I probably am, but more of a plea about spelling/grammar

[JaneS]

Right: I know on MN lots of people pride themselves on being articulate and intelligent. And lots of people pride themselves on correct spelling and grammar. And I know that the two sets of things don't always go together, so that there are posters who are very articulate and intelligent but whose spelling is shite, and also posters whose spelling is correct but who aren't especially articulate (like me, most days).

I expect we can all agree that it's rude to mock someone for poor spelling/grammar.

What gets me is that I've recently noticed. Often, when the OP has been slated for being inarticulate/using textspeak/ poor spelling, someone else will jump up and post "You are all being very rude to the OP, she may be dyslexic".

I'm probably being a twat, but when I read that my heart sinks a bit. I'm dyslexic and it's taken me ages to get to the point where (I hope) it doesn't show too much. Lots of other posters are dyslexic and spend lots of time and patience explaining politely why they write a certain way. But it seems as if to a lot of posters 'dyslexia' is an all-purpose excuse for objecting to bullying the OP.

Would it be possible for us just to object to bullying on the grounds of poor spelling, rather than always diving in to assume all poor spellers are wee helpless dyslexics?

I've got a feeling this post is really badly-argued so I hope some of my point gets across.

But rebecca, some people can't take those precautions. You might get sued if someone thought you were discriminating on the basis of their disability.

I'm not a poor speller, as it happens. But the point I am trying to make is that dyslexia is not all about poor spelling, or poor writing/reading.

If you employed me, you might read my CV and think you didn't need to make any allowances. But in fact, because I am dyslexic, I might need extra provisions made for me. You'd likely not know what these were, but it wouldn't be unreasonable for me to ask for them.

What worries me about your account is that you're saying you'd use my CV to judge whether or not I was disabled, basically. But I could easily ask a friend to re-write my CV, and if my spelling was a complete mess, you'd still be required by law to help me compensate.

alt - exactly! (rolling my eyes at whoever told you that)