Spelling errors

And how I do tend to make them.

No matter how carefully I try to keep most big errors out of my lines here, or while messaging, they do tend to sneak in. These are usually not the real "error" type of errors as much as they are the "mentally typing faster then your fingers are able to handle" type of errors.

I am quite good at avoiding words like catastrophe, with an F, will mostly not type "their" when I mean "they are" and should be counted on to hardly ever use simply the wrong word to say what I mean. Words are important, don't mess about, I always say.
But I will gleefully swap letters, misplace spaces and use the next letter over. Things like "Ye sI wuold love to go to am obie" aren't at all rare, for me, allthough I do usually apologize for them.

While chatting or messaging, I usually state quite quickly that spelling is completely optional, as long as I can get the gist of what is being said and the other party can understand me as well. This means the departure of the need to go back and revise everything. Now, only when I genuinely misspell or make a true mistake I can go back and edit.
That's while chatting. This blog-thing, I try to keep as clean as possible, but I do notice that usually I post with a few missed errors. I apologize for this. I do tend to re-edit once in a while to get them out, but errors are like cockroaches, if there's one there's more and short of burning down the house, nothing is completely going to eradicate them.

This brings me to the more general subject of language. A true love of mine, to be honest. I love language. I love puns, and wonderfully built sentences. I like big words and I like most accents and I adore local idiom. I can get excited by learning new words in other languages than my own, and a multi-language pun has a good chance of making me need to change my pants.

A friend of mine told me about a joke she shared with her mother, who was standing looking out of her apartment-window. Both friend and mother are Dutch, both speak very good English, and the mom is living in Florida. So naturally in conversations the two languages intermingle freely.
So the mom is standing looking out the window at a lilac bush. Lilacs, in Dutch, are called "seringen" which the mom said, and my friend replied with "well, pick them up then!"
This can have me in spades, and a load of people are never ever going to get it. Thing is, seringen sounds like "ze ringen" where "ze" is Dutch for the English "They", effectively getting "they ring".
Capital stuff, and very, very stupid at the same time.
I am a fan of the mom anyways since I was allowed to spend a week in Florida with them and found her snooping through the bag of books I bought over there. She sort of apologized with a statement I can no more than full-heartedly agree with: "It was a bag of books out in the open, it seemed lonely, so I snooped." Obviously, I could've made exactly that point.

Language. As I said, I like playing around with words. Messing them up a bit, using them to twist meanings and likenesses. Language is a type of magic, really. Relatedly, I know I truly fucked up in dealing with another good friend of mine when the language turns chilly, and polite.
I am the sort of person that will press boundaries, and will toy with you and your emotions every once in a while, but when the language suddenly turns all nice and friendly, things are very, very wrong.
Suddenly, words are chosen with extreme care and precision, they are pronounced with a cold exactness that would put a glacier to shame. I know the worst rows I've had with friends would seem to an outsider like a prime example of polite conversations, and conversely the best evenings I spend with people would prompt that same outsider to call the police or at the very least hide the sharp objects.
Which is good, my friends agree on the importance of words, and like it's acceptable to have one or two plates in the sink when friends come over, the house needs to be spotless and shiny when enemies arrive. So as well wordwise, between friends a slip up can be made, but in a tight spot, be scrupulously correct.

Actually, fairly, the wrong word in the wrong place can get on my tits in a way that is nearly unexplainable. People who use "labyrinth" when they should be using "maze" should be shot at sight. There is a difference people, a big one.
I was sitting on the bus a while back, and two people were having a conversation, and one of them said "...and so I nearly got lost, it was like a labyrinth" and I was ready for a massacre. Cause you can't get lost in a labyrinth, it has no forks, only bends. The danger of the labyrinth isn't in being unable to get out, it's in the desorientation of distance, of turns and twists. You can always just follow the path out of a labyrinth no worries, but they are symbolic for changing you.
In contrast to a maze, where you can get lost because it has different paths and pathways. A more complete view of this subject will be given in an upcoming post, I think.

There are more examples to be given, obviously, and each and everyone annoying enough to prompt a bitchslap from Mother Theresa. Don't use self-conscious when you mean insecure, it's not the same thing. Don't use gay when you mean stupid, or dumb when you mean uninformed. Just don't.

Using the right words is a mark of respect. Like spelling, if it is done right, I know. But rest assured, gentle reader, that I can and will respect you in the choice of my words a good deal better than I ever will trying to spell correctly.
That is, those of you I do respect, all others are free to find as much snubbing as you want in the badly typed mess I usually leave here.

Greetings for now,
Kevin.