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Comment 1. Misspelled words do to my eyes what fingernails on a
chalkboard do to my ears.
Comment 2. My dyslexic son has an entirely different opinion about
this subject.
If you'll drop me a line with agree-disagree answers to the following
questions, I'll post the results on the list. Please feel free to
include additional commentary.
1. Professional technical communicators should know how to spell.
2. Spelling is less important now than it used to be; meaning
is carried by the sound of words, even when they are read,
rather than by their visual form (i.e., the letters that evoke
them on page or screen).
3. It is important to learn spelling and etymology because the
visual form of words contains important information about
the formation of the culture now using the words.
4. Noah Webster and George Bernard Shaw were right: we oughta
simplify spelling so there aren't so many rules and excep-
tions.
5. The following passage of text seems OK to me:
Benny's grammer teacher tolled a funny storey about a man
who is the soul owner of a shoe company. He had invested
his principle in a process to embed springs in the shoe
soles, but found the rate of return on his principal to
be less elastic than the souls. (Inspired by an article in
the business section of today's paper.)
Chuck Campbell, PhD cpc -at- nmt -dot- edu
Technical Communication Program 505-835-5284
Humanities Department, New Mexico Tech
Socorro, NM 87801
