The Importance of good spelling and grammar (206)

If someone has poor literacy skills, what are the reasons if not dyslexia in your opinion?

How do you tell the difference between someone who is dyslexic and someone who is not?

Bad mistake


My reply was meant for

@Carmengetme

Someone who has dyslexia usually states they have it.

I'm not here to cause trouble.

If English is not their first language, and they do not have dyslexia, and they are not pissed, then I lose interest in what they are trying to convey. It's not about intolerance. It's about losing interest and not being able to take them seriously.

I'm sure you will disagree Jac, because you're in that frame of mind. I simply gave my opinion as you are entitled to yours.

I don't wish to engage in a tussle with you.

I hadn't thought about tussling with you, Carmen. I imagine there would be much competition for that.

Okay, I won't tussle with you, but I will comment on the thread in general:

I just spelled 'competition' as 'competetion' and sat here looking at the red squiggly line, for life of me not being able to work out where I'd gone wrong. In trying to write this, I spelled 'competition', 'comptetion' 'compition' and 'competion' before I got it right. I have a post-graduate qualification. I haven't been hit with the stupid stick. I simply struggle to see things because of the way I saccade. (I've just spent 5 minutes trying to work out how to spell 'saccade'.)

It disturbs me if people have poor literacy skills if it disempowers them; access and all that jazz. It disturbs me if their environment (one heavily biased towards written skills) disables them. Dyslexia is not a disability in my opinion, but it's the environment which is disabling for some people. What can we do to make that environment enabling? Complaining, disparaging remarks is not enabling and likely to inhibit people from contributing to the forums. It excludes people unfairly.

I once chatted to a chap who mailed me with extreme text speak. I can read regular dyslexic writing, but some people use text speak as a coping strategy for extreme dyslexia which interacts with my difficulties with the written word. Unfortunately, this chap and I were unable to communicate in the written word which was frustrating for both of us.

You're right, I get in the mood for a tussle when I see threads like this. I think people are generally not clear, or ignorant of what it's all about. I think generally threads like this put other people down who are already disadvantaged and disempowered by their environment.

If people are getting pissy about spelling and grammar, perhaps they need to recognise the problem, and very often the ignorance, is theirs. Alternatively, recognise the issue for what it is - a communication issue between two people.

Y'know, I've never seen a thread complaining about people who have good literacy skills and yet that's part of the communication interaction being discussed here. The reason for that is bias and prejudice that somehow those with good literacy skills are 'right' and those with poor literacy skills are 'wrong'. Neither, is either right, nor wrong. It just is.

Good literacy skills doesn't make someone superior, it's just good fortune. People with good literacy skills might perhaps value their advantage, rather than put others down for their disadvantage. People with good literacy skills might perhaps use their advantage to enable others.