atw: Re: Query: Deliberate misspellings

Yeah. I find in this particular case it is exacerbated by the tendency for
diminutives within our vernacular - ergo Dyno is longer than Dyna so is
preferred as the diminutive. "Mate, have ya had yer car dyno'd?" 

Then there is the frequency of appearance. We are all used to the
greengrocer's apostrophe, (5 apple's for sale), and indeed it does rear its
head regularly. But for sheer overwhelming misuse dynotuning has to take the
cake. Many car mags spell it that way - dunno if the author is ever aware of
the misspelling or if its an attempt to be cool - and every damn performance
shop has a sign saying "Dynotuning inside".


> Do your customers a favour and spell the words correctly.

Thanks Al, that is EXACTLY the mind set I needed. I am doing them a favour
by spelling it correctly, not doing them a disservice by posssibly
obfuscurating their jargon. Amen. Thanks mate!

-----Original Message-----
From: Allan Charlton

Steve, think about spellings this way:
Although your readers might not be able to pronounce the words correctly,
and they might not have a snowball's chance of spelling anything more
complex than their own names, they will often see a mis-spelt word and know
that there's something wrong with it.  They will be uncomfortable with the
word, even though they don't know what's wrong.  I've seen this behaviour in
machine shops, printeries and factories.

Probably half (more, perhaps?) of the population of this fair land can't
spell - some because English is their second language, some because they
didn't pay attention at school, and some because the schools didn't teach
spelling.  Many of them try to improve their English by reading signs,
newspapers and whatever documents are around them.  Someone needs to help
these folk, and It's the responsibility of signwriters, journalists, tech
writers and anyone else who puts documents in the public domain.

Do your customers a favour and spell the words correctly.

Allan
allancharlton@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx


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