Subject: Re: On comparing apples and oranges (was: Q: on hashes and counting)
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net>
Date: 2000/10/25
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3181482879710364@naggum.net>

* Adam Sampson <ats1@ukc.ac.uk>
| Most people can pronounce words that they're heard correctly even if
| they can't spell them, even in other languages, but I've seen English
| speakers who are learning German inconsistently misspell German words
| that use the ie or ei sounds.  But it is just a guess---I'm not a
| linguist, and I'm sure that someone's done research into this already.

  I have heard people mispronounce Tolkien even after being corrected
  exactly the same way some people insist on misspelling some words
  even when corrected.  Considering the bewildering mess of British
  (especially) dialects, I fail to see how it is even possible to talk
  about one way to _pronounce_ something "correctly".

| I wasn't assuming anything of the sort; I was trying to explain why
| people who can't be bothered to check their spelling tend to
| misspell words like "Tolkien" but spell other words that are equally
| uncommon correctly.

  People who can't be bothered to check their spelling will produce
  random spellings if left to themselves and there's no point in
  explaining their behavior beyond just "sloppiness".  "How to go
  wrong if you don't care what you're doing" is not a particularly
  interesting thing to discuss, is it?

  I find it much more interesting that people who are conscientious
  about most things still make spelling mistakes at times.

#:Erik
-- 
  I agree with everything you say, but I would
  attack to death your right to say it.
				-- Tom Stoppard