Typo versus Misspelling

[Thadeus]

On a separate thread I made the mistake of calling a misspelling a typo. Typos are errors caused by a missed or incorrect keystroke and a misspelling refers to something spelled wrong regardless of typed text.

Typo – ‘comitment’ being spelled once incorrectly on a document, but correctly everywhere else. Typos should be scarce in Word-Processed documents due to spell checking, but are frequent on the web, where spell-checkers are scarce and a lower standard of quality writing is generally accepted. (an interesting topic for a separate thread)

Misspelling – ‘comitment’ being spelled throughout the document with only that one pitiful “m”

Misuse – ‘Their’ instead of ‘there’ or vice versa.

Misspellings and misuse can run rampant across both word-processed documents and the web generally.

It can be impossible to know whether you are looking at a misspelling or typo when the rest of the document is impeccable and the offending word only occurs once. I usually err on the side of assuming a typo in such a case. Documents rife with misspellings make me assume every possible typo is sheer ignorance...

~Thadeus

 

[RodKnowlton]

Whenever I'm composing and typing text quickly, such as on IRC or IM, I often unconsciously type a homophone of the word I intended to type. Although I know the proper word, if I don't catch the homophone it comes across as misuse.

Does anyone else have this problem?



Rod Knowlton
IBM Certified Advanced Technical Expert pSeries and AIX 5L
CompTIA Linux+
CompTIA Security+

 

[MakeItSo]

I usually err on the side of assuming a typo in such a case

I'd say you don't err, Thadeus - you're just being polite!

A misspelling, as I understand it, means you type the word incorrectly 'cause you don't know better.
A typo is a word typed incorrectly by mistake, independent of the level of ortographical knowledge of the typer

So: I know, it's "orthographical", so that was a typo up there. Anything else you find should be a misspelling, since I used the preview function.


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"This is technically impossible!" - Sir Peter Ustinov[/blue]

 

[Dimandja]

>Although I know the proper word, if I don't catch the homophone it comes across as misuse.

Does anyone else have this problem?

Yep, I do it a lot. I keep typing "than" when I mean "then".

And recently, I broke my own misspelling record by regularly losing one of the s's in the word misspell.

 

[SQLSister]

Me, I have dyslexic fingers. There are lots of words that I simply cannot learn to type correctly. I know how to spell them, couldn't type them to save my life.

Questions about posting. See faq183-874

 

[ESquared]

I am fanatic about my spelling, and always have been. Even so, I catch myself typing homophones... even the ones I love to hate (such as there for their). But I almost always catch them as I type and make a correction.

I would love to see typo and misspelling statistics for everyone in these forums. I wonder how I'd rate?

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