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I'm beginning to wonder...

Alright, so I have read previous threads about misspellings and poor grammar in Audiogon posts, and I have even joked about it myself in one thread a long time ago. In fact, while I was poking fun at a misspelled word in the thread, I misspelled one myself and was called out for it!
What I am beginning to wonder about is what percentage of Audiogon members speak (or write) english as a first language. Almost every day, there is a classified or a post that is nearly unreadable. The strange thing is that the post will be answered by several readers with no mention of the poor writing. It is so common, that I am wondering what pecentage of regular members are living in the USA. Does anyone have an idea?
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Showing 2 responses by almarg

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almarg
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Compose in Word, spell-check, then post to Audiogon.

Although it can sometimes be pretty comical when people over-rely on spell-check, and don't bother to proofread what they've written. Spelling and grammar checkers often will not flag an error in which the words are spelled correctly, but the wrong word is used.

A while back I had occasion to create the following test sentence. The spelling AND grammar checker in Microsoft Word 2002 did not pick up any of the six errors I introduced:

Intended sentence: "I wish to convey my compliments to the chef."

Sentence with 6 errors introduced, none of which were picked up by Word 2002's spelling and grammar checker:

"I wise to convoy me complements two the chief."

-- Al :)
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almarg
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Nsgarch -- good points, very well put, especially your observations about those for whom English is not their first language.

But I would qualify the statement about "free programs that can fix it all for you ...." to reflect the fact that the programs may leave a lot un-fixed, and can sometimes inspire false confidence which fosters carelessness -- see my previous post in this thread for an amusing example :)

Best,
-- Al
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