8 replies to this topic

[TikiTDO]

I know I am not the paragon of spelling and grammar, but this simply had to be said. Is it really and honestly that hard to spell "sequel"? I have seen it spelled sequal, sequil, seqil and any number of completely idiotic ways. If it was just single occurrence I would be able to pass it off as a typo or a brain slip on the part of the author. Hell, I would even understand if it was a proper alternate spelling in some other language, but a quick search shows the origin of the word is as follows: Middle English sequele, from Old French sequelle, from Latin sequēla. So it is the case that summary after summary I read butchers the spelling, which at least is somewhat forgivable since not every browser will spell check your text entries. What puzzles me is that these misspellings also appear in story bodies. I know from simple testing that none of the misspellings above get though a spell checker on any of the more popular editors/spell checkers (MS Word, OOffice, aspell).

So what is the deal? Have schools simply stopped teaching proper spelling? Is there some language out there that really does use these alternate spellings? Are people so confident in their spelling that they do not spell check their work before posting? Something has to be the cause because I’m honestly tired of seeing the word spelled improperly more times that it is properly on a page.

[Vespar]

Sometimes I'm prone to making that mistake and though I can't speak for everybody, I could attribute it to keeping in mind the word 'equal' and thus glossing over similar words when reading or writing.

[MonkeysTotallyRock]

yup! vespar is genius. but who knew there were that many spellings... haha. i think in this case, knowledge caused you to make a mistake. ''^^ i never knew that stuff and i always spelled it fine.

[TikiTDO]

Define Irony: The topic (currently) below this one.

Monkey, none of those spellings I mentioned are valid, which was my point. Sequel is the only correct spelling. As for Vespar's point, I can understand that some people may make a honest mistake spelling it even if they know the proper spelling. What really annoys me are people who really don't know how it spelled. Were it a rarely used word I would not mind its misuse, but "sequel" is so common in media that it really is a wonder. Just looking around my desk I see four books/games with the word sequel on the cover.

[JoHamSandwich]

Define Irony: The topic (currently) below this one.

Monkey, none of those spellings I mentioned are valid, which was my point. Sequel is the only correct spelling. As for Vespar's point, I can understand that some people may make a honest mistake spelling it even if they know the proper spelling. What really annoys me are people who really don't know how it spelled. Were it a rarely used word I would not mind its misuse, but "sequel" is so common in media that it really is a wonder. Just looking around my desk I see four books/games with the word sequel on the cover.

LOL I saw the topic above...ahhahaah!

I agree with you though Tiki. Kids today just don't know how to spell. I had someone in my COLLEGE ENGLISH class that thought you spell Through like Thru. D=

[Nate River]

My own personal experience was that it is not taught past the Fourth or Fifth grade. Of course, teachers will correct spelling errors in papers but there is no actual instruction. However, I think once you get to Middle and Highschool, it's presumed you are equipped to spell most common words and in cases where you are uncertain, that you have the tools to figure it out.

I'm not sure what is done today since it has been over a decade since I left elementary school and I do not have kids. I wonder if schools have gotten lax about it, knowing that spell check should catch the bulk of the errors.

I do understand TikiTDO's frustation with that particular word becuase, as he said, it appears everywhere. It's a very common word so it's not unreasonable to expect people to know how to spell it.

Honestly, its frequent misspelling probably comes from a whole host of sources. Some might do what Vespar does and make an honest mistake. Other possible sources are laziness in proofreading (or just a total lack of it all together) and disinterest (i.e. don't care if it is correct or have no desire to proofread generally). In some cases, people may just not know how to spell it.

[MagusKyros]

I think it's mostly because everybody else spells it incorrectly, and that's why it's still a commonly misspelled word. I spell it sequal occasionally, but now thanks to FireFox 2's spellcheck, I'll never spell it wrong again .

[SpongeBobtheBuilder]

Is there some language out there that really does use these alternate spellings? Are people so confident in their spelling that they do not spell check their work before posting?

It's the internet. The language of the internet does not demand proper spelling, grammar or punctuation like school does, especially in forums and fanfiction. Also, some people develop the habit of spelling words a certain way (the wrong way) and never correct the habit. I tend not to read those fics that have summaries that are not properly capitalized, since the summaries reflect on the writing style of the author. People teenagers, namely the yaoi fan girls who make up majority of FF.net and such, do not care to properly check most anything they do. So, blame the internet, you irresponsible young hipsters.

[MonkeysTotallyRock]

Is there some language out there that really does use these alternate spellings? Are people so confident in their spelling that they do not spell check their work before posting?

It's the internet. The language of the internet does not demand proper spelling, grammar or punctuation like school does, especially in forums and fanfiction. Also, some people develop the habit of spelling words a certain way (the wrong way) and never correct the habit. I tend not to read those fics that have summaries that are not properly capitalized, since the summaries reflect on the writing style of the author. People teenagers, namely the yaoi fan girls who make up majority of FF.net and such, do not care to properly check most anything they do. So, blame the internet, you irresponsible young hipsters.

hm... who knows... that may be it, or people just don't care that much about spelling, even though if you write something and it's spelled incorrectly, you look totally idiotic... i dunno. the world is strange.