this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2025
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No Stupid Questions

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This is quite recent but I've been browsing Lemmy a bunch lately and quite often I see extreme grammatical errors.

I'm not talking about like, incorrect stylistic choices between commas and dashes, or an improper use of ellipses or missing commas or incorrect use of apostrophes in its/it's or in multiple posessive articles or just plain typos or any nitpicky grammar nazi shit like that, but just basic spelling specifically.

It's one thing when you can't spell some pretty uncommon words and you're too lazy to look it up and/or use autocorrect, but it's a completely different league to misspell very basic words, very recently I saw someone spell "extreme" as "extream" which is just kind of baffling, I actually can't even imagine how one would make such a mistake?

And it's not been an isolated thing either, I've seen several instances like that lately.

Am I going crazy? Is it just me?

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[–] collapse_already@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I would not be surprised if autocorrect was a major culprit along with phone keyboards. You can type something correctly and have autocorrect make it wrong. It's also super easy to get the wrong letter if you have normal sized hands and are typing on a phone keyboard. I have turned autocorrect completely off and am significantly less error prone as a result.

I frequently decide against correcting an error if I think my intention is clear, and I am in a hurry. I don't really care what strangers on the internet think of my editing skills.

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[–] octobob@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 month ago

I swear to god working in an engineering field for the past 10 years or so has dramatically changed my grammar. Do you know who has the absolute worst grammar and spelling of anyone I've ever met? My boss. "First 2 channels shoul dBe woired for 0-10vDC" was a note he left on my desk yesterday. Do you know who's the smartest person I've ever met when it comes to electrical? Also my boss.

It's never a 1 to 1 comparison of intelligence fwiw. Everyone in this field spits out emails in half-cobbled together sentences and phrases and it just works somehow. When I type out multiple paragraphs and overexplain things, half the time they'll just come down to the shop to talk instead.

But yeah I have realized that this will bleed out into the rest of my communication haha. I'll look back at texts I send quickly to my fiance and see that I'm skipping words or saying shit wrong. Oh well, the ideas are communicated just as well most the time.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Just imagine you having to fix a thousand pages of this. I feel your pain.

[–] PanArab@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

No you aren’t getting crazy. I stopped double checking my spelling after Trump became president the first time. Clearly most people don’t mind bad spelling so why bother?

[–] twice_hatch@midwest.social 3 points 1 month ago

I double check my writing because there are some "errors" that don't matter (I stopped caring about "me" versus "I") and then there are some errors that silently cause me to misinterpret the message

Like as an analogy if I ask how much milk is left in the carton in the fridge

  • "haf" I know you mean half, no big deal
  • "three" I know you didn't read my question, frustrating but not the worst thing
  • "full" but actually it was full three days ago when you last checked and this is stale information, and so I don't buy another carton, then we're out of milk because of a miscommunication

You know?

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[–] DaPorkchop_@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago

it's the mispeling vyrus

[–] Irelephant@lemm.ee 0 points 1 month ago

There is a few words I cannot spell, and I've just given up on them at this point (definitely, infinitely, critisism ).

Sometimes I type too fast and post a comment with a typo, and a few times the edit fixing it didn't federate.

[–] Thrawne@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Thats my secret cap, i’ve always had poor spelling

[–] Fingolfinz@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

A majority have always been bad at spelling

[–] scroll_responsibly@lemmy.sdf.org 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

A majorrity have always been bad at spelllng

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[–] wildwhitehorses@aussie.zone 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm burnt out man. I just dont have the energy or the careth to be accurate or even care about a small thing.

[–] Irelephant@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] faythofdragons@slrpnk.net 5 points 1 month ago

No, he just doesn't carrot all.

[–] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm not native English. It's imperfect English or writing in other language that not many would fully understand.

[–] starlinguk@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

Non natives can usually spell better than natives.

[–] gnu@lemmy.zip 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's not a recent thing, but I would say there has been a decline over the last decade or so. Not only does it seem like spelling and grammar are getting worse but I feel it is much more likely these days to find comments defending improper English rather than correcting it.

I saw someone spell “extreme” as “extream” which is just kind of baffling, I actually can’t even imagine how one would make such a mistake?

Maybe they had just come from dealing with large quantities of paper? Or enlarging a bunch of holes?

[–] 3xBork@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Anti-intellectualism has been on the rise for decades and spelling gets worse? I am shocked I tell you!

Also: inb4 the "language evolves!" crowd arrives.

[–] Irelephant@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)
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[–] loomi@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

My online grammar and spelling is like a drunkard has taken over my keyboard. Swiping is awful for accuracy

[–] KeenFlame@feddit.nu 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You are now interacting with other nationalities and ethnicities maybe?

[–] starlinguk@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Non natives can usually spell better than natives. They learn to spell words and then pronounce them instead of the other way around.

[–] undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch 2 points 1 month ago
[–] Puzzlehead@reddthat.com 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

My phone is stupid and will automatically correct on its own to giggerish or to other words that makes no sense. That's why I do so many edits. I don't always catch the errors.

[–] starlinguk@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

The Samsung keyboard doesn't respond to tapping the word you want most of the time. They fixed it once and then broke it again during the next update

[–] acchariya@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

This is the real cause. Tech peaked and has since gobe to dogshit monetization, ai-ification and ultimately idiocrification.

Edit: point proven. Autocorrected gone to "gobe". WTF?

[–] x00z@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Most of the people you interact with online aren't native English speakers.

[–] 3xBork@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

I get the feeling it's the native speakers who are the worst offenders. The ones using English as a second language at the very least made an effort to learn the language.

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[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

i gut no ider wat ur tlakin bot. i splel prefect.

[–] thatradomguy@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's not just spelling, even online people don't even bother using grammar. They literally stuff 4 different sentences in one line without using commas or periods. It's maddening, honestly.

[–] starlinguk@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I absolutely loathe posts that just say something like "This dog."

This dog WHAT, bozo.

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[–] stinky@redlemmy.com 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Worse: it's common for the younger generation to reduce everything to three-letter, monosyllabic slang. "Mid" "on god" "no cap" there's an intellectual laziness that's trendy and it's getting worse with time.

[–] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Bro didn't live during sms era.

[–] stinky@redlemmy.com 0 points 1 month ago

Are you sure?

[–] dQw4w9WgXcQ@lemm.ee 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

During the big wave of Among Us, it was also interesting to see "sus" become a popular term, probably because people don't know how to spell "suspisus".

[–] RedditRefugee69@lemmynsfw.com 2 points 1 month ago

I think it's more that there's limited time to talk in the meetings.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

It’s been awful for a while.

All the too/to/two or their/they’re/there kind of wreckage along with stuff like “for all intensive purposes”, “flee market”, or “diffuse the situation”.

There’s tons of writing like that everywhere. Wouldn’t be so bad if people learned when corrected, but I think most can’t be bothered.

My take is that people don’t read anymore along with probably an unhealthy dose of laziness and “gotta write all messed up to act cool” to boot.

Reading well-written books of any sort will help the mind fix how words go together and how they’re spelled. But today everyone reads everyone else’s shitty grammar, spelling, and whatever massacre of stylistic choices were made to stand out and look cool in the comment section of the youtube videos or tiktoks they just watched. That’s probably the extent of the reading they do.

[–] theotherbelow@lemmynsfw.com 3 points 1 month ago

I've noticed the same thing, including on stuff that should be spell checked like news articles. Its not even rare. I've also noticed my phone (current android) it has been making it nearly impossible to overrule errant spelling even if it is not correctly changing it.

Overall I believe its entirely the lack of proof reading. Please god I proof read this let it contain no errors.

[–] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 1 month ago

Cashiers here have started saying "have a good rest of your day" instead of "have a good afternoon" or whatever.

It's excruciating. It's only emerged in the last few years.

I know language evolves and all but not like this.

[–] LiveLM@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

I no phone gudz mane.

No, but really typing on a glass slab sucks. The software sucks ass too and seemingly no OEM is interested in improving it or trying something new.
Android's spellchecker sucks at handling 2 languages at once so I gotta turn it off and rely on the keyboard's auto correct.
Both FUTO and Heliboard insist on not correcting obvious misspellings or change correct words to nonexistent ones.

I'm convinced we've gotten the maximum we can out of the touchscreen QWERTY format. EIther we get a new Blackberry KeyOne style device or we get some stenography-like software innovation that converts vibes to words, I dunno.

[–] starlinguk@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Big tech realised that touch screen keyboards are cheaper to manufacture (develop) than physical keyboards and persuaded everyone that touch screen keyboards are better. Absolutely not. Screw touch screen keyboards.

[–] coaxil@lemm.ee 11 points 1 month ago

I am pretty sure android is getting worse at correcting input and also changes words after the fact as you type, coupled with phones are awful to type on, results in this fucking mess we get now days.

[–] BeNotAfraid@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Smart Technology has always been about removing our ability to effectively communicate with nuance and assess reality that's what it's for. Autocorrect so you can't spell, google maps so you can't find your way out of a paper bag without them. People's lexicons have diminished, substantially since 2007. The quantity and variety of expressions used have dropped off majorly. All this connection with people all over the world and we use it to maintain quasi social relationships with people we hardly care about. It's a joke.

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