07 July 2006
Two things have surprised me about the Guest Reviews we've seen on the Chessington and Thorpe Park web sites this year.1) The number (thousands have been submitted).
2) The state of the spelling and grammar.
I believe that things like spelling matter less than they once did. I'm just rubbish at spelling, make constant use of spell checkers, and like the fact that Google seems to magically know what I am trying to type.
I've never agreed with the view that texting means the end of western civilisation. In general don't care whether something is 'great' or 'gr8'.
It's also clear that we don't actually need to spell words correctly in order to be understood. Read the next paragraph, and be amazed at what your brain can do.
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fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too
Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe can.
i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it.*
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Pretty amazing, huh?
So there are tools to help us spell better, and a very good chance that we'll be understood even if we make a mistake. So there is no problem with poor spelling right..?
No, dammit. Absolutely wrong.
I can tell you that there have been loads of creative, passionate reviews that will never make the web site because of the way they are written. It doesn't matter that I can understand what the writer meant, what matters is that this doesn't conceal the lack of care they took writing it.
When I say 'spelling matters less than it did' what I really mean is being 'able to spell matters less than it did'.
Spelling matters, because it communicates far more about us than the words might say... and effective communication is pretty much required if you want to be successful at anything.
P.S. To the girl that wrote the rap on the Thorpe site. Obviously this had nothing to do with the subject at hand, and will never be published to the site... but we loved it.
P.P.S I've just read this all back, I now realise I have become my father!
*All spelling errors within this blog are merely to reinforce the point made by this paragraph.
Posted by Nick Warren at 7:19 AM
