Definately vs. Definitely
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Topic: Definately vs. Definitely
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Subject: Definately vs. Definitely
Date Posted: March 26 2008 at 07:57
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Just another silly poll to waste your time as if you aren't already wasting too much time on this site. Is it just me or half the time when someone uses this word in a post or review it's misspelled? For some reason I find myself almost always having to correct myself when I type that word.  ------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened... 
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Replies:
Posted By: moreitsythanyou
Date Posted: March 26 2008 at 13:39
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I know. I always rely on spell check with definitely. Writing is fine but typing this word is frustrating.
-------------  <font color=white>butts, lol[/COLOR] |
Posted By: BaldFriede
Date Posted: March 26 2008 at 13:47
"Definitely" is definitely (sic!) the second-most misspelled word in the web, only being topped by "masturbate", which you will usually find as "masterbate".  -------------  BaldJean and I; I am the one in blue. |
Slartibartfast wrote:Posted By: Padraic
Date Posted: March 26 2008 at 13:49
Something I fail to understand is the whole "lose/loose" confusion in website posts. 
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Posted By: heyitsthatguy
Date Posted: March 26 2008 at 13:52
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lets see what spellcheck says definitely definately the latter was underlined with red the former is the champeen ------------- 
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Posted By: Padraic
Date Posted: March 26 2008 at 13:59
A useful tool to help remember the correct spelling is that the word contains the word "finite". |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: March 26 2008 at 14:00
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I notice that "definitely" misspelling a lot on this board and it always sticks out like a sore thumb, as do some others. Because I don't pronounce it as "definately, I, most definitely, am surprised by how often it is misspelled by different individuals. ------------- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXcp9fYc6K4IKuxIZkenfvukL_Y8VBqzK" rel="nofollow - Duos for fave acts |
Posted By: laplace
Date Posted: March 26 2008 at 14:07
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I don't pronounce this word at all, because I'm never certain of anything. Trust no one! hee. time for my favourite niggling word game. =) ten, net, feel, feed, feet, lent, indent, deftly, lift, lifted, felt, fleet, lint, fine, tine, dine, dint, line, lined, deline, left, lefty, inlet, lend, tend, elite ran out of time ------------- FREEDOM OF SPEECH GO TO HELL |
Posted By: Vompatti
Date Posted: March 26 2008 at 14:34
| Definately the other one. |
Posted By: stonebeard
Date Posted: March 26 2008 at 14:38
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Litefindeny I reject your reality and substitute my own. ------------- http://soundcloud.com/drewagler" rel="nofollow - My soundcloud. Please give feedback if you want! |
Posted By: BaldFriede
Date Posted: March 26 2008 at 14:48
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As to spelling: There is a certain difference between American and British spelling; I go with the British one which I was taught at school; but as a former professional translator I am familiar with the US spelling too. You will find that Jean goes with the US spelling, which is not surprising since she is originally from California.
------------- BaldJean and I; I am the one in blue. |
Posted By: Padraic
Date Posted: March 26 2008 at 15:05
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^^ That's why we have a Grey Room and not a Gray Room - it was founded by a Brit.
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Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: March 26 2008 at 15:07
Is definately an English spelling? I know of color and colour for example. ------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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Posted By: Padraic
Date Posted: March 26 2008 at 15:10
No, I think definately is wrong in both countries. There's a wiki entry on American v. British spelling differences - I've just been reading it. As you said, one of them is the -or/-our ending. |
Posted By: heyitsthatguy
Date Posted: March 26 2008 at 15:21
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the computernets knows all there's no more debate necessary in this thread -------------
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Posted By: BaldFriede
Date Posted: March 26 2008 at 15:45
"Definitely" is the same in the UK and the USA. It comes from the Latin "definere", which means "drawing a border line". The Latin word "finis" for "end" is at the root of it. ------------- BaldJean and I; I am the one in blue. |
Posted By: Petrovsk Mizinski
Date Posted: March 26 2008 at 19:59
All the w**kers spell it like masterbate  ------------- 
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: March 26 2008 at 20:58
Ha!, that's the one Peter tripped me up on.
 Having an estuary accent, I tend to pronounce lose with a long "o" sound, but loose with a short "u" sound, hence my occasional slip when writing the words.
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Posted By: The Quiet One
Date Posted: March 26 2008 at 21:05
| NO WAY! |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: March 26 2008 at 21:10
^ I think you'll find that's spelt "Norway"  ------------- What? |
Posted By: The Quiet One
Date Posted: March 26 2008 at 21:12
Are you sure cause with my mental calculations the 'r' is omissed, isn't it  
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: March 26 2008 at 21:15
Only if you use an apostrophe ... No'way. ------------- What? |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: March 26 2008 at 21:19
Everyone knows the proper spelling is spankingthemonkey. Excuse me this is just to test to see if w**kers is an autobleep word or Hughes censored himself. Update, w**kers is a forbidden word. ------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: March 27 2008 at 04:31
I think that the confusion is also caused by the fact that other, similar words are spelled with double "o" ... for example "to choose". choose/chosen, but lose/lost ... they're both pronounced similarly though. ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/users/Mike" rel="nofollow">Recently listened to: 
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Posted By: BaldJean
Date Posted: March 27 2008 at 11:54
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there is no logic to English pronunciation at all. just think of "bough", "thought", "though", "through" and "tough", which all contain the combination "ough"; yet in none of these words it is pronounced alike. or think of the noun "tear" and compare it to the verb "to tear". same spelling, but different pronunciation. on the other hand you have "sun" and "son", which are pronounced alike, something Shakespeare makes use of in the opening monologue of "Richard III.": "Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York". very confusing for the non-native speaker, and still kids learn how to write and spell correctly. which is one of the reasons I found the German reform of orthography which took place a few years ago completely laughable. although I know what has been changed and could write "correctly" I refuse to do so and stick to the old spelling; the new one just seems so put-on. Friede is of the same opinion, by the way, as are several German authors -------------  A shot of me as High Priestess of Gaia during our fall festival. Ceterum censeo principiis obsta |
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: March 27 2008 at 15:30
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^ daß stimmt natürlich!
------------- https://awesomeprog.com/users/Mike" rel="nofollow">Recently listened to:
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Posted By: paolo.beenees
Date Posted: March 27 2008 at 15:50
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^German revisors haven't been courageous enough (still nowadays I have always to check whether it is "Fuß" or "Fuss" or "Fluß" or "Fluss", and that's because in Italy we're not that good in telling a long and a short vowel apart. They could just remove the "ß" symbol completely, as your Swiss cousins did long time ago). The result is that German people can do whatever they like, while we - poor foreign students - must pay the utmost care to this issue. Das scheint mir so hässlich/häßlich! ------------- 
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Posted By: Padraic
Date Posted: March 27 2008 at 16:19
I hope not - I always thought that was so cool in the short time I studied some German. My (at-the-time) German girlfriend had a good laugh when I first encountered it and asked why there were all these "betas" in the German text. |
Posted By: BaldJean
Date Posted: March 27 2008 at 16:31
the "ß" symbol is there for a reason, and that is rules of pronunciation. and I am not referring to long vowel versus short vowel, I am refering to how "s" and "ss" are being pronounced. neither fits the requirement for the pronunciation of "ß". so instead of thinking of long vowel or short think of the plural and how the consonant at the end sounds in it if you want to get the spelling right ------------- A shot of me as High Priestess of Gaia during our fall festival. Ceterum censeo principiis obsta |
Posted By: Passionist
Date Posted: March 27 2008 at 17:09
I'd start by saying that to me it seems pretty obvious, definitely is the correct way of spelling. But I never thought of it that way. In fact, I've always thought of it as a word that derives from its origins, and dividing it to unconventional portions you can actually see, that definately could not pass as proper language. Also, some sense it makes too if you compare it to infinitely, when if really wrong you'll misspell them both, or realise you've been wrong, who knows. Well, we learn them really systematically in Finland, possibly because our language is very fonetical and written as spoken in almost every occasion.
I must disagree, though you're native, and I'm just beginning my studyes in German filology, and then, I started learning German in 1994 which was just before the reform, and have been grown to use the newe system. However, there has been discussion in England also for such a reform, which I'm totally opposed to. See, comparing these two languages, I find them very different in origins, fonetics, usage, everything. First of all, the isoglossic division in Germany is still pretty huge. Where-ever you go you'll meet different languages or dialects, which is understandable, as, well, the country has only been united for its time, 74 years before 1990 and even though Luther translated the bible a lot earlier, they still spoke their own Niederdeutsch in north for a long time as they did with the Hochdeutsch somewhere else, and all this was just vague divisions to very different dialects. Now that they've started reforming the language, it's basically only to make the literacy whole, as a great amount of common words are borrowed from other languages such as French and English and have in fact no rules as to how they might be spelled or pronounced, at least in the sense that would make them sound German. And that some don't use the imperfect form, the past tense as it is, makes no sense relly when others do use it. A little coherency here and there isn't such a bad thing when you're in a position where people who write as their profession are not aware what word stands for what. With English it's different. The linguistic reform that it went through was as you mentioned, with Shakespeare, and after that it's been build to last, to make sense, and that was quite a few years earlier than the German equivalent. Though now they're discussing making the English spelling easier and more simple for people that can't spell, for occasions such as this thread. However, the head of the SSS or Simplifying Spelling Society herself wants to actually speak as people do, and keep it in writing, I find this alarming. First of all, the examples go around creating an as simple language as possible, where the difficult, and not authentic English word "language" would be accepted in writing as "speak", "speek" or "language" which would ease up understanding and forming your own writing. I find it terrifying that someone is actually considering allowing this internet speak to become something everyday, or something commonly allowed. Especially when you notice, that while the Brits have serious problems understanding their own language and how it's spelled, the best speakers of the literal language there are in fact foreign speakers. And this is only because of the level of education there. We start school at the age of 7 here normally. When I was on 3rd grade, that is 10 years old we had visitors from England. And these kids were our age but couldn't understand as much of their own language, written, as we did. The goal should not be to lover the level of spelling to make the language sound retarded, as most internet talking does nowadays but to actually provide your children the means to learn what they need in their life. However we're talking about a society which still evolves round a class based society and in that way is really discriminative to people who can't speak properly or write. Germans problem is, that it's basically the language of the civilized world, with its history of philosophy and political thinking, and thusly it's not something you'd want to cut back on. however I find it great that they have decided to give everyone the same chance of using it. |
Posted By: Passionist
Date Posted: March 27 2008 at 17:11
Seems a bit long for such a topic  Well, I guess I actually am interested in what I'm going to educate myself into!
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Posted By: BaldJean
Date Posted: March 27 2008 at 17:17
I am not a native German speaker. I came to Germany at age 24. I was born in the USA and lived there for the first 24 years of my life. I came to Germany a year before you, though I had German lessons when I went to school ------------- A shot of me as High Priestess of Gaia during our fall festival. Ceterum censeo principiis obsta |
Posted By: Passionist
Date Posted: March 27 2008 at 18:10
Oh I've never been to Germany for more than 1 week, just studying the language here. I thought you were though, with the location in your profile and all. 
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Posted By: BaldJean
Date Posted: March 28 2008 at 03:22
let me give you an example of one of the stupid changes in German orthography: the stem of a plant used to be "Stengel", which was perfectly fine with me. in the new orthography it has become "Stängel". the explanation given is that the word is derived from "Stange", which means "pole, rod, stake". "Stängel" is supposed to be a diminutive of that word. they want to show the etymology of the word by this change of orthography. however, while it was written "Stengel" I never had to think about the etymology and could just take the word for what it referred to; now I am forced to think "little stake" and find the word absolutely ridiculous, because this kind of diminutive (using the ending "el" or just "l" for words which already end with "e" and changing the "a" to the umlaut "ä") is usually used in certain dialects only. so "Stängel" looks as if you are using a dialect word all of a sudden, which has a totally hilarious effect. an absolutely idiotic change. mark that I am not opposed to the reform as a whole; there were a few good ideas in it, especially about the using of commas. but they went too far in many ways. why did they not stick to optional spellings, as was allowed for words like "Fotografie", which I, having studied ancient Greek, always wrote "Photographie". this alternative spelling was allowed. but now they make a "Delfin" out of a "Delphin" (the German word for "dolphin"), and it no longer is optional. everything inside of me shrieks at that. and "filosofie" is an abomination; it will always remain "Philosophie" for me because of my ancient Greek background. there is definitely an inconsistency in this reform: while with words like "Stängel" they refer to etymology for the spelling they don't apply the same rule to "Philosophie". they tried to bring more logic into the spelling, but all they managed to do is create more confusion. which is why Friede and I oppose this reform and deliberately spell some words "wrongly" ------------- A shot of me as High Priestess of Gaia during our fall festival. Ceterum censeo principiis obsta |
Posted By: Passionist
Date Posted: March 28 2008 at 06:19
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Strange, but my studybook claims, that words like Philosophie can still be written as they are, and the replacement of Ph with F is just an option, which it wasn't before. And I also always found Stängel to make more sense
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Posted By: BaldJean
Date Posted: March 28 2008 at 07:01
you wouldn't think "Stängel" makes more sense if you were familiar with some of the German dialects ; it looks as if the author uses Hessian dialect all of a sudden and means "Stange". and what is the point of that?maybe "filosofie" is an option only, but I still don't like it. kids are not as stupid as these philogolists (sic!) suggest to us; on the contrary, all kids are geniuses. by allowing "filosofie" we lose the Greek roots of the word, and I don't think we should. as already mentioned, I never use "Fotografie" either, although that had been allowed before already; for me it still is "Photographie", from the Greek "photos" for light and "graphein" for "to write" (originally "to carve", because words used to be carved into stone; you can see the similarity between "to carve" and "graphein" still). as someone who had to learn ancient Greek for my study of history (and Latin as well) it is simply hurtful to the eye. what's more important: the Duden (named after Konrad Duden), a German dictionary, used to be not only the source for, it defined correct spelling; however, the editors of the dictionary don't acknowledge some of the spellings which are officially allowed now. so we have lost the one reliable source for correct spelling of the German language, which I personally think is a pity ------------- A shot of me as High Priestess of Gaia during our fall festival. Ceterum censeo principiis obsta |