Spelling counts!

Has anyone else noticed a rash of misspelling in new examples recently, or is it just for the stuff on my watchlist?

Every day when I look at new stuff on my watchlist, I end up editing a couple examples with a "Spelling correction only" comment.

I suppose this thread isn't good for much besides venting, as I figure the people who read Wiki Talk are also likely to be more meticulous about spelling and grammar, but still....

I see a bunch. They're frequently bad examples or natter, too, so they merit outright deletion rather than correction. If a particular troper(s) is/are responsible for most of 'em, they can be banned.

I've seen a lot of them lately. Generally simple typos though. The ones on the pages I watch haven't been bad examples though. They've been more along the lines of putting a space in the wrong place or forgetting a letter.

Yeah, it seems more like a sudden rash of carelessness or something. Usually, the examples aren't problematic, or at least not so obviously problematic that I'm moved to do more than just quickly correct the spelling.

Maybe one of the tips at the top when you're editing should be about going back and looking at your most recent edit to make sure there's no typos. That's what I do and I usually catch them.

If it became a real problem, we could do like Fark, and require you to hit the preview button before posting.

I don't know if it's the tropes I'm watching, or what, but I swear, over the last couple days, a majority of new examples for tropes on my watchlist have had obvious misspellings! And most of them are perfectly acceptable examples, apart from that.

It's like there's a bad spelling flu going around or something....

I've found in other forums, over the years, that typos always increase at this time of year. My theory is that most contributors are in the northern hemisphere where it is now winter and they have cold, stiff, fingers while typing and that leads to mistakes. For some reason cold=typos. Just a theory.

^My theory is that it's just long enough that all the youngsters who got computers for Christmas have found this site and decided to start editing it poorly.

So January is the new September?

Pretty much.

I've noticed quite a few pages where articles - "a", "the", etc - are missing, or things are oddly pluralised. It looks like to sort of errors non-native English speakers would make. Has there been an increase in Tropers without English as a first language?

Examples? I haven't seen that very often (unless you count Japanese words which don't have plural forms).

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Kimono

For example, "In Japan, kimonos have a very special place in people's hearts." vs "During pre-WWII times, everyone wore kimono."

The latter could be correct if "kimono" is a term for the entire style of dress, not just the individual garment - like how "evening dress" can be a specific item, "she was wearing a black evening dress" or a term for a whole style "the dress code specified evening dress". However, the article doesn't make that clear, if it's the case. To those of us unfamiliar with such things (i.e. the intended audience for a Useful Notes page), it looks like unfamiliarity with English grammar. IMO, of course.

Not that I'm saying it's a wilful fault in the article; if "kimono" is the term for an entire style of dress, a line in the opening paragraph would clear that up. Otherwise, the page is easily edited to include the correct articles and plurals.

edited 3rd Feb '11 7:58:16 AM by AndrewGPaul

That or "Kimono" is supposed to be a plural in the second one. Not familiar enough with Japanese to make that call, though.

edited 3rd Feb '11 7:58:19 AM by TripleElation

I thought that, but "kimonos" is also used as a plural form, in the very first sentence, no less!

Actually, it could be used as a singular collective noun, but the tense confusion makes it unclear.

That's something that I understand happens often with Japanese loanwords or when mixing English and Japanese. Again, my understanding is shaky, but some words are their own plural in Japanese (like fish). Just using it like that feels wrong because that almost never happens in English, and putting on the s creates a word that does not actually exist in any language, so you run across a lot of both.

edited 3rd Feb '11 8:02:57 AM by TripleElation

My understanding is that all nouns in Japanese are both singular and plural. The only way to turn something into a plural (I believe) is to add "-tachi" to it, which literally means "and all the rest", and can also be added to proper nouns (often translated as e.g. "John and his friends" or "John and his party"). There also doesn't appear to be a way to indicate a group of X's in particular; "kimono-tachi" in Japanese could mean multiple kimonos or it could mean a kimono and a bunch of other clothing sitting next to it.

There are a lot of little subtle things that can trip up a non-native speaker, even if they're pretty fluent. Things you likely wouldn't be able to get intuitively, and kinda just have to know.

For instance, if a visitor to America wants to buy a sheer leg covering that she can wear with a skirt or dress, the proper way to say it would be "I would like to buy a pair of pantyhose." There's no inherent "rules of English" reason we couldn't say "I would like to buy a pantyhose" or, if more than one is needed, "I would like to buy three pantyhoses," but saying either would mark the speaker as a foreigner.

Anyways, I do see that sort of thing here from time to time, but most of the stuff I was talking about in the original post looks like plain old misspelling by writers fluent in, but careless with, English.

To expand on this ^ a bit, "I need to get pantyhose" and "I need to get a pair of pantyhose" both mean the same thing — I need to buy one set of the leg covering in question. If I need to buy multiple sets of the leg covering, it would be "I need to buy three pair of pantyhose."

Or three pairs of pantyhose. "pair" and "pairs" seem to be interchangeable as plurals of "pair", possibly as a result of poker terminology.

edited 3rd Feb '11 9:44:35 AM by Fighteer

"I need to get pantyhose" is ambiguous, though - it could mean "I need to get ONE pair," as in "I have a need for a pair to go with such-and-such outfit" or "I have a run in the ones I'm wearing, and need to replace them right now." Or it could have a meaning like "I need to stock up, as I wear them often and need several pairs."

Actually, it could be used as a singular collective noun, but the tense confusion makes it unclear.

So, is it? Or does the article need the grammar tweaking?

... putting on the s creates a word that does not actually exist in any language, so you run across a lot of both.

Well, adding an 's' makes it a word that now exists in English.

Anyways, I do see that sort of thing here from time to time, but most of the stuff I was talking about in the original post looks like plain old misspelling by writers fluent in, but careless with, English.

True; there's no shortage of laziness. I just brought up the subject in my original post here because it seemed like I was seeing it more often recently. Of course, when pressed on it, only one subject came to mind, so I may have been mistaken. In this specific example, I didn't want to change it and then get accused of ignorance.

"pair" and "pairs" seem to be interchangeable as plurals of "pair", possibly as a result of poker terminology.

Is that perhaps more prevalent in America? I've heard it in the UK, but only some dialects.

Japanese words are all singular since they use counter words to determine quantity. So one kimono is the same as ten kimono, the same as ten samurai or ten katana. It's really confusing to English speakers because we have that s at the end.

Edit: I changed all the ones in the article to 'kimono' for the sake of consistency (see the stinger on Katanas Are Just Better), but I definitely agree something should be said on the useful notes page about the Japanese plural system.

edited 4th Feb '11 10:23:21 PM by defunctzombie