Ahhhhhh, stop typing that!

[Halivar]

unlike armour, colour, favour, etc which, while I accept they make more sense spelled the American way, still need the u in my irrational mind

As they say, "gray is a color, and grey is a colour."

 

[Merkuri]

I'm American, and I always find myself spelling it "grey". I have to correct myself to "gray." Don't know why. Maybe my aunt in Germany sent me one too many books published in Britain, but gray/grey is the only word I keep wanting to spell the Brit way.

 

[Mycanid]

I much prefer the spelling "grey" myself....

 

[Mouseferatu]

I much prefer the spelling "grey" myself....

It's funny. When I take a moment to think about it, I prefer "grey," and I use "grey" in my writing.

If I'm not actively thinking about it, though, and just typing merrily along, I tend to default to "gray."

I've actually had to add it to my (ever-growing and already lengthy) list of terms for which I have to do a word search, when I'm editing all my rough drafts, just to make sure I've chosen one and stuck with it.

 

[Merkuri]

I've actually had to add it to my (ever-growing and already lengthy) list of terms for which I have to do a word search, when I'm editing all my rough drafts, just to make sure I've chosen one and stuck with it.

What program do you use? If you use Word or any other program with an auto-correct feature you can add words to the auto-correct list, so that whenever you type "gray" it'll automatically replace it with "grey" right there as you type. No search and replace needed.

 

[frankthedm]

I detest magical items being refered to as "magicals".

1337 = LEET, pronounced either like it's spelled, or 'EL-EET' (i.e. 'Elite'). Basically, some numbers and punctuations can be used to look like letters, and, as such, they're used to say things and look k3\/\/1 (kewl -> cool). This is Leetspeak.

The Goal was to use various characters to create a highly morphic alphabet that had to be seen, in person, to recognize, to fool simple computerized seaches for a word that could tip off authorities looking at directories. Like "<#!1|)" instead of "child"

Think of it as a very annoying thieve's cant. Whether or not it could fool Carnivore / Eschelon, I don't know.

 

[Hypersmurf]

I actually got a response from a co-worker that said the following:

aight

He actually saved 2 whole letters by not typing alright.

And what makes your nonstandard variant usage so much superior to his?

The phrase is 'all right', damn it.

-Hyp.

 

[Nifft]

The phrase is 'all right', damn it.

"Aight" is a word in its own right, just like "ain't" (and used by a similar demographic). You may detest that family of slang, but as an written representation of speech, "aight" is all right.

The main one that kills me is the apostrophe. Almost everything else I can view charitably -- as intentionally being silly -- but homophone confusion and apostrophe abuse just look stupid.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Lewis526]

A linguistics professor at my university told his students that anything a native speaker says is defined as correct. In other words, it's impossible to make a mistake in one's native language. He believed that the evolution of language shouldn't be, and perhaps can't be, limited or controlled. I don't know if he'd extend that view to written language, since I dropped the class before I had the chance to ask him.

He also claimed that the only infix in English is "f---ing," as in "in f---ing credible," but that's a whole nother story.

 

[Mouseferatu]

A linguistics professor at my university told his students that anything a native speaker says is defined as correct.

Wow. That's just...

I cannot begin to express how wrong I feel that is. Rules of grammar and spelling and punctuation exist for a reason*. I'm really glad I wasn't in that class; I'd have been kicked out for arguing with the professor.

*(And even if they didn't have a reason, they still exist. Anything that breaks those rules is incorrect. The fact that rules may eventually shift and change in the future doesn't alter the fact that something is wrong now.)