Scene 1 - "No spelling mistakes in the paper, remember
the teacher cuts 0.5 marks for each mistake", I was nagging my kid as he was
getting ready to leave for his exam. "Okay", was his response. "At least copy
the words from the answer sheet correctly", I continued and then probably
realized that kids have learnt already to filter out all this
nagging-before-the-exam-paper!
Scene 2 - I am getting a final review done on a thing to be published soon with a senior manager, and we spot a big spelling mistake in a para that was modified at the last moment! I had not noticed it though I has gone through the para myself at least twice! "You should at least have run the spell check in MS Word!", said the manager, "Yes boss", I said.
When I was a kid, I was very very conscious about my writing, all spellings and would feel proud about it. I would love to spot mistakes in the name plates and hoardings on the streets. Specially enjoying the name plate of "Snakes Corner" as I would pass by it every day. Possibly due to my early school teacher who used to make us write the correct words 20 times in case of a mistake!
I still take pride in producing some quality stuff through writing, however I have outsourced the spelling checks to all these software on the laptop and iPhone. Pretty much the same way I have outsourced remembering phone numbers to my smart phones. Auto complete and auto correct have made it even worse, I still think twice before spelling recipient as to whether it is ce or ci.
All in all, I think there are still people who feel the urge to know the right spellings themselves, why otherwise do we see so many kids participating in the spell bee competition, talking about words that we may not even have heard about!
Probably time will tell where we land in terms of knowing our spellings well, I recently read that Finland has proposed to use only tablets from primary education in schools, no need to write stuff! Who knows when that spreads worldwide. Or whether people simply talk about what they think and it gets written automatically. May be then we would get more time to think about the content rather than worrying about the spelling mistakes!
Scene 2 - I am getting a final review done on a thing to be published soon with a senior manager, and we spot a big spelling mistake in a para that was modified at the last moment! I had not noticed it though I has gone through the para myself at least twice! "You should at least have run the spell check in MS Word!", said the manager, "Yes boss", I said.
When I was a kid, I was very very conscious about my writing, all spellings and would feel proud about it. I would love to spot mistakes in the name plates and hoardings on the streets. Specially enjoying the name plate of "Snakes Corner" as I would pass by it every day. Possibly due to my early school teacher who used to make us write the correct words 20 times in case of a mistake!
I still take pride in producing some quality stuff through writing, however I have outsourced the spelling checks to all these software on the laptop and iPhone. Pretty much the same way I have outsourced remembering phone numbers to my smart phones. Auto complete and auto correct have made it even worse, I still think twice before spelling recipient as to whether it is ce or ci.
All in all, I think there are still people who feel the urge to know the right spellings themselves, why otherwise do we see so many kids participating in the spell bee competition, talking about words that we may not even have heard about!
Probably time will tell where we land in terms of knowing our spellings well, I recently read that Finland has proposed to use only tablets from primary education in schools, no need to write stuff! Who knows when that spreads worldwide. Or whether people simply talk about what they think and it gets written automatically. May be then we would get more time to think about the content rather than worrying about the spelling mistakes!
Interesting. So is content more important than the presentation? Function over form?
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