Ask HN: Why is the spelling poor on HN?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6980274

by QuantumGood • 13 years ago

1 5 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I'm over 50 and wondering: is spelling less a part of education these days?

On any post with a lot of comments, I see obvious misspellings, not just loose for lose, but things spellcheckers catch easily, such as descretely for discretely, etc.

This surprises me because commenters here likely have higher IQs than most other public internet forums.

vojant• 13 years ago

For many people here (like me) English is second language. I try to improve my english by writing comments. I think it may be the reason why you see so many misspellings.

QuantumGood• 13 years ago

Thanks, vojant. Makes sense.

frostmatthew2• 13 years ago

This surprises me because commenters here likely have higher IQs than most other public internet forums.

That should only surprise you if you assume higher IQs correlate to better spelling. Have you seen studies that indicate a correlation exists?

pastpartisan• 13 years ago

locally we can expect a positive correlation exists. don't see too many dull kids winning selling bees

frostmatthew2• 13 years ago

don't see too many dull kids winning selling bees

Assuming for the moment all people who win spelling bees have high IQs that doesn't mean all people with high IQs spell well. That's just inappropriate generalization[1] on your part.

I think you're also failing to consider people leaving comments on forums are often more concerned with the content getting their point across than making errors (e.g. you wrote selling bees instead of spelling bees).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_by_example

Ask HN: Why is the spelling poor on HN?

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