Pedant's law

If this isn't a previously well-described law then it should be.

Whenever thou laughest at another's spelling or grammar, the spelling thou usest in doing so shall be found to be equally dodgy.

Take this, from the Independent, for example:

Thirteen out of 20 world class university websites analysed by Australian spelling software Spellr.us were found to have miss-spellings of the word ‘university’.

...

Despite representing one of the UK’s oldest and best educational institutions Cambridge’s website was found to have miss-spelled the word ‘service’ in one of its navigational bars.

Miss Spelling must be very upset.

Comments

[KMcC]

I think it's known as Muphry's Law:

http://tr.im/rf0u

[montysmum]

When my husband was teaching, many moons ago, he wrote on a boy's report- "His spelling is appaling"- but luckily the headmaster noticed before it was sent out.

[jonathan]

Most bloggers can't spell "lose", don't know the difference between "affect" and "effect" and think that the possessive its, hers, yours and theirs have apostrophes, although at least realising that hi's is clearly absurd.

[Wansbeck]

To be that little bit extra pedantic may I question the Frenchified spelling of realizing in the previous post.

Whilst I must concede that the use of the letter s rather than z is common in the UK and I am English myself, I still prefer the 'correct' spelling with a z.

Of course I would never use the American spelling analyze rather than analyse and please be careful not to use the spelling analize; I believe that is what bankers have done to the economy.

P.S. How does one spell Frenchified?

PPS Is P.S. a bit too pedantic?

[Jack Hughes]

Totally OT -- but do you think that "yeah_whatever" on the BBC message boards is playing a double game and is really a skeptic but posing as a pratt on the forum ?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/climatechange/2009/07/is_the_climate_warming_or_cool.html

[Bishop Hill]

Wansbeck

I spend my days working with scientific texts, most of which use American spellings, so -ize.

[Bishop Hill]

Jack

That thought has occurred to me too.

[jonathan]

Wansbeck

Quite so. Somehow I've always had a resistance to spelling it with a "z"; "realise" seems altogether more gentle, so that's my preference despite authority relegating it to the "also" category.

[Bishop Hill]

I'm not saying that I don't prefer -ise though.

[Rich]

"Oldest" and "best" are superlatives so surely "one of the oldest and best" is wrong? "One of the older and better" would be correct, wouldn't it?

I'll moan about "we'll do as best as we can" while I'm at it.

[Tim Worstall]

Indeed, Muphry's Law

[jonathan]

Rich

How about "least worst"? Excruciating.

[Wansbeck]

This pedant thing is going too far:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8139322.stm

[James P]

Wansbeck: doesn't '-ize' or '-ise' depend on whether you treat the origin as Greek or Old French? I think the French were here more recently...

I'm generally in favour of anything that differentiates us from the Americans anyway, although I have to admit that I enjoyed Bill Bryson's 'Mother Tongue'.

BTW, I think the Independent is only reporting what Private Eye has been posting clips about for years. Almost every issue contains a council or education advertisement with a spelling gaffe, usually in the word where you would want it least (so Murphy is also responsible). The Grauniad also still manages to live up to its name, spell-checkers notwithstanding!

[Wansbeck]

James P, here's a good explanation of the s or z thing:

http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutspelling/ize?view=uk

I believe that true pedants should use z whenever possible but perhaps I'm showing my age although I must make it clear that I was not around during Webster's simplification.

[James P]

Thank you, Wansbeck. I do remember an episode of 'Morse' in which the detective lectured poor Lewis on the subject. Morse, being an Oxford man, favoured 'ize', and it rather set me against it, I'm afraid. Especially when my daughter went to Cambridge.. :-)

[rephelan]

Goot Got mun! Dun ya now spellin shud follah prunanciation?

[rephelan]

Of course, on the other hand, the Chinese system of writing allowed wide divergences in pronunciation yet allowed any literate person to read whatever the speaker of another dialect to wrote. Even Japanese speakers can read Chinese.

[John]

I hope you real eyes it should be, "Thirteen out of twenty world class ..."

[Bishop Hill]

and possibly even "13 out of 20 world-class"....

[Curmudgeon]

Surely this is generally known as Skitt's Law - any criticism of spelling or grammar will inevitably contain at least one error.

[Bishop Hill]

Wow. It turns out that there are lots of names for it...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naruki%27s_Law

I particularly liked "Hartman's Law of Prescriptivist Retaliation", which has a certain ring to it.