Agreed Regarding Dictionaries ESPECIALLY regarding usage. My two pet peeves are Celibate (which is abstaining from marriage NOT sex (that's chastity)) and nauseous (which means causes or causing nausea, comparable to noxious, NOT feeling nausea, that would be nauseated). The dictionary has added the more common and long time incorrect usage of both of these words to their definitions.
On 9/17/07, Joseph Pate <jpate@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Kimberly:
Regarding spelling, I find dictionaries to be a little too tolerant these
days, i.e. if enough people misuse a word for a long enough time, it
shows up in the dictionary too. However, that's more about usage than
spelling -- and 'irregardless' of that, you have to have some trusted
source for your own sake. Just make sure your kids know that the
dictionary may not always be correct, but you still expect them to spell
at least as well as the dictionary you have ;-)
I'm amazed at the number of online bloggers/posters who will submit
rampant misspellings (more than a few obvious typos) and wonder why they
are not taken more seriously. At least run spell-check, even if it's not
always helpful (e.g. only context-sensitive checkers will catch the common
than/then problem, and I doubt most of them would catch affect/effect
properly)
-Joe (who once won a county spelling championship in high school, but who
also not only choked on 'blatant' at the state level, but knows enough to
recognize that his skills are somewhat atrophied, 20 years later)
>>--Kimberly (who double checks my spelling lessons against the dictionary
>>before I teach my kids)
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