Commonly Misspelled WoW Words
Posted by 
Heartbourne on Tuesday, April 21, 2009 - 173 Comments Tags: ogrimmar, rant, spelling, trade chat
Heartbourne on Tuesday, April 21, 2009 - 173 Comments Tags: ogrimmar, rant, spelling, trade chat
UPDATE:
Usually my posts get a dozen or so comments. Lo and behold when I logged in today to see over 30 angry comments on this post.
Project Lore represents a variety of players and backgrounds. Sometimes the difference between preaching to guildmates and writing posts vanishes in my mind and I realize I'm not talking to players who are exactly like me. The comments brought up many good points; some players are casual and haven't had time or care to learn all the jargon, while others are non-native English speakers or have speech disorders like dyslexia.
While I stand by the thesis of my post that communicating clearly with proper spelling and grammar will make you stand out in busy channels like Trade or LFG, the counter-response is well taken. Some players PUG people often and would rather get a group going as fast as possible than nitpick. Some players play on less populated servers and don't have the same type of Trade or LFG channels that are flooded with spam.
This is all true and I should have taken these things into account before publishing that post. I'll leave this post up for posterity, but I want everyone to understand that this is a rant stemming from personally dealing with novice players and wasting hours in instances from PUGing inexperienced players and this does not reflect on all of the writers or staff of Project Lore. I myself make spelling and grammar mistakes, and this post and many of my others are full of them. I leave the ones I found as is and highlight them to show that everyone makes mistakes, even when their message is carefully thought out.
Nothing makes you look more like a novice when desperately trying to PUG a heroic group than misspelling some simple words. Many players opt to leave the spam-ridden trade channel because there is little value in seeing statements like "LF Haels and tnak h occulus pst". If one cannot type simple four letter words, then many players will have doubts about that individual's ability to play effectively.
One of the most commonly misspelled words as of late is "dual". Many players talking about "dual wielding" or "dual specs" as "duel wielding" or "duel specs". A duel in WoW is a simple fight to the death between two players. Dual implies that there are two of something, namely weapons in your hands or specs that you switch between (ending a sentence with a preposition).
Another one that died out pretty early in WoW's lifespan but creeps up occasionally is rogue. If anyone is in trade looking for a "rouge" to open their lockbox, I would sooner ignore them than waste a hearthstone cooldown and my time going from Dalaran to Orgrimmar and back to help someone who doesn't take their time to proofread their sentences.
And while we are on the subject of Orgrimmar, note that there are two R's (three R's n00b!). The city is not "Ogrimmar" nor "Orgimmar". If someone is looking for an enchant in "ogrimmar" I do not know where to meet them, and I don't waste my time trying to speak with such an illiterate individual.
Everyone's least favorite dungeon, Oculus, is one that is difficult to PUG and misspelled more often than not. Note that there is one C. It is not "occulus". Occulus guards the Caverns of Time. Oculus is a dungeon located in Coldarra.
Now I know that everyone makes mistakes and there are some younger players who haven't yet developed their typing skills. However, the road to level 80 is long your first time through and you learn many things while leveling. You should learn common terminology well. People who correct their spelling with an asterisk gain a little bit of respect in my book, even though they further spam up my chatlog so I have to scroll around when looking back at other, more relevant messages. If I am about to spend 1-3 hours in a dungeon with 5 people I don't know, I'm not taking risks on someone who cannot spell simple words correctly. Stay alert!
What are your opinions? Have you found a good guild and left trade/general chat, or do you still revel in that cross-city chat?
Usually my posts get a dozen or so comments. Lo and behold when I logged in today to see over 30 angry comments on this post.
Project Lore represents a variety of players and backgrounds. Sometimes the difference between preaching to guildmates and writing posts vanishes in my mind and I realize I'm not talking to players who are exactly like me. The comments brought up many good points; some players are casual and haven't had time or care to learn all the jargon, while others are non-native English speakers or have speech disorders like dyslexia.
While I stand by the thesis of my post that communicating clearly with proper spelling and grammar will make you stand out in busy channels like Trade or LFG, the counter-response is well taken. Some players PUG people often and would rather get a group going as fast as possible than nitpick. Some players play on less populated servers and don't have the same type of Trade or LFG channels that are flooded with spam.
This is all true and I should have taken these things into account before publishing that post. I'll leave this post up for posterity, but I want everyone to understand that this is a rant stemming from personally dealing with novice players and wasting hours in instances from PUGing inexperienced players and this does not reflect on all of the writers or staff of Project Lore. I myself make spelling and grammar mistakes, and this post and many of my others are full of them. I leave the ones I found as is and highlight them to show that everyone makes mistakes, even when their message is carefully thought out.
Nothing makes you look more like a novice when desperately trying to PUG a heroic group than misspelling some simple words. Many players opt to leave the spam-ridden trade channel because there is little value in seeing statements like "LF Haels and tnak h occulus pst". If one cannot type simple four letter words, then many players will have doubts about that individual's ability to play effectively.
One of the most commonly misspelled words as of late is "dual". Many players talking about "dual wielding" or "dual specs" as "duel wielding" or "duel specs". A duel in WoW is a simple fight to the death between two players. Dual implies that there are two of something, namely weapons in your hands or specs that you switch between (ending a sentence with a preposition).
Another one that died out pretty early in WoW's lifespan but creeps up occasionally is rogue. If anyone is in trade looking for a "rouge" to open their lockbox, I would sooner ignore them than waste a hearthstone cooldown and my time going from Dalaran to Orgrimmar and back to help someone who doesn't take their time to proofread their sentences.
And while we are on the subject of Orgrimmar, note that there are two R's (three R's n00b!). The city is not "Ogrimmar" nor "Orgimmar". If someone is looking for an enchant in "ogrimmar" I do not know where to meet them, and I don't waste my time trying to speak with such an illiterate individual.
Everyone's least favorite dungeon, Oculus, is one that is difficult to PUG and misspelled more often than not. Note that there is one C. It is not "occulus". Occulus guards the Caverns of Time. Oculus is a dungeon located in Coldarra.
Now I know that everyone makes mistakes and there are some younger players who haven't yet developed their typing skills. However, the road to level 80 is long your first time through and you learn many things while leveling. You should learn common terminology well. People who correct their spelling with an asterisk gain a little bit of respect in my book, even though they further spam up my chatlog so I have to scroll around when looking back at other, more relevant messages. If I am about to spend 1-3 hours in a dungeon with 5 people I don't know, I'm not taking risks on someone who cannot spell simple words correctly. Stay alert!
What are your opinions? Have you found a good guild and left trade/general chat, or do you still revel in that cross-city chat?
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Reader Comments (173)
Congrats on breaking 100 comments!
Seems the only thing that draws out a ton of commentators is when a post drastically splits the readership.
get over it?
doesn't bother me unless i have no idea what they're actually trying to say.
If you play on a EU server you would have over 90% of the server on ignore if you ignore them for simply misspelling a few words :)
But ye, I understand how certain grammatical errors can be a bit annoying.
I can't really spell shit either but I just shorten it so i don't look like an idiot. DTK, OC, OK, AN, UP, whatever - people seem to generally understand all of those by now.
I simply just abrieviate Orgrimmar= org Occulus= occ and so on its not hard
I'm still SO MAD!
Dude who the hell cares what u think if u dont like to pug with ppl cuz they cant spell to oculus ur a first class idiot.:(
"""If you play on a EU server you would have over 90% of the server on ignore if you ignore them for simply misspelling a few words :)
But ye, I understand how certain grammatical errors can be a bit annoying."""
I'm sorry for the dubleposting again but THIS GUY IS TOTALY RIGHT. If you was playing on the EU realms you was going to trow yourself from the near window or something. We aren't all leaving in america stop listening to Rammstein!!!!
I call Orgrimmar, Orgymoar.
Just because it is a orgy of idiots even though most of the best players is on both sides, though the Both Sides have Asshats. >.>
What a bunch of touchy, PC, over emotional whiners
GreeM your spelling makes my eyes hurt, stop please.
We all recognize typos when we see 'em, and I love that WoW kinda forces you to communicate clearly. However, some of the shorthand used in typing can kill clear expression. There has to be a balance between clarity and expedience.
I'd be willing to bet Heart wouldn't ignore the following call for his services:
LF Rouge in open box in Ogrimmar...tipping 20g!
He'd be falling all over himself to jump in the Org portal and get the spell-challenged n00b in a group to get that tip!
People like me who type too fast or use shorthand might bother you and for that I am, in a sense, sorry. Please keep in mind, though, that said door swings both ways and people like you annoy the hell out of us.
Unlike most of these posts, I agree with you. Most of these words aren't too difficult to spell, and it's quite bothersome. I fully embrace the grammar Nazi within.
OK so all of you who read his post and AGREED with him realize... he said chatlog.. which is supposed to be chat log.. it's two separate words..
btw most of you who agreed with him also made a few mistakes.. like everyone's favorite pop star said "Everybody makes mistakes"
I misspell words all the time, in a game where i am not granted much time, i tend to type faster than i normally would so i can get in a group faster
And basing their playing skills on their spelling skills is just showing us all how much of a jerk you are. I have made around five comments on this blog... because it just ticks me off to the point i want to punch a wall in..
at this point i whould prefer a monkey to you a monkey doesnt care if i miss a a latter or if i add and extra latter ma monkey whould be more pleasent to talk with
My finance and I both get pissed when people mix up you're and your. Pet peeve.
BTW this is the 4th blog on this topic and i dont ualy blog so much on one topic so congrats heart
oops did you under stand that do you need me to correct it
Wow, i think that many of you are missing the point...
Heart is trying to point that spelling should be more important than many people believe...
Spelling can cost you a spot in a PUG, work, or whatever... if only you had spent the extra for or five seconds typing.
and yes, i misspell more words than any of you do to my habit of forgetting to press . most guild messages end up like "/g i'll be there in a secwwwwww"
I posted in the blog above out of annoyance thinking you had taken this post down out of the sheer anger you've caused, but I see it's back up with an edit, clarifying your reasons along with somewhat of an apology.
If you would have thought for a minute before ranting and raving through project lore about the amount of people you have upset through your elitist grammatical gibberish, and realized that 'hey, some people aren't native english speakers, or could have some sort of dyslexia' and stated that in the first place then you wouldn't have half as much bad press than what you have now.
As it stands you've lost the respect of many a visitor to the site. Too little too late with the addendum I'm afraid.
The point being, if you had clarified your reasons for the blog, and had a think before actually blogging, you would find that a lot more people would have agreed with you about things. Personally, it is a pet peeve of mine with the lack of spelling and everything, but it's not one that gets me ranting and raving.
Way to be controversial.
Nobody's perfect, no matter how hard they try. I take time to make sure I spell correctly when I can, but I've messed up before too.
Back when BC first launched, some guildmates and I were in Hellfire when a Fel Reaver appeared (and you know how much warning those things give you - they're like Devilsaurs, invisible until it's almost too late), and we needed to move. I did a raid warning so it wouldn't get missed - what popped up on the screen was "FEL REAVER! WE'RE SOOMED!" - Clearly I meant "doomed", but was typing too fast to spell check it.
It kind of stuck, too. We had an arena team at one point called "Evile Soom" (Evile is another "oops" moment from our guild chat).
Bottom line, the article reads like you think yourself flawless, and those who make mistakes (no matter how trivial) are "beneath" you.
I'd take someone who can't spell Oculus (which I should point out, is a made-up word anyway) over someone who comes off as a snob any day of the week.
the onlly reason why the people who agree with heart or are not boothere by his post is because thier ability to spell is not insulted i whould bet dollar to donuts that most of the people who agreed with heart were just heart with diffrent screen names than again i have had more then a few psychotic bastards yall at me cause i made a few spelling errors greeM looks like your bad "gremmar" killing some of these idiots ceep going let see how many of them you can take
molly seems like your finance and your are a perfect match your both crazy who will one day bless the world wiht crazy ass children and than make thier life hell
teh point is you are making to big deal of it teh gremmar shat as long you under stand the person its fine you definintly didnt make it any better by insulting them as a player based on on thier gremmar you are intitled to your opinionbut it is way more to constanly bothered because of your gremmar then it is to see a person miss one latter " ooh they spelled the like teh i dont if i can make it tell my kids taht it is naxx not nexx"