Wednesday, September 28, 2011

New (sup)post

It's one thing when you make a valid, strong attempt to spell and fall short. Whether it's the 'i' before an 'e', or really difficult words like aneurism, Czechoslovakia and bivouacking, spelling can be a real bitch. But there are some misspellings that just can't be ignored. Modern text editors (like the one I'm using) spell check for you. Even your smartphone does. There's just no excuse.

Take the 'word' suppost for instance. This word gets used in text conversation alarmingly too often. So, what exactly is that, anyway? Maybe the name of an after dinner mint? Or maybe they just misspelled 'support', which is clearly the closest real word to that collection of letters. So, I googled it to be sure, and sure enough, it returns this result:
Ohhh.... Let's be real here: I knew what the person meant. And it's just that attitude of knowing the intent and not wanting to openly correct grammar that lets this plague persist. That and the fact that no one but a few of us even care anymore.

The crazy part of this all is that, after I searched for 'suppost', my satisfaction was only increased by the stunning showcase of superfluous stupidity that followed. Here are a few examples of search results returned:
  • Getting Pregnant Forum - Is the Sperm Suppost to Fall Out? -- Whoa! TMI... Wait, what?...
  • Why is it that blondes are suppost to be stupid and brunettes are ... -- I suppos(t)e this is a blonde asking
    • Incidentally, the top answer is "i dunnno but im both! does that make me both?"
  • Are pads suppost to be noise in the pants ? -- Great sentence. F-
I don't think I could have better summed up the kind of people that spell 'supposed' like 'suppost'. No way. I'm not even going to try. And if you're reading this, frantically skimming through your texts and emails for an instance where you used 'suppost' in a sentence, then good for you. Change starts from within.