Deliberate Dialect Spelling Is Not the Same as Bad Spelling

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is John Melton.

Hi, John. Welcome to the program.

Hey, what’s going on?

Well, talking to you, what’s going on with you? Where are you?

Beautiful day. I’m in Mysterious Waters, Florida.

Mysterious Waters?

For real?

That’s the name of it?

Actually, it’s the name of our subdivision.

We’re just south of Wakulla Springs along the Wakulla River, which is just south of Tallahassee, about 26 miles from the state capital.

Sweet. What kind of powers do they have?

Is it a life-giving rejuvenation?

Oh, of course.

Every time I jump in, it’s wonderful.

Well, what’s on your mind in Florida?

Well, I was just thinking, I’m sort of new to the social networking thing, and I just recently got me a Facebook account, and I was just sort of wondering if it’s socially acceptable to purposely misspell words on these social networking sites, mainly to make the words sort of look like on the page, they sound when they come out of my mouth.

I’ve got about 31 friends on Facebook and most of them know about probably 500 to 800 friends. So when they see me on Facebook, they know exactly, okay, that’s John. We know how he spells. He spells like he talks.

And as time goes by, I’m not really worried about my resume. I’m 44 years old. I don’t need a resume. I need a job. So it’s just an interesting question I had when I was listening to your show.

Well, now you’ve got to give us some examples, John, of how you write things differently on Facebook.

All right.

Well, for instance, when I say my, when I’m referring to myself, it’s M-A-H as referred to my, A-M-Y. And that’s what it sounds like. It sounds like that’s what you’re saying, my.

Yeah, exactly.

That’s just the way I talk. I’ve always spoke or spoken that way. And I tend to spell that way on these social networking sites the way I talk.

And it comes from a long time ago, back when email was more the social networking thing, and it was a little bit slower. But I used to email an old buddy of mine who lived close to me, and I’d email him and talk to him, and he would say, man, you sound just, I can hear your voice when I read your email. I sort of got it from that.

So when I do this, I, okay, here’s a sentence. I took my dog down to the river this morning for a swim. It was nice and cool, I tell you. It was aight.

Mm—

-huh.

And you think aight meaning all right.

Oh, aight.

Aight, you know.

And did you spell it D-A-W-G?

Dog, D-A-W-G, yeah. I guess that’s sort of a Georgia thing.

And river.

And the river living right close to it.

John, I’ve got to say, you’re not alone in this. Lots of people do this. And I love that you said exactly the thing that is true, which is that when you write like this, people hear your voice because you are doing a good job of representing your pronunciation in written form.

If you stuck to standard spellings, you know, maybe there’d be less content there. They’d feel less of the emotion, feel less of a personal connection. It wouldn’t even be as literary. There’s something literary about writing in a kind of modified spelling.

People aren’t judging you for it, are they?

No, absolutely not. I haven’t seen any judgmental thing at all. It reminds me, I remember Louis Grisard. I read a book of his several years ago, and I think he said something to the extent that people up north think we talk funny, but God talks like we do. Let there be light.

It’s funny. I find this behavior across all segments of society. Online, I find it among young people, teenagers. I find it among black folks and white folks. I find it in foreigners and locals. I find it in even the most sophisticated writing because it is a way that we can drop out of the formal registers of English and be a little more homey and comfortable and friendly.

There’s something about abbreviating or dropping a G, for example. Just dropping a G off the end of a word can do amazing things for letting people know that you’re just plain folks. I mean, sometimes it’s calculated in the case of some politicians, and sometimes it’s natural. And it can do really great things. It improves communication, right?

Oh, absolutely.

I think when I’m calculating, I start adding the G’s.

Oh, I see.

You improve your…

I mean, you go back to standard spelling when you want to impress people. Is that it?

I guess so. But as for the people that I communicate with on a daily basis, they get the old dog, and that’s what they get.

With that kind of attitude toward language, you’re well on your way to getting a lot of Facebook friends. You should look Martha and I up.

Oh, cool, cool. I’ll do that.

John, thank you so much for calling today.

You bet.

Thanks, man.

All right.

We’ll see you online.

Take care.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Tell us how you misspell words on purpose and what it means to you. Send us an email to words@waywordradio.org or give us a ringy-ding-dillo on the telephone, 1-877-929-9673.