

But maybe you need to explain what snogging is?

Well. I think I have many spelling mistakes, because English is not my language. I hate that kind of mistakes in Spanish, and understand your point of veiw. But I ask for some patience for foreign people. Indeed, I learned English only for magic business.
Cheers!

I think people are very patient here in the Café. It is more difficult for foreigners but I think the spell check Idea and the various language programs are a good idea.
Angel

Angel,

Thank you for your understanding. The function of language is communication. When the language isn't your first language, the dictionary is often your best friend. When words are spelled in such a way that the dictionary is no help, communications typically stops. English is the official language of The Magic Café, but it is not the first language of many of the world’s best magicians and magic enthusiasts. Not only good spelling but the avoidance of abbreviations are critical to communications here.

The true benefit of The Magic Café is the unselfish promotion of meaningful communications among those in the world of magic. Language is a barrier to that communication that needs not to be ignored. Since the computer is the only access to The Magic Café, all posters have access to spell checking also. Using it is a matter of professionalism, courtesy, and effective communications.

Enjoy the Magic Café.

Bob Sanders
Magic By Sander

I'm not sure if it is my Firefox or if I have Google toolbar, but when I type it automatically shows the spelling errors.

Wouldn't a preview function for the posts help prevent some spelling mistakes, especially those that are not caught by spelling checkers? Although I try to read every post thoroughly before hitting the "submit" button, I find that sometimes I see a blatant bang-your-head-against-the-wall mistake the second my post appears in its (oops, I almost typed "it's" there...) final form in the thread.

It's Firefox. Although it isn't that advanced of a spell checker, it has stopped me from making a lot of stupid mistakes

Thancs for the linc. Worcs Purfectly.

Joee

How about ect. instead of etc.? I couldn't count how many times I've seen that one, which I just ran across again for the umpteenth time in a new post to a thread here, which reminded me of this thread which I'd just read earlier today.

I do believe its Firefox. I get the same thing on mine although it does not help with grammar. The nice thing is I can right click and it will give me possible spelling fixes. For those of you that are horrible spellers like myself, its a nice browser utility.

The one that has always bugged me is "your" and "you're". People, get it right!
If it's possessive like "this is your car", use "your".
Use "you're" if you mean to say "you are"

Agreed, that seems like a real common one, and I admit that I still slip on that one myself sometimes when I'm in a hurry. I know someone on another forum (completely unrelated to the topic of this one) who has been saying "Your welcome" in response to "thank you" posts literally for years and he still always spells it wrong. I guess no one wants to criticize him for it because he's constantly helping other forum members with things -- which is why he's always saying "Your welcome." Maybe one day I'll finally break down and correct him, but he's been spelling it the same way for so long, I'm not sure if he could change it. lol

PS. Great signature. I'm tempted to steal it, but I guess I don't want to risk getting my throat slit.

The one that bugs me is when people want to say "oops" and say "opps". I can't believe how common it is!

Thank you for all the great suggestions. This was a very useful topic,

On 2007-01-13 20:38, Bob Sanders wrote:
Thanks for understanding the problem. Many of the members of The Magic Café do not have English as their first language. Spelling mistakes make their language dictionaries not work. Then communications get pretty hard to follow. Your efforts are vital to our success here. With over 1.6 million posts on The Café keeping up with our small all volunteer staff is impossible without member help.

Thanks again.

Bob Sanders
Magic By Sander


[/quote]

Thank you for pointing this fact out to us Bob. It is a consideration that I never thought of prior to reading your post!

A good habit to get into when posting on this website is to always use the following procedure:

1. Type your post.
2. Use a spell check method if you have one available.
2. Hit "submit reply."
3. Hit "click here to review this message."
4. Review the message. Take a good hard look at it.
5. Ask yourself the following questions:
a. Does it fit nicely on the page?
b. Are words, letters or symbols too close together or spaced in a way that
makes reading the post difficult?
c. Could I have said it any differently to communicate my intent more
effectively, concisely, and correctly?
d. Is there anything I can do to make the post more pleasing to the reader?

If the answer to any of the above questions is "yes," hit the "edit" button and repeat steps 1-5 as many times as you need to until you're satisfied with your content.

:magicrabbit:

Here's a useful web site:

http://www.d-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y.com/

Thanks pradell. I'll try that.

Thnks everyone....

I definitely agree with the idea that correct spelling and grammar is important and I like the discussion on how the use of grammar can affect a magicians act (especially as the persona I am developing for my act is a bit of a dimwit).

I'd just like to point out that as mentioned already England and America both use different spelling for certain words (color and colour for instance) but it actually gets a little deeper than that. I have lived in the UK, Australia and New Zealand and they all have their own variations in spelling. This has got to the point where I am often not sure of the correct spelling of a word for the country I am in. I can't for the life of me think of any examples right now but in general Australia tends to follow the American way and New Zealand the British, but not as a rule.

Another curiosity is the pronunciation of the letter Z. Some countries pronounce it as Zee and some as Zed. Again I have become so culturally confused by living within the different styles that I have forgotten who does what. Probably because at the end of the day it's not that important to me.