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Pet peeve: bass players who write "BASE"?!?!?!?
- Thread starter Cristo
- Start date
I am college educated ( bachelor's degree in engineering). Still I often revert back to the vernacular of a working cowboy. My grandparents owned ranches, and I find the dialect natural and sometimes even comforting. It does not mean that I lack a greater understanding of the english language, or that I posses a limited vocabulary. It simply means that I prefer the straight forward, simple, communication of my childhood environment.... To judge me on my use of slang does show ignorance... but one must wonder if it shows ignorance on my own part or upon the part of those presuming to judge me
as to the subject of spelling... Does it really matter ? Will the substitution of an E for an S really make a difference in this context?
Who said I was judging you? I was giving an example based on your premise that if you were a genius, it was ok to be an atrocious communicator when writing. Not everyone is a genius and get's a free pass because "everyone knows he's smart regardless of how he spells".
OK, so I've got a Master's degree in Psychology, but work as a civil engineer, and I too fall back to a different dialect and slang language when around my family and I've never considered that to be an issue. Again, your example was someone who was "atrocious" at spelling, which you apparently aren't. Neither am I. As to whether an "E" substituted for an "S" is a big deal, probably not on Craigslist. However, on this website, spelling "bass" as "base" does bring to mind the notion that perhaps the author might be lacking a bit in communication skills. Not that this particular person is an idiot, but this is "TALKBASS", not "TALKBASE", correct?
One has to assume that folks that post here know how to spell the instrument they're playing, correct? I mean, how did they type the proper URL, or spell the website name correctly for a Google search to get linked here?
The point I'm trying to make is that sometimes inferences are made based on communication. If you misspell a word here and there, or mispronounce a word once in awhile, that's ok, we all do it. However, if a person is an automotive mechanic (honestly, no offense intended to any mechanics here) and can't say or spell "car", don't you wonder?
This is especially true in the professional world.
If you profess to be a player of the instrument, I think it does, at least to some degree. If you were looking for someone to design your home would you hire a guy whose card said "Architekt"? He could be the greatest designer in the world, but if he isn't given a chance, how would anyone know? Presentation does count up to a point.
I will give you credit that presentation does count. TO A POINT. But at some point a first impression is open to reassessment. If you cannot get past a simple spelling error, you may be the one appearing the fool, instead of the person you presume to judge.
What if you were to look at some of the writings of Albert Einstein? Would you judge him based on his tendency to write the capital letter R backwards? Was he any less brilliant for doing so? Would the theory of relativity be any less encompassing if he made spelling errors while explaining it to lesser minds?
I agree with both of you. Sure, most give folks a second look to determine whether our first impression its true. I don't think many are shallow enough to stick with their first impression.
I still think the Einstein example is a poor one, unless we're pretending that we don't know who he is when reviewing his work. Even then, I would get past the first few spelling mistakes if the subject matter began to make sense, or just out of curiosity.
No, but that's an exception to the rule. Most people in most instances don't get that far. And with good reason, I think. Taking precautions isn't the same as judging. If someone is looking to do some sort of business with someone else, it's wise to try to make a basic assessment of the person's character at the outset if they are considering investing some significant amount of time or money on them. Blind trust is obviously foolish. Misspelling, while not a major red flag, can be a blip on the radar for many folks.
Poor spelling is often a symptom of dyslexia. In fact, that was the reason for Einstein's struggles with spelling... But if you do not like him as an example, there are a multitude of other great minds who struggled with dyslexia, and poor spelling as a result
Winston Churchill
Thomas Edison
Leonardo Da Vinci
Walt Disney
George Washington
Nelson Rockefeller
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Need I go on? Not all bad spelling is caused by Dyslexia, but all of the above mentioned people struggled with spelling and grammar. In fact a teacher sent a note to a then 6 year old Thomas Edison's mother, that the boy was "Too stupid to learn."
Minor spelling errors do not seem to have lessened their accomplishments. Leonardo Da Vinci said it best when he wrote the line "You should prefer a good scientist, without literary abilities then a literate one without scientific skills."
Winston Churchill
Thomas Edison
Leonardo Da Vinci
Walt Disney
George Washington
Nelson Rockefeller
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Need I go on? Not all bad spelling is caused by Dyslexia, but all of the above mentioned people struggled with spelling and grammar. In fact a teacher sent a note to a then 6 year old Thomas Edison's mother, that the boy was "Too stupid to learn."
Minor spelling errors do not seem to have lessened their accomplishments. Leonardo Da Vinci said it best when he wrote the line "You should prefer a good scientist, without literary abilities then a literate one without scientific skills."
Again, you're citing exceptions to the rule. The human brain has to store such an inordinate amount of information that it has to make some generalizations, or schema/schemata in psychological terms. That's why we see folks making generalizations based on these spelling mistakes.
I also grit my teeth when people misspell or misuse words. I think Lee H nailed it, though, with the Da Vinci quote... if a guy can play circles around me, the fact that I can spell better won't get me his gig.
What bugs me is when writers and educated people repeat common errors. Robin Cook wrote a book called Abduction in which at one point the main characters were at a public celebration with music. The word 'base' was used, in an unmistakable and incorrect reference to low-frequency audio, at least three or four times. This guy (Robin Cook) is a doctor, indicating an education far in advance of my own. To be fair he probably didn't waste a lot of time with 'music appreciation' classes, but I'd still expect that he'd have run across the distiction at some point. Moreover, he's an author... Hell, I openly mock billboards with their ten-foot-tall bad grammar and spelling, and those guys (or gals) are humble ad copywriters. I expect authors to hold to a higher standard. Both ad writers and novelists make their living with words, and sell their mistakes at their peril (well, maybe not so much peril
), but novelists, IMHO, purport to make art with words, as opposed to the Velvet-Elvis, Dogs-Playing-Poker throwaway world of ad writing. And what of all the advisors/copyreaders/editors in the novel-production process? Did none of the people exposed to this book in pre-production really know the difference between base and bass? And wouldn't you think that publishing houses would invest in some advanced spell- and grammar-checking software that would at least flag the more common homophones for review? But what do I know? Robin Cook's undoubtedly fabulously wealthy, and I'm... not.
I thought briefly about creating a funny photo of a guy standing on top of his Precision wearing a parachute, but I'm tired and it's just not worth it.
What bugs me is when writers and educated people repeat common errors. Robin Cook wrote a book called Abduction in which at one point the main characters were at a public celebration with music. The word 'base' was used, in an unmistakable and incorrect reference to low-frequency audio, at least three or four times. This guy (Robin Cook) is a doctor, indicating an education far in advance of my own. To be fair he probably didn't waste a lot of time with 'music appreciation' classes, but I'd still expect that he'd have run across the distiction at some point. Moreover, he's an author... Hell, I openly mock billboards with their ten-foot-tall bad grammar and spelling, and those guys (or gals) are humble ad copywriters. I expect authors to hold to a higher standard. Both ad writers and novelists make their living with words, and sell their mistakes at their peril (well, maybe not so much peril
), but novelists, IMHO, purport to make art with words, as opposed to the Velvet-Elvis, Dogs-Playing-Poker throwaway world of ad writing. And what of all the advisors/copyreaders/editors in the novel-production process? Did none of the people exposed to this book in pre-production really know the difference between base and bass? And wouldn't you think that publishing houses would invest in some advanced spell- and grammar-checking software that would at least flag the more common homophones for review? But what do I know? Robin Cook's undoubtedly fabulously wealthy, and I'm... not. I thought briefly about creating a funny photo of a guy standing on top of his Precision wearing a parachute, but I'm tired and it's just not worth it.
