Why can't people spell "faint"?

[Cookerhood]

I keep seeing "feint" instead of "faint" on Covid test threads. Why? Surely "faint" is a simple word with "feint" being more unusual?
(I've now typed it so often that both look odd )

I'm 46 and only learned that there were two words discreet, and discrete, this year.

@StarbucksSmarterSister

Why can't people spell "faint" Why can't people spell faint?

Fixed it for you.

Seriously, I know there are people with dyslexia but the large number of people whose spelling, never mind grammar, is shit astounds me. Is it lack of teaching/spelling tests, laziness, too much reliance on auto correct?

Loose instead of lose
Serve instead of served (ie first come etc)
Of instead of have

are just 3 that drive me nuts.

Poor teaching is one of the reasons, but so is the general decline in reading. Some people don't read, or confine their reading to the internet where much of the material is never proof read or edited. If you have only ever seen it spelt wrongly, the chances are you will go on to replicate the error.

Would a feint line be the sort you get when you deliberately put orange juice on a lateral flow test to get a false positive?

My university lecturer wrote loose instead of lose this morning. That annoyed me.

My major irritation is ect instead of etc. how had can three letters be to get right?!

@Masdintle

I see 'fir' instead of 'for' beginning to creep in too. Im guessing it's to do with pronunciation. I think people see words misspelled and start to question themselves, and if they re not sure, adopt and further spread the misspelling.

@Masdintle, no this is purely a typo- I accidentally write this all the time, look where the 'i' and 'o' are on the qwerty keyboard.... sausage fingers!

@UnaOfStormhold

Would a feint line be the sort you get when you deliberately put orange juice on a lateral flow test to get a false positive?

No

I too am archaic and was not taught English grammar at school. We finally began to learn it in secondary school when our German teacher couldn't bear our ignorance any longer!

And we were also not taught cursive handwriting as it was seen as old-fashioned in the 1970s and another hindrance to our creativity (along with grammar ).

But I do think that spotting inaccuracies is connected with how we see/ hear things. I can see and correct misspellings but can be quite unwittingly careless with numbers.

And I agree with pp that autocorrect does us all a disservice. If you only type from a laptop not from a phone you won't understand the battles to undo the autocorrects that our devices impose.

Unpresidented for Unprecedented
There's a big difference between presidented and precedented

I think there are sometimes gaps even if you are well-educated and well-read.

I wasn't taught a lot of grammar at school but am an avid reader - of books with literary merit as well as popular fiction. My job involves communicating well and being extremely precise. I studied a language until the age of 22. I have a post- graduate qualification. Yet I still hadn't come across "discrete" until the last twelve months.

Also in my twenties starting work I remember not knowing things like saying "To which I am referring" in formal writing, rather than "What I am referring to" in informal speech.

OddsnSods with one particular poster it's every single time they write 'for'. Not a typo if it's every single time. I tend not to read the usernames when ready a thread, but when it see 'fir' instead of 'for' it is almost always the same poster. And sometimes the word occurs several times in the same post. Occasionally I see a typo where others have caught the wrong letter. (I just typed ketter instead of letter but my phone auto corrected.)

It's not a problem, I'm not complaining, I'm just noticing like discreet/discrete, loose/lose, rein/reign. People don't always spell things write

And I've made a typo in my previous post. I was supposed to type 'reading' but it came out as 'ready'. Autocorrect again. My mistake.

@UnaOfStormhold

Would a feint line be the sort you get when you deliberately put orange juice on a lateral flow test to get a false positive?

Also I find these days that I suddenly get things wrong that I did used to know. I've even found myself using the wrong kind of their/there/they're. It's just brain overload. Sometimes I look back at what I typed and it's a right load of ungrammatical nonsense.

@Masdintle

eurochick there is one poster in particular who always uses 'fir' instead of 'for'. Distinctive. Several others use it quite a bit, could be a typo.

That's Samsung! My phone does that too. Bloody Samsung's strange reasoning.

Feint is a printing term. To do with spacing and horizontal stuff.

Faint means light or hard to see.

I don't think I've ever seen feint used as an adjective, only as a noun or a verb. Faint could be all three.

'Feint' is really archaic usage and wasn't in normal use in the UK when anyone posting on Mumsnet was learning to spell. Even my dictionary from 40 years ago says 'the narrowest rule used in printing paper (19th century alternative to 'faint' )'

I studied a language until the age of 22. I have a post- graduate qualification. Yet I still hadn't come across "discrete" until the last twelve months.

If you'd studied a science you would have done.
I once saw a punning ad for a now-defunct chemistry software application: "Be discrete, use Quanta".

Definitely and Defiantly- I can't explain why it irritates me, it just does!

@BabyInTheJungle that is helpful! I will try and retain that for next time

One I've just seen on another thread - balling. I was balling my eyes out.

No. The word is BAWLING.

I remember being praised on my vocabulary when I was a child, I wasn't taught most of this, it's just come from reading and absorbing what I'm reading.

It really bothers me when I read something from a newspaper and they've, for instance, used 'principal' instead of 'principle'. Or they've described someone with dark, straight hair as 'flaxen' because they've assumed it refers to straight rather than the colour.

I know spelling and meanings evolve but the evolution seems to be constantly dumbing stuff down. It's annoying.

Most recent one I saw online was a photo of the inside a card saying ' can't wait to walk you down the isle'... that made me chuckle.

Verbally when people say 'it will set a president' instead of 'precedent'

@KirstenBlest

Unpresidented for Unprecedented There's a big difference between presidented and precedented

Exactly this!

Feint is a printing term. To do with spacing and horizontal stuff

It's also a false attack/decoy, and is used in that meaning as a football skill (disguising the intended next move)

Would a feint line be the sort you get when you deliberately put orange juice on a lateral flow test to get a false positive?

I see 'fir' instead of 'for' beginning to creep in too

That must be a mistype, as i and o are next to each other, and it doesn't get autocorrected as both are real words. I don't think it's just one poster - I see it quite a lot. Don't/dint are the same sort of mistake

@HeathenPlayingHouse

Definitely and Defiantly- I can't explain why it irritates me, it just does!

Because someone being defiant is definitely likely to put your back up?

He’s instead of his.

Or his instead of he’s.

WHY.