User 426151

Choose Phillip Morris, Not Altria

I'd like to make two points regarding naidle's recent post:

(1) The word "authors" is not spelled with an apostrophe unless you're using it to refer to something that belongs to the author (e.g. the author's pen) or unless you're using it as a contraction, generally for the phrase "author is" (e.g. that author's crazy). In fact, only very rarely is it the case that the use of an apostrophe is necessary or even a good idea except for purposes of indicating possession or indicating a contraction. I'm really not sure what is it with this thing about adding apostrophes in words for no reason, but it's a troubling phenomenon I've seen around the web a lot lately, especially when a word ends in the letter "s."

(2) In a critique of someone's spelling, a bizarre mistake like inserting an apostrophe in a word for no apparent reason is, well, a bit odd, to say the least.

I also want to say that I know plenty of very smart people who for whatever reason do not spell well, often when they are trying to write very quickly, and sometimes because they just aren't that good at it and don't care as long as they are close enough to get their ideas across. I have noticed that you often see this kind of thing in people who are fluent in multiple languages--and studies do show that the more languages you know, the worse your vocabulary is likely to be relative to the single-language speaker in whatever language you're talking about, and I would think there is a positive correlation between vocabulary and spelling ability. In other words, it seems like it's probably the case that the brain has only so much room for word memory.

I doubt it makes much sense to impeach someone's credibility as to the contents of a writing solely on the basis of spelling errors, unless of course the contents of that writing involve a spelling critique.

I'm not holding MO or PM, and would recommend neither at this time.


On Jul 06 10:39 AM naidle wrote:

> Why did you write this as if your opinion is contrary to the norm?
> I rarely, if ever, see author's suggesting Altria over PM.
>
> You also have multiple spelling errors so maybe 5 minutes is too
> short to properly give investment suggestions?