Nathan Bransford - The Forums

I keep seeing neon window signs advertising 'Phone unloking' in the town I just moved to in England. I want to go in and tell every shop owner, "There is a C in that word," but I resist. What spelling errors make you laugh or really get you frustrated?

I'm not the world's greatest speller - I'm one of those people that types a word, knowing I'm going to spell it wrong, and click on spell-checker only to discover that my spelling was so far off that the word I want isn't even on their list. Makes me feel rather stupid.

But, alas, I always seem to find misspelled words everywhere... Someone who can't spell is finding spelling errors. What does that tell you!?

The biggest thing that makes my eye twitch is actually a punctuation error: people that use quotation marks to draw attention to a word or phrase. Quotation marks are to indicate that you are using someone else's words or that you mean those words in an almost-sarcastic-type of manner. If you're just trying to make it stand out, try underlining, using bold, or ALL CAPS, but not quotation marks! yeesh...

One of the worst for me is a misspelled thread subject in a forum (especially a writers' forum). Sometimes I have to avoid looking into certain areas until the thread has passed on to the second page because it so fries me up. I snark at them when it seems safe to, heh-heh.

I scribble out apostrophleas (pesky punctuation parasites) in grocery stores if I'm carrying a pen :D

I have an ex-boyfriend who's been spelling "tongue" as "tounge" and "desperately" as "desparately" in his blog and all other writings for as long as I've known him (over ten years). Drives me nuts. I know I mentioned it to him at least once when we were still dating, but I guess my gentle nagging didn't stick. At least we broke up before I became a linguist.

I can't stand it when people (writers especially) critique the work of one "Earnest Hemmingway."

Then again, since so many people count their favorite authors as "J.K. Rawlings" and "Stephanie Meyers," I don't hold out much hope for people getting ol' Ernie's name right, either.

J.Jessamyn wrote: The biggest thing that makes my eye twitch is actually a punctuation error: people that use quotation marks to draw attention to a word or phrase. Quotation marks are to indicate that you are using someone else's words or that you mean those words in an almost-sarcastic-type of manner. If you're just trying to make it stand out, try underlining, using bold, or ALL CAPS, but not quotation marks! yeesh...

Oh yeah, the unnecessary quotation marks always give me a chuckle. There's an apartment complex near me that's advertising with a sign that says GREAT HOMES "FOR RENT" ... as though you're going to walk in with your renter's application and the apartment manager is going to say, "Oops, just kidding!"

I use the autocorrect option in Word but sometimes if you’re typing quick and not paying attention you end up with some very funny sentences

It's not a spelling error but coming across the word utilize makes me wince with a chalk squeaking on the blackboard kind of pain.