mousme: A view of a woman's legs from behind, wearing knee-high rainbow socks. The rest of the picture is black and white. (Human speech)
mousme ([personal profile] mousme) wrote2005-10-27 12:28 pm

Spam!

Just because I can. ;)

This is a public service announcement:

There is NO "a" in "definitely." The adverb comes from the adjective "definite." Note the lack of "a" at the end of that word too?

Good.

Please, for the love of God, stop spelling it "definatly." That is not a word. It does not exist in the English language. Please stop using it before people come to view it as an acceptable term to use.

I honestly don't understand how native English speakers, who come into regular contact with this word, cannot spell it to save their lives. Exceptions can be made for non-native speakers, but after they've been told a few times how to spell it properly, there's no excuse there anymore either.

That is all. You may now continue with your day.

[identity profile] sorceror.livejournal.com 2005-10-28 12:31 am (UTC)(link)
My grade ten teacher had a list of "betes noires"; elementary spelling mistakes for which he would automatically deduct a full point (out of ten, mind you): to/two/too, its/it's, 'should of' instead of 'should have', etc.

Very few of us made those mistakes after the first few essays.

[identity profile] ai731.livejournal.com 2005-10-28 01:53 am (UTC)(link)
See, now "to/two/too", "its/it's", and "their/there/they're" I have absolutely no trouble with. Never have had. Because they're not spelling. They're *grammer*. To me anyway. We had a discussion in class the other day - three bilingual anglophones, and 8 bilingual francophones. It took us 5 minutes to agree that it's "dance" in English and "danse" in French. That, in a nutshell, illustrates the bulk of my problem with spelling.

[identity profile] mousme.livejournal.com 2005-10-28 02:02 am (UTC)(link)
That I can understand. 75% of the mistakes I make in English are gallicisms, and 75% of the mistakes I make in French are anglicisms. Then 20% are typos, and 5% are just plain ignorance. ;)