Also, please be civil this person was actually pretty chill about getting totally destroyed for this crazy take. I mostly just wanted to document this moment.
I understand where he’s coming from, but he’s also explaining it poorly and using it to be a defensive dick.
I have the same issue when writing “could’ve”, I default to “could of” because of some silly childhood habit, and despite knowing better I still write “could of” out of habit all the time, and I don’t pick up on it when proof reading because they are spoken the same way.
He’s talking about the accent of his internal monologue/ sub vocalisations when reading.
In my accent, “than” and “then” sound completely different, but in some accents they’re practically homophones.
When you cross that with someone who is a phonetic writer, or has language disabilities like dyslexia, you end up writing the more commonly used word. When proof reading you don’t realise your mistake because the voice in your head reads those two words the exact same way, and if you’re dyslexic you’re not going to know it’s wrong from looking at it.
I’ve read it 6 times and it all makes perfect sense, reading it again is only going to help me find the remaining mistakes because of a luck based numbers game.
it takes me 40 minutes to proof read a 25 word email if it’s important enough, because I know myself, I have found errors after that long.
That’s why I do sometimes get frustrated when kind well meaning people correct my grammar and spelling. It’s helpful and I do appreciate it, but it’s not that I don’t “know” the correct grammar, or why my grammar was wrong, it’s that no one game through with a neon sign to highlight where the error was and I genuinely can’t see it until it’s pointed out to me, or even if I know there’s an error, I really, genuinely, do not care anymore. That’s not because I take no pride in my literacy, it’s the opposite…
There’s nothing worse than spending 8 times longer proof reading a comment than you spent drafting it. And your pour over it and really apply yourself to finding the errors. You find 40 mistakes the first time you read it, another 10 the next time, 3 the next. You find no mistakes the next 2 times you re-read it, you ask a friend to read it, so they skim it quickly say “it’s fine”. Then you hit “post” and you immediately spot another mistake so you quickly edit it, silly me, how did I not see that before posting!? Then someone replies to it and you go back to refresh yourself on what it was you wrote so you can better have a discussion and you spot another error in your original comment! How did that error slip through so many checks! Better re-re-re-re-re-re-read it again now while I’m already editing it.
Then a well meaning person says “by the way, it’s “than” not “then”.” which is a completely neutral and polite post, but considering I’ve spent hours thinking about all the mistakes in the comment, I’ve spent longer than most people spend on proof reading, I hear you trying to help, but all I’m feeling is the world calling me an illiterate idiot after I’ve finished exhausting myself doing practical things to improve my literacy.
These spell check comments make me angry, not at the person trying to help me learn. But angry at myself for being a fucking moron, for wasting years of my life working twice as hard to achieve half as much, with my best being better than my best ever was and still in some instances being seen as having not tried at all.
What’s worse is then I’m reading my comment for the 700th time trying to find where I’ve used “then” where I should have used “than” and even though I know now what mistake I’m looking for, I can’t see it!
I’ve gone so far as to ctrl+F “of” in a 6 page report from work because a co-worker was running out the door to grab something for an event, made a comment about me needing to change “of to have” in the report but couldn’t remember what page just that she noticed it, and off she went.
I’d already read this thing well over 50 times. I went through one by fucking one to try and find where I had written “could of”, but I could not find it.
Whatever, it was no longer worth it. I printed them off, and I’ve grabbed a random bunch of pages to start folding the booklets and as I’ve grabbed it, directly above my thumb, clear as day, bright as sun, fucking “could of”.
Did I go back and print off another batch of copies now that I’d found it? Yes (felt guilty the whole time, what a waste of paper)
The worse part, my co-worker comes back, we finish setting up, we’re putting booklets on guests chairs and my cooworker flicks through one and says “aw, you didn’t get a chance to fix the “could’ of” mistake.” because it turns out there were 2 instances that I’d missed while going through it word by word. Of course as soon as she said it, I could see it. In my defence she’d only spotted the one, not the original 2 in the copy I gave her for proofing…or the original 20 in the copy I proofed myself.
So after all that, when someone who doesn’t know me corrects my spelling, I’m grateful, but I don’t care, I’m burnt out on fixing it, I cared too hard too much in the hours I was proof reading it before you got here, and I know it’s incorrect, and I know self improvement is important, but come back in a week when I’m not angry and frustrated at myself and this text.
Friend, I just read your whole post. Keep in mind that your mental health should be more important to you than (♥) anything else!
May I suggest just giving yourself enough leeway to keep the mental capacity to shrug of random internet people? We - your NPCs - should never be as important in regards to your own health!
What you’re describing sounds to me way different though - you only share the same symptoms! I get the feeling that you strife for perfection in how others perceive you. OP on the other hand is a tuna sandwich dick.
Please feel appreciated this day for the thoughts you make and the effort you put in no matter what the internet points tell you.
You know, they’ve got a very valid point. Language is spoken before it is written and it changes with time. I’ve got the opinion that orthography should be subordinate to pronunciation. If ‘then’ and ‘than’, historically pronounced differently, become homophone, they could be written the same.
I’m tired of English and French orthographies being so conservative, writing words like they were pronounced hundreds of years ago…
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