My English is getting from bad to worse! I seem to have forgotten how to spell certain words which I knew so well years ago. For example, I will spell "commitment" as "committment" as I confuse it with the spelling of "committee" (with double "m" and double "t"!) It is only the 2nd time or 3rd time that I look at my word "committment" do I realise that this word looks too long and too weird!
And there is the word "humorous" which I always thought it was spelt as "homourous"! I also thought the spelling of "intermittent" was "intermitten" because I would connect it with the word "smitten" (without "t" at the end). Same thing for the word "fulfil" vs "fulfilling" which I might spell as "fulfill" without thinking.
My goodness, this reminds me of the Chinese 辨字section in our tests and exams during primary and secondary school days. A classic example will be “幕”，“募”，“墓”，“慕”，“暮”. The look-alike and sound-alike type of words. So English has such things too!
My little sis told me such spelling mistakes are common as she has seen more ridiculous ones, and the mistakes could come from people who are supposed to be very good in this language! For example, "receive" could be spelt as "recieve" and "silver" could be spelt as "sliver".
Whatever it is, I should not be too complacent and should always make it a point to use the spelling check tool where available. After all, I do not wish the recipients of my emails/sms to think how lousy my spelling is!
14 years ago
2 comments:
My eyes were wide open when I saw your “幕”，“募”，“墓”，“慕”，“暮”example. Gosh... I needed lots of time to figure out which is which. My Chinese is getting from bad to worse too!
At least you bother about being correct. That means you will improve. Most people don't even care what they write or say, and those listening don't mind either. I think our society here is getting too accomodating to those who speak poor English, such that even our own language skills have deteriorated.
I read with interest a book on punctuation, entitled "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves". Good book. I got my brother to buy it for me. You will find that not only Asians are careless over the English language - even English-speaking nations are having problems with grammar and punctuation. Is it then time to reform the language rules to suit the modern world? Now that is a very controversial issue. :)
Oh yes I know that book, it has a panda on the cover right? An adorable panda who eats shoots and leaves suddenly becomes a cold-blooded murderer who eats at the restaurant, shoots at other customers and then leaves the scene,thanks to wrong usage of punctuation. I must say the author is really brilliant.
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