Spelling
Posted by erin at March 23, 2003 05:56 PMIt has been brought to my attention that my spelling can be very, very bad.
This is a problem if I hope to get that Q.C. job at C.P.M. (cryptic to casual readers of my life, I'm sure).
But what can I do to improve my spelling? Read the dictionary? Have friends quiz me? Read more difficult books? Pay attention when using the spell checker?
Comments Individual Archive Index
March 24, 2003 01:21 AM, Maggie said:
Uhm, first of all, you might have noticed that in our group of friends it is easy to get a "reputation" for a specific quality. For example, I'm flaky, but I'm considered the mistress of flakiness. Adan says "ass" and "dick" once in a while, but we make it out as if that's the only thing he says. Hal is perverted, but there are other topics he's interested in than cute Japanese school girls. I think the same deal goes with your spelling - you're not fit for a spelling bee, but I think because you write a lot (e.g. jerksquad, your blog, comments on other blogs), just by volume you have lots of spelling mistakes. It's more than others, so we notice, but it's not like you're the worst speller in the world.
If you're worried about your spelling, you can probably find books on typical difficult words to spell (e.g. "believe" not "beleive", etc.) and try to refresh in your mind the spelling rules indubitably your grammar school teachers might've taught you. Personally, I try to check the spelling of words when I'm 50/50 on its spelling or I'm not exactly sure of the word's meaning. Also, you can try to think what the root of the word is and therefore how it should be spelled. It helps. I think my advice is to just be more careful - before you post something, just reread it once to check for spelling (and typos are forgiveable, no problem).
And of course, there's always spell-checking software...
March 24, 2003 01:24 AM, Maggie said:
P.S. Here's one book that might help: Improve Your Spelling: With Tests and Exercises. Enjoy!
March 24, 2003 01:37 AM, Sam said:
There are spelling mistakes that are obvious oversights, or typos, but I think that for something like QA for subtitling, or as another example, a copyediting job, the person needs to have a better than normal command of grammar and spelling. And while Erin's spelling may not be abysmally bad, I think it's something she might want to look into improving if she's going to try for a subtitling QC job.
March 24, 2003 12:53 PM, Agnieszka said:
By the way, Erin, can you see my blog at work? I have set it up so the livejournal is now embedded within my page and I'd like to know if this is blocked by your firewal or tricks it into thinking it's safe.
March 24, 2003 04:17 PM, Erin said:
Maggie: I think that's a children's book.
A.K.: I'm not seeing anything on your main page, I mean, no new enteries. Just that tiny period link thing.
March 25, 2003 05:50 PM, Eugene said:
Hooked on Phonics worked for me! Well, not really, but it seemed appropriate. :)
I don't really know why some people have more problems with spelling than others. I think reading a lot improves spelling and grammar and you begin to develop a "spelling-sense" when you see something spelled incorrectly. It doesn't help that English is a pretty funny language and is widely inconsistent with its spelling rules.
I can tell you that reading poorly spelled fansubs is one thing that will not help you prepare for a CPM job. Unless you do so to see if you notice the errors. So watching more anime can be kind of like studying for you! Yay!
I am a bit of a stickler for spelling. Several people I work with have atrocious spelling, and I often wonder how someone who can't complete a one-line e-mail without misspelling a word can ever get a job anywhere.
March 26, 2003 10:19 PM, Agnieszka said:
One of my ex boyfriends has spelling so bad that I literally cannot have a correspondence with him. I don't know what he's saying most of the time. So there's bad spelling and then there's bad spelling. When people can't understand you, that is when you have a serious problem.
(Actually he's gotten better in recent years. I guess he couldn't get away with it any more when he started being a graduate assistant in Ireland.)
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