Date Diagnosis: Dyslexic or Dumb?

[Dancing David]

Thanks for your input, Dancing David. I can't imagine how frustrating dyslexia must be.

It was hard to learn how to read, or being shamed for not being able to sound out or spell words. I actually memorize all the words that I know, I sort of look at the first three letters and the last two letters of long words and learn them by the shape of the word. I now do serially read the letters when I encounter a new word. But hey I graduated from college and I am just fine. I love to read.

I have a math brain so it is a trade off, and I learn foreign language just fine.

 

[TjW]

Have you considered that it might have been posted after, say, a few glasses of wine? Editing while tipsy can produce interesting effects. And I imagine the effects probably vary from individual to individual.

My father once told me about women, "Son, no amount of liquor can explain away a hundred misplaced semicolons."

OTOH, asking "Were you drunk when you wrote this?" is probably not going to go over well.

Or "wtf? r u 420 hi?"

Ah, you were lucky. My father never had the talk with me about women and semicolons. I had to pick it all up on streetcorners.

 

[Gravy]

When I first write to someone I'm interested in, I try to show that I know how to write. Maybe she's way more casual than that. I don't think so. She seemed to want to make an impression with the dress. I'm going to do an experiment to test this tonight, involving skepticism.

 

[bruto]

Are you very sure English is her first language?

 

[Emerson Street]

Independant of what has been written in this thread:

I am dyslexic, and quiet badly so (it took three goes as quiet, and I am still not sure it is the right one), I have no idea what ellipses are, I hate contractions as I am never sure where the ' goes, and I have terrible sentance structure.

I spell phoneticaly most of the time, and what I think in my head is not what necissarily comes out in what I type.

all punctuation is a gamble, but never do I omit strings of words, but occasionaly a word will get ommited as my hands try to keep up with what my brain is thinking, I doubt this helps you, but it is how I , as a dyslexic work.

P.S

I have deliberatly not edited any part of this post apart from the initial quiet bit, unlike when I normaly post and agonize over when I have spelled something correctly.

 

[Dancing David]

I think there is a lot of silly class snobbery when it comes to spelling English, I can spell just fine in Espanol and Italiano, up until some point in history it was quite alright to alternative spellings, a friend of mine read a bio of Merriweather Lewis and appaerntly he would spell the same words different ways many times.

I am all for imajinery spelling, I was started in California, they used phoenetic spelling, my brain doesn't do that. So 'sounding out' things does not work for me. I mean why is it not emajinashun instead of imagination, orthographic reform and removing antiquated stupidities from the spelling would help a lot.

Spell check is a wonder although often very funny.

 

[geni]

First, the syntax was odd, as if it was written by an eastern European whose English used to be pretty good but hasn't been used in years. The prose was direct, unsophisticated, and flat, with few longer words. She's a native of the U.S.

Might be dyslexia.

Next, some of the things she wrote in error:

says instead of saying ("I am not says they should change.")

Might be dyslexia.

you instead of your

Typeing error.

coarse instead of course

Might be dyslexia.

it instead of it's
are instead of and
mined instead of minded
interferes instead of interference
image instead of imagine
"seen what the doctor's say" instead of "see what the doctors say"

No idea.

wander instead of wonder

Might be dyslexia.

And she
–omitted words several times ("I not sure yet.")

Might be dyslexia.

–many times used a semicolon where a comma, colon, or period was needed. A two-sentence paragraph had seven semicolons. I've never seen so many semicolons anywhere.

Not seen that one. From what I've seen dyslexia will tend to cause people to drop all punctuation beyond the most basic. Might be a coping mechanism. For example I will tend to use brackets very heavily rather than breaking out commas. If it is a coping mechanism it isn't one I've run across before.

–used contractions (can't, don't, won't) but never with pronouns (no I'm, I'd, you're, you'd, we're, they're, etc.)

Could be a personal idiosyncrasy but could be a defence mechanism. "I'm" isn't to bad but the others are more problematical. Some annoying Homonyms there.

–at least 20 times used ellipses just for the hell of it

Some people just write like that. I had a lecture who's handouts were factoids string together with ellipses. It worked for him.

Then I remembered all those substitutions and omissions and thought this might be some sort of dyslexia. About all I know of dyslexia is letter transposition, and she didn't do that. The words are spelled correctly but they're the wrong words.

Yeah spell checkers have that effect.

I'm not looking for a relationship, so this isn't a big concern. As an English major, however, I'm very concerned.

Why? Dyslexia doesn't stop someone being interested in the theoretical side of language and if not dyslexia then this would be a chance to introduce someone to a wider range of english that they had previously experenced.

Person to ask though would probably be KittyNH

 

[Gravy]

Back from the date!

No black dress, but something just as good: tight faded blue jeans, black boots, and a sexy fitted white blouse with some frills down the front. Cleavage-tickling necklace. I complimented her on the blouse and asked if it was an Anne Fontaine (I go past the Fontaine store all the time and have been in many times. Pricey.)

"It is," she said, surprised. Points for Gravy! "How did you know?"
"I know everything that happens in New York. It's my job. And my burden."

So far, so good. Over dinner I told her that I had studied graphology for a year and used to do it as a sideline for money. I pulled out a pen and paper and asked her to write in script a one-paragraph story about something fun that happened in her childhood, and I'd tell her about herself based on the structure of the writing.

She wrote about teaching her dogs to swim, and then to use a pool slide and diving board. I took the paragraph and did a detailed analysis: "See how your double Ls are far apart, but open? That means you..." When I was done I apologized for being a little rusty at it and asked how I did.

"Very good! You know me well. Maybe 80% accurate?" I then told her that I knew nothing about graphology (although I used to do palmistry for fun), but was giving her things that could apply to anyone, combined with what I already knew about her and using clues she was giving me while talking. She suggested that I actually could do that for money. This led to a discussion about skepticism, the paranormal, etc.

The purpose of the graphology ruse was to get a sample of her writing, of course. It wasn't good, but it wasn't as bad as on the internet. The syntax was clipped and the prose lifeless, like her email. She misspelled a couple of words. "No semicolons?" I said. She said she finds them more useful than commas for the way she thinks. So, her odd style can't be attributed to lazy textese. But I couldn't tell if there was a problem like dyslexia either.

I confessed that I'd already seen "Man on Wire" but said I hadn't so I could ask her out. She thought that was cute. We saw Woody Allen's "Vicky Christina Barcelona" instead, which I recommend.

But here's the thing: she was dull. Really dull. A combination of not terribly smart and not terribly interesting. It was work trying to keep things entertaining. We parted with a "talk to you soon," but I won't be asking for another date. Did I mention how hot she was? *Bangs forehead against desk*

Thanks for all your input...;...interesting stuff!

 

[joobie]

maybe she was drunk when she sent the email.