Automation

[Grant Edwards]

On 2013-11-16, Larry Hudson <orgnut at yahoo.com> wrote:

>> And yes, people can _easily_ tell the difference between errors
>> caused by being lazy/sloppy and errors caused by writing in a second
>> language.
>>
> Not to start another flame-war (I hope), but our Greek friend is a
> good example of that.  It's not surprising he has so much trouble
> with his code.
>
> However, that's just a side comment.  I wanted to mention my personal
> peeve...
>
> I notice it's surprisingly common for people who are native
> English-speakers to use 'to' in place of 'too' (to little, to late.),
> "your" in place of "you're" (Your an idiot!) and 'there' in place of
> 'their' (a foot in there mouth.) There are similar mis-usages, of
> course, but those three seem to be the most common.

And I'm convinced that the more proficient the typist, the more often
one makes those sorts of mistakes when composing text.  If you've got
to hunt and peck on the keyboard, then you've got to actually think
about how each word is spelled, and you realize which one you're
actually typing.  If you're a proficient touch typist (and are typing
something on-the-fly rather than transcribing), I think the "sound" of
the word is more directly connected to the fingers without benefit of
grammatical conext invervening to choose the correct homonym.

I don't make those mistakes typing on a phone (where I have to
actually think about the act of typing), but I do make them with a
regular keyboard, where I don't have to think about mechanics of
typing the words.

OTOH, maybe that's just me...

-- 
Grant Edwards               grant.b.edwards        Yow! I am having FUN...
                                  at               I wonder if it's NET FUN or
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