This rant brought to you by reading too many journal posts, message board posts, fic reviews, etc.,

[nightwind69]

Why is the word "definitely" so difficult for people to spell? Especially because most people don't seem to have such a problem with "definite" by itself

Comments

[liana_bluestar]

Amen! Preach the good grammar word!

[nightwind69]

It's been a while since I did, so I guess I'd best make up for lost time. :)

I shall now commence with ranting about comma overuse...

...or not. ;)

Re: Hehehe...

[nightwind69]

What, snotty? :)

I don't know why I let silly things like this bother me...but they do. Old English-teaching habits die hard, I'm afraid. *le sigh*

[velvetg]

Thank-you. I hate 'definately'. It ranks up there with Congradulations (which is apparently all the fault of Hallmark).

While we're airing pet peeves, 'mischevious' is a misspelling (and mispronunciation!) of 'michievous', but 'complement' and 'compliment' are two legitimate words and are not interchangeable.

[bleakhorizon]

I bitch over those words being misused/mispelled all the time; and ^ complement/compliment are another pair. I think we are just sick of seeing internet shorthand everywhere and our "spelling/grammar nazi" selves are springing into action.

Weird, that's the 2nd time I've used Nazi in a sentence today. Oops, third time.

[nightwind69]

The irony here being that you misspelled "misspelled." ;) (Just teasin', no worries. :) )

Yeah, people trip up on homophones all the time. Don't get me started on accept/except. If I see that in one more fanfic, I'm a-gonna hurt someone...

And yes, I hate Internet shorthand. Makes you look like a 13-year-old. Which, unless you actually are a 13-year-old, is not a good thing. :)

[bleakhorizon]

Egad! Zounds! I am undone!

AAIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

*collapses into a pocket dimension*

<3

Yeah, sometimes we stumble trying to get off our high-horses, and all... =3

[florentinescot]

*pout*

you're reading over my shoulder again, aren't you!

*sigh*

Yeah, I have problems with That Word. It hates me.

[nightwind69]

You're not alone, apparently. :)

When I was teaching, I always told my kids to remember the word "infinite," which most people don't have a problem with, either. Just change the "in" to a "de" and you're good to go. Tack an "ly" on the end, and you have That Word. :) Remembering how the word "definition" is spelled tends to help the people who change the final "i" into an "a," as well. The words are related, after all.

Honestly, I don't know where the "defiantly" thing comes from. They're not at all similar, either in spelling or pronunciation. Someone needs to 'splain this to me...

[florentinescot]

Now the Infinite --> definite connection was one I'd never made! Thanks for the tip. Origin is another one that baffles me sometimes; not "origin" itself, originally.

Listen, I don't understand half the stuff that students come up with!

shakes head.

and I got college freshmen!

[nightwind69]

The infinite/definite thing was something that I noticed when I was a kid. I was always looking for short-cuts to remember how to spell words. That one worked for me, so I passed it on.

So...how do you end up spelling "originally?" It's actually spelled phonetically, but sometimes that screws people up even more. They know that the majority of the language isn't spelled phonetically, so when they run across a word that is spelled phonetically, they suspect that it can't be that easy. *laughs*

Gotta love English. huh? S'what we get for mish-mashing German, French, Dutch, and sundry Scandinavian dialects, none of which are particularly compatible with each other. :)

As for college freshmen...Ugh. I had high school kids who were fed a steady diet of crap about the English language in their grammar/middle schools. I tried my best to undo the damage, but... *sigh*

[metal_equine]

I agree. Also, it wouldn't hurt some people to stop messing up their little love stories by writing "plutonic" instead of "platonic". I'm all for explosive passionate love, but that's not the way to go about it. ;P

[nightwind69]

Hee! :D I've never seen that one!

Fanfic can be so unintentionally entertaining sometimes, huh? :)

[metal_equine]

It sure can. The worst(?) example would have to be that one Biker Mice story in which the writer consistently wrote "necklace" as "neckless". Not much use of a necklace if you don't have the neck to put it around, I'd say, but there you go...