« Word Court in session: "try and ..." | Main | The glamorous life of the word guru » Stalking the wild misspelling04 Dec 2008 01:06 pm Maybe "chicken stalk" is the English equivalent of chicken cacciatore?  Seriously, I'm puzzled about why people aren't better at distinguishing between what they know and what they don't, and why many would rather guess than learn something new. All right, not everybody has dictionaries constantly at the ready, the way I do. But isn't "stock" something a cook would want to know how to spell? Comments (7)
Tony? I think you're reacting to something other than what I said. I truly wonder why people who aren't good at something -- spelling, math, ballroom dancing, anything -- often seem unaware of the shortcoming and rarely ask for help. One of my first jobs was with a graphic-design studio. The art director was a very smart guy and great at his job, except that he sometimes focused on the shapes of the letters when hand-drawing "comps" for clients. For instance, he didn't like the way E and A looked together. So he once spent hours mocking up an ad for our client ESTERN MOUNTAIN SPORTS. Which is to say, I'm quite familiar with the possibility that smart people might be bad at spelling. The part I don't get is, How come many of them just let it go? Come to think of it, don't you know poor spellers who "wear their incompetence ... with pride"? I do. 
"...grevious character flaw."
Why assume a cook wrote it? Based on about 7 years of restaurant experience, that's unlikely. More likely: server, cashier, hostess, etc.
For that matter, even if we assume the the author was the cook:
Ms. Wallraff, I was directed here by a fellow reader of your Atlantic co-blogger Coates. Check it out - could this (the discussion thread from the point below) be the birth of a meme? http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/12/the_case_against_eric_shinseki.php#comment-1187972 i.e. "moribound"
You've reminded me of something that has puzzled me for many years. I have a matchbox-sized book dating, I think, from 1920's Britain, called a "Spelling Dictionary". An alphabetized list of words with one-line explanation. The puzzle? How does it work? Consider:
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You need to spend sometime inside the mind of a reasonably intelligent person who is a good enough writer that he has been paid enough for his writing to buy a house, but who cannot spell to save his life to understand that the difference between "stalk" and "stock" is not nearly as obvious as you think it is.
I love words. I love your column. I'm trying to like this blog. But how is it that difficulties with the vagaries and contradictions in spelling the English language are indicative of some sort of grevious character flaw, dim-wittedness, laziness, or something worse - while supposedly educated people get to wear their incompetence with mathematics with pride; as if it were a charming quirk.
Shame on you, Ms. Wallraff. Shame on you.
Posted by Tony Comstock | December 4, 2008 7:10 PM