Dyslexia mocking

[Idiotbasher]

Is it ever ok to publicly mock the spelling of a dyslexic person or someone who has poor spelling for any other reason really?

Any public mocking is bad, but publicly mocking someone for a disability could be considered a hate incident by management/the police.

No, and it is totally unnecessary.

No it's never OK, nor is correcting them "so they will learn" or any version of unless you are actually teaching them in a formal capacity and then it's managed specifically with absolutely no mocking.

There is a Facebook page about making the world a better place and they have posted a picture of someone's spelling mistake on a sign. It's really shocked me

It’s incredibly tedious. My spelling was poor as a child. As an adult I had sepsis and was luckily fairly unscathed although it took more than a year to be able to manage fairly competently. However it impacted my spelling horrendously. (To the point that I struggled to spell my own maiden name). People can be arseholes about it.

It's really shocked me

How bad was the spelling?

It's a hand written sign saying ' No fule' with the heading 'in the UK the crisis continues'

People only do it to put others down, that can never come from a good place.

@Idiotbasher

There is a Facebook page about making the world a better place and they have posted a picture of someone's spelling mistake on a sign. It's really shocked me

You haven't spent much time on the internet have you?

Mocking spelling appears to be 'fair game' everywhere. Including Mumsnet. Be it a translation error, dyslexia or someone who cannot spell for any reason. Or just a typo.

What has shocked you? The spelling or the mocking?

No it’s not.

The shock is because its from a group claiming to be kind and wanting to make a positive change in the world. The description they have of their page
'A page to encourage... a page to inspire...ideas to make the world a better place'

Well you can't know if someone is dyslexic or not can you? So perhaps we shouldn't mock anyone's spelling and grammar?

I've always thought spelling and grammar wankers must have really sad empty lives if I'm honest. But I'm aware people need to feel superior so...

My husband is very dyslexic, and I had to admit it is sometimes funny what he comes up with and we will have a giggle together. But I don't mock him for it though, he often asks me to spell things out for him and I try to help and be supportive if he asks. He's very intelligent, remarkable at mental arithmetic. It's an intimidate dynamic between us though, I don't think I'd feel right having a giggle at someone I didn't know well unless they encouraged that kind of dynamic. In my experience some people like to joke about it and others prefer when people move on as fast as possible from it when it comes up. I think it's okay to have sense of humor but to actually mock someone is very cruel and you really need to read the situation. I'm not dyslexic myself but I don't always hit the bullseye with spelling and pronunciation and have been made to feel like an idiot and it's really not a nice feeling. Spelling doesn't always translate well into pronunciation and vice versa. Just be kind really.

@Idiotbasher

There is a Facebook page about making the world a better place and they have posted a picture of someone's spelling mistake on a sign. It's really shocked me

So long as they haven’t identified whose sign it is, I don’t think that counts as public mocking.

No it's not ok. I see it here from time to time. If somebody feels that strongly they should private message the poster to correct them, not humiliate them on the thread.

Pathetic, and they should be pulled up on it every time they do it.

Generally I think the level of literacy and comprehension is pretty poor, but that's not the fault of the individual, rather the education system. As long as I can understand what they mean then Im good. Having said that I dont always understand some posts on mn.

I have once pointed out a grammatical mistake on MN but 1 she had asked for feedback and 2 it rather undermined the point she was making. She replied saying thanks and good point, so my conscience is clear .

@Idiotbasher

It's a hand written sign saying ' No fule' with the heading 'in the UK the crisis continues'

That doesn’t sound like holding up an individual to be mocked, but making a political joke to highlight their perception of a crisis in the U.K. education system.

The national average for leaving school with Maths & English C grade GCSE is around 45%. So more than half our kids are in education for 12 years and don’t pass those 2 GCSEs. Is our education system supporting them or failing them? I’m not teacher bashing, I’m government bashing.

I don’t think it matters that the “fule” sign may have been written by a dyslexic, someone with SEN, someone who is “just” crap at spelling… or possibly someone with English as a second, third, fourth language… I mean, piss off with criticising the spelling of someone speaking more languages than you!

I don’t think that matters if the point is to highlight issues in education and our schools needing more funding and our giving teachers more support and and appreciating their value.

It’s not the beet joke for that though - that’s a perfectly good attempt at an unusually spelled word.

I'm on the fence with this. No-one should be mocked but I'm dyslexic and really struggle to read things that are spelt wrong. If signs are spelt incorrectly I can't always make sense of it even if it's obvious to others because I don't read phonetically. The "no fule" example made me laugh because I read it as "no fools" it took me a while to realise it intended to read "no fuel". I have spent a lot of my life learning to spell and checking my spelling and I use software to help me so I do find it irritating when people don't double check things and produce something I can't read. I really appreciate that Mumsnet takes spelling and grammar seriously because I've actually been unable to use many other forums because I just could not read other people's posts at all because they didn't follow the rules of standard English I've painstakingly learnt.

StrictlyAFemaleFemale, why wouldn't it be? That's a completely different scenario, isn't it?

Disclaimer then; if somebody welcomes the correction, knock yourself out.

Clear language does matter. Usually you can discern what someone means but sometimes you can't. I remember a post on here complaining about a man "gorping" in the gym.

Now either that's a typo for "groping" or someone can't spell "gawping". But two very different scenarios. One would be a police matter for starters.

It was the latter, for those who are wondering!

Im dyslexic. By far the largest amount of mockery I have ever had in my life has been on Mumsnet.

It normally means someone has nothing constructive to say

I am severely dyslexic and believe I should be corrected if something is wrong. But I do personally think the people who are most defensive about their condition (and discourage improvement) tend to have mild / moderate diagnoses.

You don’t know the signwriter was dyslexic though…? You’re projecting that. It could just be they have poor spelling and vocabulary as they don’t read enough.

I once corrected a glaring apostrophe mistake on a sign inside a bar. It was a chalk-written sign and they gave punters chalk to draw with on the tables as a gimmick. So it was bound to happen. Anyway once I’d corrected it (because it was irking me) I got told off by the people who worked there as the person who wrote it was ‘really, really dyslexic’.

Apparently, “well maybe don’t let them write the signs” wasn’t the right answer. 😬