Job Discussion Forums

yaramaz · Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2003 7:09 am Post subject:

Ah, my dear friend, the automatic censor... kindly do not bleep out d*i*c*k leith's name simply because you think I'm trying to be rude. What about Dick and Jane and Sally and Spot? It's all about context!

From now on, I will refer to d*i*c*k as 'richard'. In all contexts. For example, you are all a bunch of richardheads!

That was fun! Laughing

SweetOne · Joined: 19 Jul 2003 Posts: 109

QUOTE:
The common misspells annoy me and I suggest doing a crossword might help, the Korea Times one is not so bad, only a bit full of old US TV entertainers.

I suppose as a "Good" teacher, one must adapt to new or unique spellings of words and accept them into the lexicon.

Squid[/quote]

I am not trying to be picky or anything, but this post has a few flaws in in it. To wit: 1) There is no plural variation of the word "misspell"; 2) The "sentence" that begins: "The common misspells annoys me..." isn't a well organized sentence; 3) Because you were already in the middle of a sentence, the word "good" did not need to be capitalized.

Please don't read this post as being antagonistic toward Sid. It is not intented to be. However, there is an awful lot of unjustified pomposity going around on this thread. Adding insult to injury, most all the posts have either grammatical errors, spelling errors, or punctuation problems in them. I suggest you re-read them all, very carefully. Some don't have mistakes, but most do.

CaperGirl: We use both 'dependant' and 'dependent' in the US. It just depends on the application. Dependant is a noun (not archaic... don't know where that came from) and dependent is an adjective.

I don't profess to be perfect, but if I am to point my finger at others and make statements such as:

("they are not teachers in the first place, so what do you expect)

then I better make DANG sure I am COMPLETELY, and without ANY deviation, correct at all times.

Peace, Love and Happiness
PS - I won the NJ spelling-bee two years in a row. Wahoo! Yippie! Good for me, etc. (big-freakin' deal!)

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

Sid · Joined: 08 Jun 2003 Posts: 16 Location: S. Korea

Wolf, your spelling is dog useless. (Lobotamy). Do the crossword instead.

Squid

Lucy Snow · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 218 Location: US

Glenski--the Unabridged Oxford English Dictionary lists both spellings--dependent and-ant. This is what they say in the definition:

...From the 18th century often (like the adjective) spelt "dependent" but the spelling -ant still predominates in the substantitive, cf defendant, assistant.

Sid · Joined: 08 Jun 2003 Posts: 16 Location: S. Korea

"The common Misspells annoy me"- Sweetone- you need to at least quote correctly to take it to task... Sad

And "Capitalizing" good- The convention as I understand for beginning quotes is use an upper case starter Confused

am I wrong?

Sweetone- pious sourpuss. Evil or Very Mad

Squid

Cobra · Joined: 28 Jul 2003 Posts: 436

If you understood the message, who cares?

Sid · Joined: 08 Jun 2003 Posts: 16 Location: S. Korea

Cobra cares.

Bottom line: If you can't spell, you got your degree from a weeties packet and should'nt be anywhere near a classroom teaching ESL- or any other subject for that matter.

Yours Squidly

dyak · Joined: 25 Jun 2003 Posts: 630

Ahh... a thread about spelling on a teaching forum, and speaking of clich�s, why do we remove all the accents from imported words? Are we really that arrogant?

'No entry if wearing an accent... your pronunciation will also be significantly cheapened.'

SweetOne · Joined: 19 Jul 2003 Posts: 109

From Glenski:

Been an American all of my 47 years, and not once have I ever seen or heard of the 'ant' spelling of dependent.

Sid, the likelihood that you can recall every single word you have ever seen and the various ways to spell said words, is slim to none. Therefore, I would venture a guess that you don't recall seeing, or as you claim, specifically NOT seeing a certain spelling of a word.

I would venture a guess that you really HAVE SEEN both spellings, but they didn't register in your brain as specific incidents. There would have been no need. For instance, we can all recall times when we have seen the word 'definitely' misspelled as 'definately' because there is a clear mistake there. However, because neither 'dependent' or 'dependant' is a misspell, you don't recall seeing it spelled one way or another. Again, it may not have registered in you brain, but that's because there was no need.

Peace, Love and Happiness

SweetOne · Joined: 19 Jul 2003 Posts: 109

Okay, first thing in the morning, and I haven' had my coffee: I was addressing Glenski and posted to Sid, erroneously. My apologies for the confusion.

SweetOne · Joined: 19 Jul 2003 Posts: 109

Oh dang. I didn't quite get the "t" to register in the word "haven't"

yaramaz · Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2003 5:24 pm Post subject:

Go get your coffee, my friend. Don't let the boys tease you. If they want to be unvarying in their spelling of 'dependent' then so be it. We can appreciate the subtleties of language on our own. Wink

Folks, I really don't care if you can spell when posting on this forum as long as you aren't totally messed up when doing board work for your students, or if you are correcting your students' work because they have spelled words in the British or American way and you think they are wrong.

To be honest, many EFL teachers I've known have been terrible spellers and excellent teachers. They always double checked with the dictionary before doing boardwork or altering a student's work. I think that's what's important.

Cobra · Joined: 28 Jul 2003 Posts: 436

From the China Off Topic thread where it was trashed:

SweetOne · Joined: 19 Jul 2003 Posts: 109