Re: How much does spelling matter
Nocturnus, I have to agree with you. Particularly about higher education. When I was in regular school, grade school through high school, I really didn't pay attention to spelling or give it much thought because most of the teachers were willing to let those spelling errors slide. Once I got to college it began to make a difference in my grades, and then of course I actually had a reason to care. I had this one English instructor who would take 5 points off for every misspelled word in a student's composition. So as a result I could write a great composition and actually fail simply because there were too many spelling errors in it. So I became something of a grammar and spelling Nazi determined to be as perfect as I could when composing reports, essays, short stories, speeches, or whatever the assignment happened to be.
Now, I am sure there are many who would find that instructor a real ball breaker and would resent what she did. However, I ended up having r espect for her extremely strict grading standards. What she was trying to do was prepare students for the real world where if someone goes out into the work force he or she is to conduct themselves with professionalism, what they write can make or brake their chances at getting a job with an employer, and if it is an add for a company, an important document like a manual, etc it can positively or negatively reflect upon the employer you work for. Therefore she had to be strict when it came to grading a student's composition.
The point I want to make here is that I have gone through the educational equivalent of boot camp, and have come out the other side with a much higher respect for presenting myself as a well educated person. So its irritating to me to see people on various forums, mailing lists, who just don't give a darn and have lots of errors in their posts that could be corrected with a minimal amount of proofreading. Perhaps the greatest irony of all i s I often find that people of a foreign nationality, who are not native English speakers, often times have better writing than those who supposedly speak the language as their native tongue. There is something obviously wrong with that picture.
I guess for me personally having been through boot camp, per se, I now realize writing is one way in which I can combat age old stereotypes about people who are blind. I am an educated person and therefore there is no reason to be lazy when I can spend a minute or so to proofread everything I write weather it be to a forum, a mailing list, a site, etc because I am consciously aware of the fact weather I want to be or not I am a representative of blind people everywhere the same as if I were publishing some written material for a company. What I write will not only form public opinions about me individually it can have some influence on how people view those of us who are blind as well. It is being aware of that fact that makes me want to thump a few blind members of forums and mailing lists I encounter that unequivocally say spelling, grammar, and proper punctuation doesn't matter as long as they can get their point across.
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