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Autocorrect on RMWeb


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7 hours ago, SteveyDee68 said:

Oh boy, what have I done?!  Apologies to go so OT, but I suppose I started it!

 

I should explain that I also survived school, college and university with nowhere near the depth of knowledge of grammar that my 10 year old demonstrated when she explained to me what a fronted adverbial sentence was... :blink:. Years later when it was suggested I should think about teaching English because I had an A level in English Literature, I pointed out that there was a difference between being literate and teaching language!

 

However, from an early age I absolutely devoured books of any description; that expanded my vocabulary and I suppose much of my understanding of grammar is simply through exposing myself to so much of it in printed form at a young age.  When there were only three TV channels, being able to lose yourself in a good book was a good way to keep yourself entertained!  Also, reading and rereading my father's large collection of Railway Modeller magazines not only got me used to reading articles written for adults (as opposed to simplified children's factual books) but also taught me DC wiring theory (enough to get me through Physics O level!!) plus the ability to size rooms in feet and inches, despite being a post-decimilisation child!

 

I mainly teach music and - for my sins - mathematics, but in a previous existence I also worked with people with dyslexia, so am generally quite laid back about grammatical and spelling errors - unless they are my own!  I agree with Sotto and JDW that RMWeb members do make allowances for errors and avoid pendanticism - except occasionally over loco class details! 

 

Prior to working in teaching, I worked for the Journal of Child Language, and was not only responsible for the day to day running of the academic journal but also occasionally proofreading (so like John JJGraphics I am familiar with the strange squiggles and marks used by proofreaders).  Which is why when I proofread before hitting SUBMIT and then spot an error afterwards I get quite annoyed at myself!  Even more annoying is when, as has been discussed, you type, proofread, read again, submit, and then as if simply to spite you autocorrect changes a word that you know you typed correctly!  Incidentally, it was also whilst doing that role that I came into quite frequent contact with Professor David Crystal, who was academically brilliant and had a very dry sense of humour!  Nice to see him quoted, thanks 34theletterbetweenB&D

 

I personally don't use autocorrect as a lazy excuse for errors (I own up to them!) although I do seem to suffer from the vagaries of predictive text - there was one instance when I texted someone to say that "I'm bring messed about by predictive text" and the bl@@dy thing changed to "I'm ringing about my predator sex" ... :o

 

Finally, I learnt to touch type back in the day when one learnt to do so on a big manual typewriter, so that when you moved on to an electric typewriter you initially double printed most letters due to striking the keys too hard! Fast forward a few years, and I produced the electronic copy for a report published by the Rowntree Foundation; I stayed at work until 11:30pm the night before deadline with the authors, to make sure the copy was laid out correctly (no automatic widow and orphan detection in those days!) and departed the University happy that I had prepared the document with no mistakes and laid out perfectly.  Imagine my horror upon seeing it published to find widows and orphans in several places in the report; turned out the authors decided to nip back in  the day after and made "just a couple of changes" ... which happened to mess up all my careful work!!

 

It is true that langauge changes; new words are created, others drop out of use.  Similarly spellings can change, and even grammatical forms change over time.  So language is flexible - the main thing, IMHO, is having the vocabularly to express yourself, and hopefully in a way that makes sense.

 

Having said that, teaching in Bolton meant that it was guaranteed to see students writing things such as, "I could of used a different font" or, "I should of done it different" [sic] - but the day that a colleague brought in a clipping from The Bolton Evening News, where a professional journalist had written the sentence "The play was enjoyable but could of been half an hour shorter" ... that was the day the English teachers started drinking in earnest!

 

Normal RMWeb services will resume shortly!

 

Steve S

 

HOURS OF PHONETICS FUN

 

 

 

 

 

7 hours ago, SteveyDee68 said:

 

What is this pendanticism of which you speak?

 

(I really couldn't let that go, although I am gairly sure you did it on purpose!) 

 

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What is this pendanticism of which you speak?

 

(I really couldn't let that go, although I am gairly sure you did it on purpose!) 

 

 

Laugh is obviously on me for being unable to navigate the system!

 

 

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1 minute ago, Sotto said:

What is this pendanticism of which you speak?

 

(I really couldn't let that go, although I am gairly sure you did it on purpose!) 

 

 

Laugh is obviously on me for being unable to navigate the system!

 

 

 

Or spell! :D

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Personally, normally I always turn off predictive text.

However I do leave on the predictive spellcheck for the phone as my banana fingers are seldom able to hit the correct characters:jester:

Edited by melmerby
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17 minutes ago, Sotto said:

Indeed, although I still hope to learn what a  pendanticist is!

 

 

"Pendanticism" is the art of fortune telling using a suspended object - usually a pendant, hence the word root - and asking simple binary questions in order to discover the answers.

 

A "pendanticist" is, of course, the technical term for the person wielding the said pendant.

 

Or, of course, it was a spelling mistake which escaped the careful proof read! Mea culpa!

 

The replies to my middle-of-the-night-and-I-can't-sleep essay illustrate the humour and camaraderie that exists on RMWeb!

 

Steve S

Edited by SteveyDee68
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Everyday a school day! I thought it might have to do with sleeping hanging upside down from the rafters..

 

We need humour and camaraderie, especially  at the moment.

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17 hours ago, Adam88 said:

 

In New York they say that there ain't a noun that can't be verbed.

 

Verbing nouns weirds language.

 

17 hours ago, Sotto said:

"You have tasted two whole worms, hissed all my mystery lectures...."

 

 

9 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

... and you will leave by the town drain.

 

It is claimed that Dr Spooner not only spoke Spoonerisms, but did them too. On one occasion it is said that while seeing his wife off on the train he gave her half a crown and kissed the porter.

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25 minutes ago, Bishop of Welchester said:

It is claimed that Dr Spooner not only spoke Spoonerisms, but did them too. On one occasion it is said that while seeing his wife off on the train he gave her half a crown and kissed the porter.

Wishful thinking perhaps?

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