Glider18 Is Resigning---Effective Now

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Yea, that. Firefox puts the little red line under misspelled words. If they're not misspelled, but just the wrong word, I may or may not figure it out. Sometimes I catch it before posting, sometimes I go back and edit it, sometimes someone points it out to me.. I don't usually mine people telling me about mistakes, especially if they're nice about it. Or just mention that they're obsessive-compulsive.

I proof read but not obsessively. I hate to go back and correct mistakes after I've submitted a post, mainly because I don't know when I will exceed the limit and have that little report at the end of my post: Last edited by Cosmiccat etc. And while I have your attention Glider, since you are or have been an English teacher maybe you can answer this question that has bothered me for a long time. When a sentence ends with an abbreviation, as: Last edited by Cosmiccat, etc. - must an additional period (.) be added as in Last edited by Cosmiccat, etc..?

I'm a little obsessive over spelling things right and usually scan anything I write 3-4 times for major grammatical errors, extra words, etc., but somehow that doesn't guarantee I'll be understood by the reader. I also never use microsoft spell check because it's stupid.

I never use spellcheck. I write carefully, read, reread, post, read again. If I find an error after it's gone, I hate myself - and it's reassuring in a way to be addressing a community in which it's recognised that a phrase like "I hate myself" might not be hyperbolic.

Confession time. For my 1st masters my topic is (mostly) photochemistry with respect to uptake of chemical (Lolium multiflorum). My depthy thesis was scrutinized by peer review after months of writing/revisions.

So, at time of official print, for publication, I then caught my mistake! And it's a doozy. In chemistry we say "dissociate," meaning (for example) "Salt readily dissociates in solution" where dissociate meant "to dissolve in" or "is readily miscible in solution."

But spell-check, which I trust implicity, caught my spelling of "dissociate" and auto-corrected as DISASSOCIATE which means has an entirely different meaning! The term "disassociate" is a psychiatric term meaning, in essence, "to mentally disconnect" or even "psychiatric break," as in a mental state. NOT my intent at all! As you might imagine I was quite mortified to learn of my spelling mishap and that it's too late to fix. I immediately informed my advisor (a chemist). His advice "....Say nothing! Bet nobody will even notice!" In fact, no one (that I'm aware of) ever did notice. But my advisor and I still laugh about this mess-up (but not at the time).

Glider18, Lab Pet is, by nature, a mediocre speller. I have learned, by rote, to spell and do marginally all right. Somehow when I make a 'typo' I REALLY mess-up! Another more minor mess-up of mine (since we're amongst friends and I'm confessing): Once when programming, which is not my forte, I needed to write "Middle Figure" to designate 'position in middle.' Instead, the ultimate Freudian slip. I inadvertently wrote "Middle Finger." Not my intent! And has other connotations too....sigh.

Lab Pet has difficulties with looking up words in the dictionary (online or otherwise) since if even one letter if off then I'm lost. Same with phone directories. Glider18 - no worries. You write and express well. I promise we'll forgive if you mess-up with spelling. And the Lab Pet won't tell, I promise! <no red ink pen>

I am confident about my posts because I usually know when I misspell things and when I royally mess up the spelling of a word. I hardly ever misspell words without knowing I misspelled them anymore, and the occasional word or two is okay for me because I don't think people are so judgmental that they would dislike me for a typo or two.
I do understand how proofreading can be addicting though, before I hand in any assignment I proofread it at least 3 times. It used to be 4 or 5 times when I was in my writing program, because they had higher standards there.

I don't obsess over it but I have to use the spell check and read over what I type to make sure some of it follows something that could be understood by a reader. Takes so long. I find errors in every post I do.

Congrats.

I made huge strides in personal happiness when I learned to stop sweating over the small stuff as much as possible.

I even quit going to a few web forums because it was all argumentation and drama. When I realized nothing of value mattered if I proved myself right, I saw no point in wasting energy on it.

Congratulations on being able to give that up. I'm so obsessive about spelling and grammar that people used to line up next to my desk in English class to have me edit their essays (though that's not to say I don't make mistakes). However, I don't mind this particular obsession; it makes me look a bit more intelligent.

I edit my posts and everything else I write or say very, very carefully, to the point of often erasing it altogether. I have to, if I'm going to express myself, or it'll all be salad (or so I fear - I haven't tried - maybe when I get even older I'll be more brave.)

However, since learning about autism I cut myself more slack than I used to - throughout my teens and twenties I thought everything that wasn't externally scripted (directly or indirectly) was "leaking" and not allowed.

Best wishes with your refrain from proofreading/editing Glider!! (I've already corrected ONE mistake!)

Does anyone write out a nice, thorough long post, only to proofread and end up deleting the whole post altogether? I do this a LOT. Another thing I hate, is when I feel I've got a good point, that requires more writing to express effectively, and then get distracted by something in my environment that needs my attention. Even if it's brief, I come back, sit down, reread and think it all sounds dumb and cannot for the life of me continue writing it. Perhaps this is my attention defecit, but it drives me mad, I've wasted a ton of posts due to this reason.

Thank you to all who have shared your thoughts on proofreading and editing your posts. I see I have not been alone with this obsession. Yes Sbwilson, I have deleted posts before after writing them---though not too often. LabPet---I enjoyed your post on "middle finger"---quite funny.