How do you correct spelling without being rude?

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Sometimes when I see someone else's spelling error I feel I must tell them the right way or I will explode, but I've been accused at least once of being incredibly rude for doing so. People don't seem to think it's a big deal but if my old English teacher saw how badly people spell he'd have a fit. When we were still both in school my older brother used to ask me how to spell everything for him. It got pretty annoying.

Last night someone spelled "metaled" when the real word was "meddled" in a YouTube video, and I had to really fight posting the right word. It made my skin hurt. And just earlier I saw a post made by someone here who asked if anyone has been told they look like a cereal killer. I wanted to post a joke saying I have been a cereal killer for years, eating things like Corn Flakes and Rice Krispies and sometimes even Lucky Charms. But I knew they were being serious and didn't to insult them.

I'm more forgiving if the person doesn't speak English well, however. As in English is not their first language, I mean. There are a lot of people who do have English as their first and only language and they ain't even too good at talking that.

You don't - unless they ask you. It's rude.

One other thing, this topic came up on the "other website" and the OP probably wishes she hadn't started the thread - people started to scrutinize all of her posts and made sure to point out all of her grammatical errors and they were many. She was a laughing farce of the website for awhile. So just be prepared for people to do the same to you and they won't be nice about it.

I disagree, just because they fell asleep in English class doesn't mean the rest of us need to suffer, especially in today's world of auto-correct and google-- it just shows laziness.

Practically all my English teachers were almost Nazi-like in spelling and grammar, and I definitely picked that up. However, I try not to overly criticize people's spelling or grammar errors unless it is on something important. Yes, it bugs me when I see so many basic errors, either accidental or purposeful, but nurseangela has a good point. Criticize and you will get grief for every blessed mistake you make. If it is important, I say " Excuse me but.....".

I get it out of my system by quoting the posts of other people, and then making the corrections within the quoted text. For example, if I quote a post that says "im a cereal kiler", I will post the quote as "I am a serial killer", without mentioning any of the corrections that I've made.

No one has ever called me out on it.

Neurotypicals tend to misspell things because they simply don't care, and when someone points out their mistakes to them, they think that a big fuss is being made over nothing. I used to correct people's spelling when I was younger, but now, I know that it's more trouble than it's worth. It still irritates me when people confuse common homophones or use apostrophes in plurals, however.

In school I had a similar teacher, lostonearth. Through her I learned that being corrected is a necessary evil on the quest for "perfecting" anything.
For a long time I took great pride in this and thought it's completely acceptable to correct other's mistakes so that they too will get closer to perfection.
Well, the reception wasn't too nice. So I learned that some people don't care to enhance themselves in that respect and get offended, and I stopped.
Due to constant twitch chat/Internet usage/lack of interest in investing lots of time in double-triple-quadruple proof-reading and learning the rules, I've gotten used to just type away without giving sentence structure or orthography too much thought... because it's faster that way. If you take too long to get your sentences out, the stream will have continued running for a few minutes and nobody will understand your message...

Sometimes I feel like editing a spelling mistake in my posts but then I think
1) Take it easy. I made that mistake and won't obsess over it.
2) I don't believe that I'm perfect anyway. Maybe there's some syntax mistake that I unknowingly make every single time I touch the keyboard.
3) L-a-z-y!

I HATE when others correct me online & I have problems spelling due to dyslexia & a tremor disorder that can affect my typing.

You don't.

Oh yeah, unless I've decided that correction is a tool for growth because I care about mastering something, I don't like being corrected either.

I agree you just don't do it unless asked to, and, even if you are, expect trouble.

In principle, I'd actually prefer to be corrected---I don't like missing opportunities to learn something in the name of my ego, as, to me, it's a completely unnecessarily self-limiting behavior. In practice, however, I've learned to recognize unsolicited corrections as a big red flag, because my experience is people do it exactly when they want to be the kind of nasty, condescending person they accuse us of being for doing it. This is revealed when they make totally unfounded corrections (often blatantly assuming you meant something different from what you actually did, making it obvious they couldn't be bothered to process what you said before deciding to "correct" it), and when they refuse to engage in any kind of rational discussion with you about whatever they're correcting, instead escalating the confrontation as much as they need to before you realize you can't win. As always, it's the ubiquitous neurotypical social game: for whatever reason, they felt the urge to humiliate you, saw a chance and seized it, checkmating you. The socially superior can correct the inferior---never vice-versa. Being right about the correction doesn't matter; only the fact that they've decided to put you in your place and you've let them corner you into a position where they can humiliate you does. They don't need to be intellectually honest to humiliate you; just effective. There doesn't need to be any possible, alternate behavior for you that would avoid the humiliation, either.

With my typical aspie blindness to boundaries, I'm still not entirely sure what counts as a "correction" and what doesn't. For example, in written communication, if someone's just misspelled a word, I'm uncomfortable if I need to use the same word in my reply in case they take offence for implicitly correcting them (let alone if they think their spelling is the right one and I'm deliberately ignoring it for the sake of implying they can't spell, and, at the same time, giving away my ridiculous ignorance). The only other option would be to remember to always mimic the exact misspellings every single person I'm exchanging written messages with makes, which, in addition to being excruciating and a horrible waste of time, wouldn't be very safe, either, because, sooner or later, someone would feel mocked and take even more offence than they would if I just stuck to the proper spelling.

Excuse me, but there are numerous spelling errors right on this site and it's not NT's doing it - and I mean BAD spelling errors. What's your explanation for those, Mr. Bigmouth?

I concur, it's not some NT vs Autistic thing, as I said earlier it's laziness and bad habits.

I pronounce words like Ricky from the Trailer Park Boys:

Ja-LOP-a-nose (Jalapenos)
Hobillo (hobo)
Samsquanch (Sasquatch)

and so on.

I often get corrected.

By idiots.

I probably should have clarified, I find those things to be MORE common among NTs, but I shouldn't say they all do it, or that all autistics have perfect spelling and grammar. I didn't want to turn this into an aspie vs NT thread, and for that I apologize. I have a tendency to shoot my mouth off about things like this.

Also, there are a fair number of NTs on this site. There's nothing in the rules saying that you have to be on the autism spectrum to use this website. I've seen spelling and grammar errors from both NTs and aspies, so it's not like one group is better than the other in that regard. Really, NTs just tend to be less anal retentive about such things.



It's funny you mention that, because I've been watching the crap out of TPB lately. I love that show. I could go for some jalapeno chips right now...