by Mayv 'SpearBourne' Amaia

Created on: April 08, 2010   Last Updated: October 02, 2011

Learning how to spell words correctly is a skill that increasingly seems to be taking a back seat to the shorthand of text messaging, the advent of various online neologisms, and plain old apathy.

Some might prefer to believe that this skill is unnecessary or simply don't care how they appear when writing with many spelling, as well as grammatical, errors.

Knowing and remembering the correct way to write a word or phrase is an important and necessary skill, even in this day and age. I cannot count the number of times I have tried to read something with misspellings and improper phrasing. No matter what the message or idea the writer was trying to get across, I was distracted by a perceived immaturity and lack of caring by the author.

By not taking the time to learn to check for and correct such errors, those who continue to write in such a manner are telling me, and the rest of their audience, that they do not care enough to proofread their work.

The preponderance of such writers online now is leading to a general decrease in language skills. When one writer begins consistently misspelling a word, others follow suit. Just look at the occurrences of "prolly."

There is no such word as "prolly"; if there were, it would mean "in a prol manner." Do those who type that term mean "probably?"

Sadly, using a computer's spell-checking system is not a reliable way to ensure that everything is correct. A word simply might not be recognised, or it could be that errors become so common that the system perceives it to be correct.

There are also cases of words which, to some, may sound similar due to the neutralisation of vowels. "Then" and "than" are increasingly being used interchangeably and incorrectly. "Then" refers to a time, or when something happened. "Than" is used in phrases such as "greater than" or "other than."

Another example is "teh." This started out as a typographical error of "the." To me, it just seems puerile, but it apparently has become an accepted part of a written language called "leetspeak" which is seeping into everyday use.

How long will it be before the younger generations begin speaking, and not just writing, this way?

A lack of enunciation, or pronouncing words with diligence and care, also leads to a certain level of laziness when writing those same words. One might try to spell a word phonetically, or the way one thinks it sounds.

Take, for example, "eelekshun" versus "election." Have you ever seen the former version, or something quite similar, while reading?

Or worse, do you spell words that way?

Taking the time to unlearn such habits as guessing at how a word is supposed to look, and teaching oneself to care enough about proper writing skills, does make a world of difference in how a writer is perceived by his or her audience.

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