My Support Forums - View Single Post - Form of dyslexia? Or just being careless?

ToeJam · Sep 14, 2014, 07:17 PM

Thanks for the replies. Did a little digging and found an article on copyediting.com that pretty much summed it all up (put in bold what really stood out):

Quote:

The incorrect homophone phenomenon: Mental block or sign of illiteracy?
Saturday, 1 Dec 2012, by Mark Farrell

Data flies by today at such an incredibly fast pace that formal writing often seems a lost art. Many editors and writers bemoan what they see as an increase in mistakes, misuses, and typographical errors in messages. One of the most common errors is typing the wrong homophone for the context in which it is being used.

I recently read a post on an editor’s discussion list in which someone decried a job seeker as “illiterate” for typing your when he meant you’re. Although the applicant had written other things that caused me to question his professionalism, I was not fazed by his incorrect use of the homophone. It’s a mistake I’ve made when I fail to review my wok carefully, and I have a pet theory about why people often type the wrong homophone in a text or email message even when they know the difference between their meanings.

My theory is that when typing, writers have an image of a word in their minds and type that particular word. They may know that the word they are looking for in a certain context is another homophone but use the one that comes to mind first. They don’t catch the error immediately after typing it or don’t review their work, so the error stands. For example, I’ve seen people mistakenly type no in IMs when they meant know. I’m certain they know the difference, but their brains are processing the words before they’ve had a chance to relate them to the idea they are trying to express, which can lead to homophones being typed incorrectly.

The misused homophone phenomenon is more likely to be found in unedited and rapidly typed text and email messages and article comments. They are often part of rapid-fire exchanges in electronic conversations, so they are apt to be scrutinized to a lesser degree, if at all, by the writer than other, more formal writing would be. For the latter, writers often rely on editors to read their work to ensure that such mistakes are caught; as we all know, spell-checking programs don’t catch homophone errors.

Camille Nelson, an editor from Oxford, OH, says spell-checking programs are partly to blame, with autocorrect functions following hot on their heels. “Words that are spelled correctly yet used incorrectly don’t usually get flagged,” wrote Nelson in an email to me. “We rely on spell check so much that whenever we don’t see the red line under the text we just produced, we assume we’re okay without necessarily reading things over. While that may or may not indicate laziness, it’s certainly overly optimistic. And if we add the stealth editing of autocorrect to the pot … one wonders how many homophones are autocorrected concoctions, and not of the author’s making at all. So the mental block might be a tendency to relax and think we’re in good hands with spell-checking tools and technology.”

While I haven’t found any research to confirm my suspicions about why homophone mistakes happen, I found an interesting discussion on Ask Metafilter. The answer from Orthogonality (posted January 3, 2009, at 7:39 a.m.) was the most comprehensive and compelling. Orthogonality distinguishes the differing thought processes involved in speaking and writing and posits that the brain “reaches” for the most commonly used word construction. Writing, according to the poster, was developed by humans relatively recently in our history and is a conscious exercise (as opposed to the instinctual process that produces speech) in which separate and distinct thoughts are sometimes “jammed into homonymic boxes,” and during which we become more likely to make mistakes when we are tired or distracted. Orthogonality believes that the writer “hears” the word and commits the wrong one to paper.

For example, a friend of mine, an accomplished editor, recently typed in an email to me seen when he meant scene. I know he knows the difference, but I’m guessing that his brain filled in the word as he “heard” it, devoid of context.

Reaching for the wrong word is a problem that crosses over from typing one’s own thoughts to recording the spoken word. I’ve occasionally done transcription work, and in the process of listening to a tape recording of dialogue and then transferring the words to a text file, I’ve often been surprised that what I’ve typed is not what was said word for word. Instead, I’ve typed what I expected was going to be said, following a logical speech pattern or train of thought. But in reviewing the tape, I’ve found that the words I filled in were not the words spoken at all, though they usually do closely reflect the meaning and intent of the speaker. Still, I’ve needed to retype the words to fulfill the demands of exactitude in transcription work.

The instantaneous nature of typing is a process that leaves us open to such errors unless we very carefully proofread before we send, which we may not always do for casual messages. But unless the messages are riddled with other types of errors, I don’t think misused homophones necessarily indicate a deficiency in the aptitude of the writer. It’s simply a byproduct of the changing nature of writing in the information age. Writers and editors, more than ever, need to take care with messages that matter. If you’re corresponding with a close friend and an error slips in, it can be the source of a chuckle between you. But if you’re writing in a public forum—say, posting comments on Facebook or tweeting those 140 characters—take a moment to ensure that homophone errors (as well as any other kind of errors) haven’t slipped through. I frequently use the edit function when posting Facebook comments, and it’s nice to have that ability on that site, as opposed to, for example, emails, where once they are sent, it’s usually too late to cover your tracks.

- See more at: The incorrect homophone phenomenon: Mental block or sign of illiteracy? | Copyediting.com