Back to the Future

GFR gets down with some cake-blogging:

As blogs move us into a less heavily copy-edited world, I sometimes wonder if we’re moving back into a more 16th and 17th century form of writing, where the idea of correct spelling was less important than the communication of meaning — which, in reality, can be accomplished just as well with incorrectly spelled words and homonyms as with a more perfect language. And also: as we move ever deeper into this new world of speech-like writing, will the perfect, formal language of the page one day seem as antique and elaborate as Victorian silverware?

It's plausible. Many people have remarked that political blogging has certain affinities with the pamphleteering tradition of the 17th and 18th century, so perhaps the idea of shifting toward the stylistic elements of that era should be expected as well. The fundamentally international nature of the internet can push in this direction as well. English words have different "correct" spellings in different English-speaking countries, so insofar as people become accustomed to reading foreign websites they'll get used to reading a lot of misspelled words. Or, rather, to having a more flexible concept of what the significance of spelling is.

Comments

You're unusually defensive about not knowing how to spell.

Posted by Christmas | April 25, 2008 12:17 PM

As long as I don't see those crazy Welsh influenced spellings of Middle English. Those wyrdes ayre dificulte to reade.

Posted by freddiemac | April 25, 2008 12:18 PM

I'm still going to take cheap shots at your grammar.

Posted by Brent | April 25, 2008 12:20 PM

I am en complet augurmint.

Posted by El Cid | April 25, 2008 12:22 PM

In the 16th and 17th century, the problem was not that the idea of correct spelling was "less important" but that the language was still in the process of standardizing. Today, there is a fully developed system of spelling, and there's not really any good excuse for not using it, pained though some are to come up with one.

Posted by ERM | April 25, 2008 12:23 PM

I think the trend is in the opposite direction, actually. With the enormous increase in the amount of information available, I find myself much more inclined to dismiss content that's not presented in an articulate and accessible manner. And I doubt I'm alone in this regard.

Posted by James Gary | April 25, 2008 12:24 PM

Okay, I'll cut you some slack when your spelling conforms to British, Australian, Indian, South African, or Kenyan spelling, but that's it. When the mistakes conform to no known spelling protocol, they are still mistakes.

Posted by fostert | April 25, 2008 12:26 PM

Nice try, though.

Posted by Steve H | April 25, 2008 12:26 PM

I iz in yur sintax makeing arrows

Posted by Drew Robertson | April 25, 2008 12:27 PM

Hm. I wrote "dismiss," but I meant "ignore."

Also, I'm getting a "500 Server Error" every single time I post a comment now. I don't know if this is the place for bug reports, but I just thought I'd bring it up.

Posted by James Gary | April 25, 2008 12:29 PM

Slang and colloquialisms often create communication problems. For instance, I might say I'd like to see Bush and Cheney hang together. Next thing you know someone invites me along to watch them share a drink. Whereas what I really wanted was to witness their necks snapped at the end of a rope.

Posted by steve duncan | April 25, 2008 12:30 PM

Homophones, not homonyms.

Posted by Kriston | April 25, 2008 12:32 PM

You're unusually defensive about not knowing how to spell.

Come on, Matt knows how to spell. He's just very, very careless and has no interest in proofreading.

Posted by strannix | April 25, 2008 12:33 PM

You're not getting off the hook that easily.

Posted by mpowell | April 25, 2008 12:35 PM

The other thing is that proofreading has become easier and easier as spellchecking technology gets integrated into just about everything. If anything, the English language will be even more replete with spelling and grammar pedants in the future, as typos and misspellings only indicate sheer laziness on the part of an author (*cough*Yglesias*cough*).

Posted by Christmas | April 25, 2008 12:35 PM

Hey, look at it this way - at least you finally have something in common with Thomas Paine!

Posted by Woody Bombay | April 25, 2008 12:36 PM

"there's not really any good excuse for not using it"

Well, there is though. English spelling was codified at a time that it was in transition. It still is, actually. So it makes little sense to use rules of spelling from the 18th century in the 21st century. English is one of the few major languages to not undergo a language reform in the last 100 years. Irish, Russian, French, Spanish, and even Vietnamese have undergone a language reform. So why must we use silly contrivances like a silent gh, a silent k, a silent e, and soft letters that are sometimes and randomly hard. Otherwise logickaly theyre is litle resone to knot yuse thee olde wayse ov speling.

Posted by freddiemac | April 25, 2008 12:37 PM

Yeah, I'd expect the opposite trend today, now that computers are ubiquitous. I was an atrocious speller until I got a word processing program that flagged misspellings. (Luckily I wasn't too bad with common homophones.) I still make mistakes today, but not nearly as often.

(I will add: As a kid teachers were saying that spelling checkers were awful because kids no longer had to check their spelling in dictionaries. Yet in my experience, dictionaries are next to worthless for folks with severe spelling issues.)

Posted by Matt Stevens | April 25, 2008 12:37 PM

I would actually argue that unified spelling systems are more important than ever in an world where so much of what is written is now computer-searchable. And of course spammers and people who wish to avoid detection have exploited this feature with deliberate misspellings. If you write a great post and misspell you keywords it will be harder for potential readers to find you.

I also suspect that Matt is (deservedly) taken seriously _in spite of_ his abuses of spelling and grammar. Newbies who want to be taken seriously (especially by people who disagree with them) really need to write with a degree of professionalism.

Use of homophones (their/they're, pluralization with appostrophes, etc.) also damage the success of communication. A mistake like that derails my train of thought, distracting me from the argument.

Rather than believing that spelling and grammar are going to fall by the wayside, I'm much more inclined to believe that the blogging tools of the future will have better and better in-line correction tools, much in the way that Word underlines misspelled words in red and will offer corrections and underlines questionable grammar in green. The biggest problem with Word's grammar checker is that it doesn't recognize coloquial grammar, and coloquial grammar is constantly changing. But suppose the blogging tool were plugged into a big sentance diagramming database which checked grammar not against pre-programmed rules but against the commonness of that particular sentance structure across the internet--that would allow for coloquial grammar to be checked, not so much for "correctness" but for conformity to established communication norms.

Posted by Galen | April 25, 2008 12:40 PM

Perhaps finally I can accomplish my life-long dream of changing the official spelling of "through" to "thru."

Posted by Herb | April 25, 2008 12:40 PM

Or we could be heading for a future in which MicroYahooApplesoft Word automatically corrects your spelling and grammar and even translates blog entries into the preferred speech of the reader with natural language processing. Subcontinental readers will read Matt in Hindi and Urdu, Americans in correctly spelled english, neo-Victorians in the Queen's proper tongue. A brave new worlde.

Posted by Curly | April 25, 2008 12:42 PM

"It's a damm poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word."
---President Andrew Jackson

Posted by Don Williams | April 25, 2008 12:44 PM

Most of the great English literature was written before spelling and grammar were standardized -- Keats and Shelley in the Nineteenth Century are late examples, but almost everyone before them counts. Therefore, lovers of literature shouldn't care about spelling.

Posted by John Emerson | April 25, 2008 12:46 PM

To quote a tech writer I work with, "We're Microsoft, we know more then ewe do."

Posted by Paul Anderson | April 25, 2008 12:46 PM

"and even Vietnamese have undergone a language reform"

The Vietnamese reform was especially effective. Their spelling rules are super consistent (if strange to us). It took me three days in Vietnam to learn how to pronounce words properly. I still didn't know what I was saying, of course. But I could read it. A little reform like that would be nice. Of course, it will be like the metric system. The rest of the world will standardize their spelling and the US will have its own system.

Posted by fostert | April 25, 2008 12:48 PM

I suggest that Matthew respond to his spelling critics by adding the Andrew Jackson quote I posted above to his Masthead.

Posted by Don Williams | April 25, 2008 12:51 PM

Herb:
Total agreement! In fact all of the those "th" and "gh" words need to be thrown overboard.

Through, thorough, thought, though.

Damn them all to hell!!!

I can't spell any of the damned words. You have no idea how long it took me to write this comment. I had to keep playing with Google to make it give the correct spellings of the above words. The problem is, whenever I misspell one (which is every time) I misspell into one of the other words, so spellcheck is useless.

Posted by UberMitch | April 25, 2008 12:56 PM

I don't see why Matt can't spend a moment to proof-read his posts. Some recent ones have been really, really bad in that regard.

MY has the biggest problem with homonyms, which means a spell-checker is unlikely to help.

And Don, it's not a poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word. It's a poor mind that can't remember to spell.

Posted by Quiddity | April 25, 2008 12:59 PM

^^^^ Awesome, Don Williams.

Posted by Korha | April 25, 2008 12:59 PM

Another thing to remember: if we reformed the English language and revised our spelling, it would eliminate those damn irritating spelling bees. Reason enough to toss out superflous letters.

Posted by freddiemac | April 25, 2008 1:00 PM

The Korean alphabet (Hangul) and spelling are super consistent too, and have been since the system was published in 1446.

Posted by Galen | April 25, 2008 1:03 PM

"it would eliminate those damn irritating spelling bees"

Hear, Hear! (or is it "here here"?). It's really annoying to watch some nine year old easily spell words that you have never even heard before. They should at least slip in some calculus problems to make us engineers feel better.

Posted by fostert | April 25, 2008 1:07 PM

"perhaps the idea of shifting toward the stylistic elements of that era should be expected as well."

It'd be totally worth it just to see grammar nazis' heads explode. They tend to miss the letter / spirit of the law distinction. Good grammar is supposed to increase the clarity of writing. If someone makes a technical mistake but it's still clear what they mean, then people should just let it go.

Posted by Tom B | April 25, 2008 1:15 PM

"perhaps the idea of shifting toward the stylistic elements of that era should be expected as well."

It'd be totally worth it just to see grammar nazis' heads explode. They tend to miss the letter / spirit of the law distinction. Good grammar is supposed to increase the clarity of writing. If someone makes a technical mistake but it's still clear what they mean, then people should just let it go.

Posted by Tom B | April 25, 2008 1:16 PM

Another thing to remember: if we reformed the English language and revised our spelling, it would eliminate those damn irritating spelling bees. Reason enough to toss out superflous letters.
Posted by freddiemac

Hmmm. Assuming that "superflous" is an intentional attempt to follow your own advice, let's go through and make the rest of your comment conform to it.

Another thing to remember: if we reformd the English languag and revisd r speling, it woud eliminat thos dam iritating speling bes. Reason enuf to tos out superflous leters.

Posted by Cyrus | April 25, 2008 1:37 PM

The Great thing about grammar in the 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries is the Way they would Arbitrarily capitalize words in a Sentence.

Posted by Peter K. | April 25, 2008 1:37 PM

Those LOLCats are prescient.

Posted by Wilson | April 25, 2008 1:43 PM

So it makes little sense to use rules of spelling from the 18th century in the 21st century. English is one of the few major languages to not undergo a language reform in the last 100 years. Irish, Russian, French, Spanish, and even Vietnamese have undergone a language reform. So why must we use silly contrivances like a silent gh, a silent k, a silent e, and soft letters that are sometimes and randomly hard. Otherwise logickaly theyre is litle resone to knot yuse thee olde wayse ov speling.

Well, first of all, there's no linguistic advantage to phonetic spelling at all. We just don't read that way. Chinese writing is an extreme example of why this is true. It makes it easier for children and foreigners but I see neither of these as worthy benefactors of mass inconvenience for the rest of us.

Second of all, these spelling reforms have (as alluded to above) been frequently debacles, and are still massively contentious in many places. I encourage you to read into the German situation. (Many of them, viz. the Russian example, were also undertaken by totalitarian regimes, which have certain advantages in things like this.)

Third of all, there is a truly excellent reason not to reform spelling, as it renders everything written before the reform remote and, to varying degrees, foreign to all subsequent readers. As historically amnesiac as we are already, I don't think turning articles written in friggin' 1997 into quasi-Middle English understood only by specialists is really a great triumph for progress or democracy. People got strange ideas, though (I'll try to refrain from drawing the obvious Bolshevik reference here.)

Lastly, your remark that English is still a changing language is absolutely correct. This goes for every other language, at every other time, in every other place, ever. Go observations! So why not put everyone through mandatory reeducation every 20 years?) But as someone fairly well trained in historical linguistics, I can assure you that the change we are seeing today is totally insignificant compared to the Early Modern period, and is analogous in no way whatsoever. The point is that before then, there was no standard at all, and now there is. That this standard is changing is interesting but not particularly compelling of progressive busybody action.

Posted by ERM | April 25, 2008 2:15 PM

Here! Here!

Posted by The Fool | April 25, 2008 2:25 PM

erm iz Wright.

Posted by Taisa | April 25, 2008 2:29 PM

From the English-Truespel Text Conversion Tool, Matt's paragraph above:

Original in Yglesias-American:

It's plausible. Many people have remarked that political blogging has certain affinities with the pamphleteering tradition of the 17th and 18th century, so perhaps the idea of shifting toward the stylistic elements of that era should be expected as well. The fundamentally international nature of the internet can push in this direction as well. English words have different "correct" spellings in different English-speaking countries, so insofar as people become accustomed to reading foreign websites they'll get used to reading a lot of misspelled words. Or, rather, to having a more flexible concept of what the significance of spelling is.

TrueSpel (and why it's not TruSpel I dunno)

Its plauzibool. Menee peepool hav rimmaarkd that pullitikool blogging haz sertin uffiniteez withh thu pamphleteering truddishin uv thu 17th and 18th sencheree, soe perhhaps thu ieddeeyu uv shifteeng tord thu stielistik elemints uv that eeru shood bee iksppektid az wel. Thu fundummentoolee internnashinool naecher uv thu internet kan poosh in this durrekshin az wel. Eenglish werdz hav difrint kurrekt" speleengz in difrint Eenglish-speekeeng kuntreez, soe insoeffaar az peepool beekkum ukkustumd tue reedeeng forin websiets thael get yuezd tue reedeeng u laat uv mis-speld werdz. Or, rather, tue haveeng u mor fleksibool kaansept uv wut thu signnifikints uv speleeng

http://www.foreignword.com/cgi-bin//transpel.cgi

Posted by El Cid | April 25, 2008 2:32 PM

ERM, I agree with most everything you said. However, I have heard that the phonetic reforms that have gone on in other countries has created a result in which the symptoms of dyslexia simply don't show up in countries like spain and italy, due to the nature of their written languages. Because English is much more difficult to decipher, people with dyslexia have a much harder time with learning to read and write in English-speaking countries.

If someone makes a technical mistake but it's still clear what they mean, then people should just let it go.

Lots of grammar complaints are actually about agreements between clauses and subject-verb agreement which is necessary to clarify which subject is being referred to. Any specific instance of a technical mistake may still result in a sentence in which the meaning is clear, but if the rules themselves are ignored, then the result will be that clarity in general will be sacrificed, and a few occasional complaints about grammar will be replaced by a large number of questions and demands for clarification to decipher the precise meaning.

Posted by Tyro | April 25, 2008 2:33 PM

Nice try, Matt, but I don't think many of us are buying it.

In addition to the good reasons pointed out above, I'd also like to note that spelling is often the key to discerning a word's etymology and meaning. This is especially important in English because there are so many words borrowed from many different languages. A lot of words in English change their pronunciation when conjugated, and the spelling helps clue the reader in to the root word.

In this respect, I'll make an analogy to Japanese, which has many homophones. The kanji system (the Chinese characters) are difficult to learn, but once you *do* learn them, they make reading much easier. For a person literate in Japanese, phonetic writing is more difficult to decipher than Japanese written using the appropriate writing system (kanji, hiragana, and katakana) for each word.

Pronunciation also varies greatly from place to place, especially since English has spread so far around the world. Remember the Sade album covers that tried to be helpful in telling you her name was pronounced "shar-day?" Well, in American English, that's telling you the wrong thing. There's no r sound in the middle of her name.

Same problem for when people talk about a "New Yawk" accent --- as a Californian, that's less than helpful to me, since I read "New Yawk" as how a New Yorker would pronounce "New Yahk." "New Yowuck" is maybe closer to what they're trying to get at for me.

If we tried linking English spelling to pronunciation, the biggest question would be "whose pronunciation?" That's true even as accents have blended together somewhat over the past century.

Posted by Adam Villani | April 25, 2008 2:33 PM

ERM,

You mean there is no advantage to making spelling easier other than it is easier to spell? Hey, why make life easy? I guess language should be difficult, because it makes life better, right?

Many language reforms have not been debacles, see Spain for example. And many of them have been undertaken by democracies. So your point is?

Youe ayre righte inn thayt myddle englishe is totaly incompherensible to aknywyone who is knot an eckspert!

Really? Latin is changing? I had no idea. Same with Sanskrit? Boy, learn something new everyday! So today's language shift in English is not analogous to the middle period. Well, I'm glad I never made assertions otherwise, or I might look like an ass. Maybe if spelling were easier, reading comprehension would rise. Then you wouldn't post such crap.

Posted by freddiemac | April 25, 2008 2:34 PM

which, in reality, can be accomplished just as well with incorrectly spelled words and homonyms as with a more perfect language.

There's no way that's true. It's extremely jarring to see "hear" where the author means "here" or similar mistakes. Effective written communication requires standard spelling, grammar, and vocabulary.

Sorry for being such a square.

Posted by right | April 25, 2008 2:43 PM

Nice try, Matt, but I don't think many of us are buying it.

In addition to the good reasons pointed out above, I'd also like to note that spelling is often the key to discerning a word's etymology and meaning. This is especially important in English because there are so many words borrowed from many different languages. A lot of words in English change their pronunciation when conjugated, and the spelling helps clue the reader in to the root word.

In this respect, I'll make an analogy to Japanese, which has many homophones. The kanji system (the Chinese characters) are difficult to learn, but once you *do* learn them, they make reading much easier. For a person literate in Japanese, phonetic writing is more difficult to decipher than Japanese written using the appropriate writing system (kanji, hiragana, and katakana) for each word.

Pronunciation also varies greatly from place to place, especially since English has spread so far around the world. Remember the Sade album covers that tried to be helpful in telling you her name was pronounced "shar-day?" Well, in American English, that's telling you the wrong thing. There's no r sound in the middle of her name.

Same problem for when people talk about a "New Yawk" accent --- as a Californian, that's less than helpful to me, since I read "New Yawk" as how a New Yorker would pronounce "New Yahk." "New Yowuck" is maybe closer to what they're trying to get at for me.

If we tried linking English spelling to pronunciation, the biggest question would be "whose pronunciation?" That's true even as accents have blended together somewhat over the past century.

Posted by Adam Villani | April 25, 2008 2:43 PM

"Latin is changing? I had no idea. Same with Sanskrit?"

Um. Maybe because those are dead languages, unlike English?

Posted by Taisa | April 25, 2008 3:24 PM

I believe freddiemac was using a bit of the ol' snark. I assume that Taisa is as well with the main difference being that the former is actually funny.

By the way, y'all, you know what finally "killed" Latin?

Archaicizing fuckwhits who insisted on returning to the "golden age" of Cicero, et al. Sure, the fact that it wasn't the native language of any one group made it easier for Latin to die but you do, I hope, get my point.

All that said, I still think that we should avoid the urge to normalize the English language. There's just too much potential to end up with a dual system analogous to that of Greek over the past couple of hundred years (I think the potential would still be there even though I doubt anyone would want to wage any variation on the wholesale war on modern vocabulary as in Greece).

God be damned this is a longer post than I wanted it to be!

Posted by hocabsurdumst | April 25, 2008 3:59 PM

you could have read it first on dinosaur comics

Posted by jessebeller | April 25, 2008 6:28 PM

Homophones, not homonyms.

Question: If MY lives with the Grammar Police, does that make the GP corrupt?

Posted by Jacqueline Passey | April 25, 2008 7:19 PM

Matt: "English words have different "correct" spellings in different English-speaking countries"

And what countries be those that treat your misspellings and crappy grammar as "correct"?

It is true that you could drop a lot of the vowels (but not the consonants) of the words in a sentence and still understand it pretty well. The brain can handle that provided the individual has a pretty good vocabulary. Even grammar mistakes can be handled.

But your kind of crappy grammar and typos are simply jarring when they aren't humorous.

Basically what they illustrate about you is that you're fundamentally like George Bush: you're so arrogant you don't give a shit what spills out of your mouth and you don't care what anybody else thinks about it.

Naturally that's why you're a wannabe pundit.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 25, 2008 11:46 PM

In expository writing, the topic or argument is paramount. Anything that distracts from it is a fault in the author and a disservice to the reader. Even gorgeous language, such as Aldous Huxley used in some early books to show off his erudition, should be carefully avoided. All the more so should departures from standard English be edited out. If readers start wondering why you wrote "it's" instead of "its" or "lead" rather than "led," you have lost them—and deserve to.

Posted by tamiasmin | April 27, 2008 1:56 PM

In expository writing, the topic or argument is paramount. Anything that distracts from it is a fault in the author and a disservice to the reader. Even gorgeous language, such as Aldous Huxley used in some early books to show off his erudition, should be carefully avoided. All the more so should departures from standard English be edited out. If readers start wondering why you wrote "it's" instead of "its" or "lead" rather than "led," you have lost them—and deserve to.

Posted by tamiasmin | April 27, 2008 1:57 PM