Ken Smith clearly has not thought this through. This is most likely a spur of the moment idea that came to his mind one day. As convenient as it seems, how will “thier”, “liek”, or “ignor” sound on a college application? Good spelling and vocabulary are things that separate the well-learned from the rest. It is what helps a good essay stand out from the rest.
Shorthand and misspellings should only be acceptable in social conversation, not in an academic environment. “Social” and “academic” do not mean the same thing. If students are taught that it is acceptable to misspell words, they may do it on purpose and make up all sorts of crazy spellings, and the teacher cannot do anything about it as long as it sounds like it is supposed to. There might even be dozens of phonetically correct spellings for every word. The real spellings of hundreds of words may be pushed out of existence, replaced by the easier but much less sophisticated spellings. George Bernard Shaw gives a very good example. If someone spells “fish” as “ghoti” in a book, many people will have no idea what the author is talking about. In fact, if I hadn’t known it was supposed to mean fish, i would have thought it was some kind of desert. Having a proper way to spell things will lessen the confusion and also make learning a new language much easier for foreigners. There is a reason why a foreigner is taught the proper way to spell things first, and only consider shorthand and abreviations if he or she were to consider living in that country. Think of how IM slang can confuse them!
lydia12 Said:
on August 17, 2008 at 12:21 am
Hey, I definitely agree with you on your opinions of this article. Misspelling words shoud NOT be acceptable in a school enviroment. It just teaches bad habits. If I were a college professor I certainly would choose someone with correct spelling over someone who misspells common words such as There, their, and they’re. It’s not that hard if you take time t learn it.
b0batea Said:
on August 17, 2008 at 12:50 am
Yea, that kind of spelling is ok, though it seems kinda odd when IMing.
Those mistakes are accidentily made and are by no means acceptible when used in essay or SAT.
deathbyrock Said:
on August 17, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Hey, I totally agree with what you are saying. I love using short-hand while IMing or taking notes in class, but after that real spelling should be used, especially on an essays and other graded assignments. If your teacher doesn’t know what you are saying then how is he/she supposed to even give you a grade?
and I imagined some old, homeless dude when I first heard “ghoti”
ilh369 Said:
on August 18, 2008 at 2:21 am
To me, it also sounded like a “spur of the moment idea”, but I wonder how it got into the news unless he was serious. I would think lowly of a applicant if they spelled many simple words wrong, and even complicated words wrong since spell check and online dictionaries are everywhere. They’re even on this site. I also agree that people will start to misspell things on purpose. Misspelling words on chat is already acceptable and you can see what those words become (Bi,peepulz, brb etc.) With variant spellings, it’ll also be harder on the students, because they can’t figure out an unknown word’s meaning. The variant spelling most likely won’t be based off Latin. I think you got “Ghoti” as desert because of the Gobi desert. The words reminded me of a desert too. I have a friend in Korea who knows a lot of English, because she is goes to an international school. When I misspell something on IM, she is utterly confused.