Darwinia wins IGF Grand Prize

[TheShifter]

its a bit l8 but congratz guys

u deserve it

tom

[xander]

its a bit l8 but congratz guys :D

u deserve it

tom

Gah!

* "its" should be capitalized (first word of the sentence)
* "its" should have an apostrophe ("it is" versus the possesive)
* "l8" is spelt "late" (don't use stupid AOL-ese)
* there should be a comma after "l8"
* "congratz," an abreviated form of "congratulations," is generally spelt with an "s," not a "z"
* there should be a comma following "congratz"
* there should be a period following "guys" (or, perhaps, and exclaimation point)
* "u" is spelt "you"
* "You" should be capitalized (first word of the sentence, again)
* there should be a period following "it" (or, possibly, and exclaimation point)
* you probably did not need to split the two sentences into seperate paragraphs, but that is largly stylistic

In short, a properly composed post would have read:

It's a bit late, but congrats, guys! You deserve it!

tom

Your resident grammar nazi,
xander

[ScareyedHawk]

It's a bit late, but congrats, guys! You deserve it!

tom

You missed the capital T in Tom.

[xander]

It's a bit late, but congrats, guys! You deserve it!

tom

You missed the capital T in Tom.

I thought about mentioning it. As a proper noun, it should be capitalized. However, I think that it is as much a stylistic affectation as anything else. I spell my name with a lowercase "x," and e.e. cummings didn't seem to believe in capital letters. While the rest of the post was terrible, I feel that people should be free to spell their names or handles however they wish. Otherwise, there would be very few people on the IV boards with properly spelt names...

xander

[Gravitron]

Or in a truthful manner: he's too much [of] an unimportant fuck for us to bother to properly spell his name.

P.S.
I <3 xander, job well done; an excellent grammatical slaughter.

Disclaimer: it be truth that my English stinks yet I outmatch you in Hebrew still.


[Although] It is a bit late, but [nonetheless] congratulations [nevertheless] ! You guys deserve it.

[trickfred]

In regards to xander's figurative 'grammatical slaughter', spelt is a species of grain (Triticum Spelta) much cultivated for food in Germany and Switzerland; I believe the word you were searching for is 'spelled'.

Captain Pedantist to the rescue! \o/

[Stewsburntmonkey]

In regards to xander's figurative 'grammatical slaughter', spelt is a species of grain (Triticum Spelta) much cultivated for food in Germany and Switzerland; I believe the word you were searching for is 'spelled'.

Captain Pedantist to the rescue! \o/

"Spelt" is a perfectly correct form of the past tense of "spell." It is chiefly used in the UK.

[trickfred]

In regards to xander's figurative 'grammatical slaughter', spelt is a species of grain (Triticum Spelta) much cultivated for food in Germany and Switzerland; I believe the word you were searching for is 'spelled'.

Captain Pedantist to the rescue! \o/

"Spelt" is a perfectly correct form of the past tense of "spell." It is chiefly used in the UK.

From Wikipedia:

The forms with -ed are also common in Commonwealth usage, and preferred by many careful writers of English since they are regular verbs.

Therefore, 'spelt' is sloppy English, and anachronistic to boot if only some people in one country still use it. 'Spelled' is a better word.

[Stewsburntmonkey]

That quote in no way makes words like "spelt" sloppy. Words like "spelt" are just older, more traditional spellings (Americans have made an effort to standardise English as much as possible, which is how forms like "spelled" came into being). Just because something is American or more modern doesn't make it better (contrary to popular belief). Bottomline, if you are going to be an arse at least be accurate (especially given that this is a British forum).

[trickfred]

google for 'spelled' - 34 000 000 entries
google for 'spelt' - 5 630 000 entries
google for 'spelt -grain -wheat -flour -recipe -recipes -soup -foods' - 3 920 000 entries

Language is fluid, and evolves over time. Just like the appendix, 'spelt' is part of 'ye olde english', a vestigial remnant of the body of language which is primarily used today only in renaissance fairs and reenactments of plays hundreds of years old. It's not suprising that the English still somewhat use 'ye olde english' in communication today, but that doesn't mean it's still in common usage - it would now be considered by the rest of the world to be using a 'dialect', and not proper english.

Oh, and I'm not American, I'm Canadian. I still spell colour properly. And having an alternate viewpoint from you doesn't make me an 'arse'. Bandying about accusations and insults does, however, make you an 'arse'.

[Stewsburntmonkey]

It has nothing to do with your opinion, but the fact that are factually incorrect. You said spelt was not used correctly, when it clearly was. I also didn't say you were an arse, just that you were being an arse. That was not meant as an insult, just a discription of your actions.

The reason "spelt" isn't as popular is because the population of America dwarfs that of the UK. If you want to go by popularity "colour" would also be incorrect as "color" is far more common. Your argument has no basis in any logic or fact, just your own arrogance.

[trickfred]

I'm not arrogant, I just like to argue. I do often come off that way though, since I'm often not overly polite.

Like I said above, language is fluid, and based on usage. If 90% of the English-speaking world spells a word one way, then that spelling would be considered the de facto standard, no matter what the scholars say.

Tell you what. We'll pick 5 countries that teach English in their schools, and pick 5 elementary (or equivalent) schools at random from each country. Then, we'll call/email them, talk to the Grade Three (or equivalent) teacher, and ask them which spelling they would accept in the kids' homework, and which one they would mark as being spelled incorrectly. If the majority of them respond that 'spelt' would be the correct spelling, then I'll concede the argument.

[NeoThermic]

The forms with -ed are also common in Commonwealth usage, and preferred by many careful writers of English since they are regular verbs.

Therefore, 'spelt' is sloppy English, and anachronistic to boot if only some people in one country still use it. 'Spelled' is a better word.

You know.. more than one country uses English...

If we wanted to be overly pedantic and annoying, we should all be typing in some form of Chinese (simplified or traditional), as there's more of them using it then us (us being English typing people)!

那是所有我必須說對此。

NeoThermic

[Icepick]

By that arguement, the way every redneck hick and slack jawed yokel butchers the English language is the correct usage because Im sure they more than outnumber everyone else. The same could be said for engrish, and just about every other mangled version of English you'd care to think of.

Im English and I say spelt.

[xander]

To answer the questions of spelt vs spelled: I generally used "spelled" in my own writing and speech. However, I was attempting to be more demeaning than usual, and adopted a slightly more formal/archaic form of address than I otherwise would have. In the US, a British accent is often seen as a bit more up-tight, so I opted for a form that is seen as more British. Also, this is a British forum, thus "spelt" is acceptable, I should think...

xander