Spelling or Grammar

The question came up the other day at work of whether a certain class of spelling error should actually qualify as a grammatical error.  This is the class of spelling errors where the misspelling is actually a valid spelling of a different word.  The specific example given was the words "there," "their," and "they're."  Because these words all sound the same, it is quite common for inexperienced writers to use the wrong one.  One person argued that this is not a spelling error, because the word written is the correct spelling of a different word.  The argument was that the writer actually used the wrong word, and thus the error was grammar, not spelling.

Before we can answer this question, it is essential to understand how grammar and spelling fit into language as a whole.  Spelling is simple.  Spelling is the pattern of glyphs used to represent words in written language (much like spoken language uses patterns of sound).  In some languages, symbols have specific meanings.  Using the wrong symbol might dramatically change the meaning of the writing.  In other languages, symbols represent sounds.  In these languages, using the wrong glyph might change the meaning of the writing, but the misspelled word will still sound very similar to the intended word, so readers might be able to determine the intent of the writer from context.  In some languages (notably, English), only patterns of characters have meaning.  Characters may be loosely associated with sounds, but the pattern is often more important than the sounds.  In these languages, spelling and context are both important to the written language, and the sounds are most frequently used to determine how an unfamiliar word sounds (often mildly incorrectly).  By definition, spelling is purely the realm of written language.  It has no connection to spoken language aside from its use in recording it as written language.

Grammar is about structure.  The grammar of a language determines the order of words and where certain kinds of words go within that.  It can also dictate where words with similar meanings are used, for example, "is" is used with singular subjects and "are" is used with plural subjects (in English, contextual grammar covers possessiveness, plurality, gender, and tense; some languages include social status in their contextual grammar).  Grammar does not cover using the correct word, except where the correct word is dictated by structure or context.  For example, if a person says, "I am going to Grandfather's house," when they really meant to say, "I am going to Joe's house," no grammatical error was made.  The person just said the wrong word.  Misspeaking is not inherently a grammatical error.  Grammatical errors occur when words are used out of order or when a synonym of the appropriate word is used in the wrong context ("is" vs "are" or "his" vs "hers" for example).

Now that we have a basic understanding of what spelling and grammar are, let's look at the original question again.  The author has written some text.  Perhaps he accidentally wrote "there" when he meant "their."  On the surface, it looks like a simple misspelling.  The catch is that author did use a valid spelling of another word.  To the reader, the author used the wrong word.  Is this a grammatical error?  It is not.  This is not even in the realm of grammar (he could have written "truck" and it would not be a grammatical error either).  The new word may be used in a grammatically inappropriate place for the word type, but this is merely a symptom of using the wrong word.  It is also not a context sensitive synonym of the correct word.  The problem is not with grammar.  The author used the wrong written word.  The author probably regards it as a misspelling of the intended word.  To the reader, the wrong word was used.  Even in the spoken language though, it would not be a grammatical error.  In fact, in spoken English it would not be an error at all.


In spoken English, "their," "there," and "they're" are the same word.  They are the same word that just happens to have three different meanings.  In spoken language, we differentiate based on context.  Words with multiple meanings are incredibly common in spoken language.  Some written languages differentiate by using different spellings for the different meanings.  This is so common we have a word for it.  Homophones are words that sound the same but are spelled differently.  In other words, this problem does not exist outside of the written language.  It is only a grammatical error if the correct word is an incorrectly used context specific synonym of the word actually used.  The actual word used was a totally unrelated word, in the written language, which means it cannot be a grammatical error.

I could continue to discuss the different options, but this just brought up something else we should look at.  The written language and the spoken language are different.  The spoken language has a single word with three definitions.  The written language has a different word for each of those definitions.  The fact is, they are not the same language.  In fact, they don't even use the same senses.  One is conveyed through sound, while the other is conveyed through light.  They do use very similar grammar (grammar in the spoken language tends to be looser, but aside from that they are the same).  The author is not merely writing English.  The author is translating spoken English to written English.  It also turns out that the author does not know written English as well as spoken English.  The consequence is that the author used the wrong word when he translated.  The author knew the meaning of the intended word in spoken English, but while he did know the three words it could be translated to, he did not know the meaning of those words.  He guessed and picked the wrong one.

The actual problem is not spelling or grammar.  The language construct may have been grammatically incorrect as a result of using the wrong word, but the problem is still not a grammar error.  The error was mistranslation.  It was covered up by the assumption that spoken English and written English are the same language.

Distributed Labor

There is this free game called Foldit.  This game is about folding proteins, and it has been used to quickly solve a problem that scientists have been working on for years.  The best part is that all of the work put into solving this problem was free.  In trade for challenging entertainment, gamers solved a protein folding problem in 3 weeks, that scientist were not able to solve in 13 years.  This 3 weeks worth of labor was worth more than 13 years worth of wages paid to the scientists trying to solve the problem, and it was done entirely for free.

Now, I have discussed this before, so I will only mention it briefly.  There are tens of millions of unemployed Americans.  Many of these people are on some kind of welfare, and at least one of welfare options for the unemployed requires them to continuously search for jobs that largely do not exist.  In short, they are being paid to waste their time on a fruitless endeavor.

Even worse is the assumption that we need these people to work to maintain our economy.  I want to be clear here: In the U.S., we produce 5 times the food we need to survive.  In fact, we produce pretty much everything necessary for survival in huge excess.  When unemployment was around 11% late last decade, we still produced far more than we needed.  The fact is, the 5.5% of unemployed people looking for employment in May don't need to work to keep our economy going.  No one is going to starve or even be mildly inconvenienced by the fact that these tens of millions of people are living on welfare instead of working for a living.  They are far more important as consumers than as laborers.

Instead of forcing them to go out looking for work that does not exist, I propose we try something else.  I propose that we replace the looking-for-work requirement with a requirement to play games.  At least some of this time should be spent playing games like Foldit (they should play other games as well, because greater variety will help them to become better problem solvers).  Instead of trying to get unemployed people to find mundane work that is little more than a waste of time solving trivial problems, we should leverage this untapped resource of enormous amounts of labor solving real problems that will save lives and help us to solve the truly important problems.

The cost of welfare is nothing compared to the value of this work.  We are talking about an enormous resource that costs a fraction of the price of professionals.  This would free up scientists to do work that no one else can do.  It would dramatically accelerate the advance of science and technology.  And the best part is that our taxes spent on welfare would be producing far more value than forcing people to look for non-existent jobs.

Instead of trying to fight for eliminating welfare, which would cause the greatest economic collapse in the history of the world, let's fight for making participation in productive games replace the worthless job search requirement for getting welfare benefits.

Why You Shouldn't Trust Your Psychic

Everyone who frequents psychics and fortune tellers knows than many people don't believe in that kind of clairvoyance and divination.  They have a few friends, family members, or acquaintances who tell them what an idiotic waste of money it is.  It does not phase them though.  They keep doing it, and they keep believing it.  I want to show you why you should not trust your psychic even if you are positive that he or she can actually see your future.

First, a disclaimer: I don't believe that psychics or fortune tellers can actually see your future or talk to your dead ancestors.  Harry Houdini tried to find one that could, and he managed to prove a great many of them to be frauds.  He never found a legitimate one.  Statistically speaking, this is evidence that even if there are legitimate psychics, they are extremely rare, even among those who claim to be psychic.  Most psychics are merely good information gatherers.  They learn as much as they can about you, which gives them enough information to guess at your future with better than average odds.  This said, I am going to approach this from the point of view that most psychics are legitimate.

Let's start by discussing why your psychic tells people their futures.  Is it for money?  A psychic needs to make a living, and most psychics charge money for a "reading."  Even those that don't charge directly are generally getting paid for it.  For example, a psychic on a television show that gives free readings on the show is still getting paid by the network.  This covers most psychics, but maybe there are some that are doing it for fame instead of money.  They might give free readings, but they are doing because they want your respect and admiration, and because they expect you to tell your friends about it, increasing the psychics fame.

Now, is this really a problem?  It is.  Imagine this: Your psychic is doing a reading on you.  She sees you acting in a play that someone is recording.  She sees that recording end up on YouTube.  Now, she knows that you are interested in acting (she is a legitimate psychic, of course she knows).  Unfortunately, she does not see any acting in real movies in your future.  The thing is, if she tells you, "In your future, you will act in a few plays that will get on YouTube, but you won't actually be in any real movies," she will almost certainly loose your business and your respect.  She has a serious dilemma.  She can tell you exactly what she saw, and loose income or fame (and if she does this for everyone, she might end up homeless or with a bad reputation), or she can say things that are technically accurate, but which she knows you will misconstrue to mean more than it really does.  So, she tells you that she sees you working in the movie industry.  (It got recorded and put on YouTube, so that makes it a movie, right?)

Another major problem is moral dilemmas.  What happens if your psychic reads your future and discovers that you are going to make a mistake in a few days that will ultimately cause hundreds of people to suffer and die?  What if she also sees an alternate future where you die before the mistake is made, and the disaster does not occur?  Does she tell you the real future, or does she lie and tell you something that will end in your death?  What if one of her family members is affected?  What if the choice is between you causing hundreds of people to die or one of her family members dying?  How can you be certain that she is not going to choose the path that causes you harm?  What happens when a real psychic runs into a serious conflict of interest like this?

This brings up the last major problem.  A real psychic knows how you will be affected by what she tells you.  This means that she has some control over your actions.  Perhaps there is no future in which you would murder someone.  That would mean that she could not tell you anything that would cause you to commit murder.  Maybe there is a future in which you would loose your job and become homeless.  Maybe there is a future where you would cheat on your spouse.  Maybe there is a future where you would end up on jail for several years.  Maybe there is a future where you would end up seriously addicted to meth or heroin.  Maybe one of these futures comes out far better for the psychic, and she chooses to tell you things that will cause you to end up in that future.  In other words, when you are getting a reading from a psychic, you could be letting that psychic control your future.

What it comes down to is that it does not actually matter if your psychic is legitimate or not.  If she can truly see the future, she knows how you will react to what she tells you about it.  If your reaction to the truth would be harmful to her, she will misrepresent it or even lie about it.  She may leave out important things, because you would react badly.  She might tell you something that will cause you to act in a way that would harm you.  Knowing the future is a huge burden, and it is one that is incredibly easy to abuse

Before you trust your psychic, ask yourself this: If she had to pick between saving your life and saving the live of a member of her family, who would she choose?  If you cannot trust her to choose you over her family member, then every time you get a reading, you are putting yourself on the edge of that cliff and making a bet that her family member is not there with you.

The Supreme Court and the Author

There is a popular tv show currently airing called Once Upon a Time.  In one particular season, the group of main characters (including the villains) seek out a man known only as The Author.  This is the man who wrote the story the characters are all living in, and the characters believe that he has the power to change it.  They all have some agenda they want to author to write into the story.  The villains want their "happy endings," and the heroes want to protect innocents from the harm this would cause.

Eventually, they discover that The Author has been trapped somewhere, and they release him.  He turns out not to be the wise story writer they all thought he was.  Instead he turns out to be this guy who is totally self centered and cares more about entertainment than anything else.

The charge of the author was that of a recorder of history, not that of a story teller.  When he was selected, he was given a magic pen, and he was instructed to use it to witness and record events as they happened.  The pen, however, had the power to change and direct the story, which power he was forbidden to use.  He violated his charge when he decided that he knew better.  He found the story to be dull, so he used the magic pen to tweak and direct it.  He used his power to reshape the world the way that he thought it should be, without any regard for the great many people he harmed in the process.

Now that you know about The Author, let's talk about the Supreme Court.  The stated mission of the Court is to interpret law.  In general, this is the mission of every court.  The Supreme Court specializes in it though.  Interpretation is when the meaning of something is translated into a format that is easier for a given person or group to understand.  When text or spoken language is interpreted, it is converted into the language of part or all of the audience, so they can understand it.  It is necessary to interpret law because English is an ambiguous language, and much of U.S. law was written so long ago that the meaning of the language used has changed.  So, the job of the Supreme Court is to determine the intent of the law, as it was written.

The Supreme Court is like The Author.  It's job is not to create or change.  It's job is to take existing text and interpret it into spoken language, understanding, and action (The Author's job was essentially to interpret observation of events into text).  In both of these cases, accuracy is paramount.  It is an essential part of the job, and violating it can result in a great deal of harm.

Like The Author in Once Upon a Time, the Supreme Court's power extends beyond its mission.  The Author had the power to direct events instead of merely accurately recording them.  The Supreme Court has the power to direct law instead of merely interpreting it.  Accuracy is so important in both cases, because its violation has serious real-life consequences.  As the highest court, there is no recourse if the Supreme Court does not accurately interpret the law.  In fact, even Constitutional amendments cannot overrule the Supreme Court, because ultimately, the Supreme Court gets to interpret what they mean.  If the Court decides that an amendment does not apply to a certain situation, then it does not.  The Court's power gives it the ability to act as a legislative body, in addition to its stated role as a judicial body.  The Court has the power to decide the meaning of laws, which gives it the power to warp and twist any law to mean what it wants.

Now, as with The Author, the Supreme Court does not have to abuse its metaphorical magic pen.  The fact, however, is that it does.  This is becoming ever more obvious, as the statements accompanying rulings offer justifications almost entirely based in the personal opinion of the judges.  They explain that it is Constitutional or not, but they never actually explain how the Constitution played any role in the decision.  It is about morality and ethics.  It is about how the decision might affect economic, or about fairness to minorities involved.  It is never about how a specific part of the Constitution allows or forbids something.  Like The Author in the television show, the Supreme Court is using its power to control and direct the story to fit its own personal desires and opinions.  This is as blatant an abuse of power as using a magic pen to force people to commit horrible atrocities to make the story more interesting.

Unfortunately, the solution used to prevent abuse of power in the television show is not possible in the real-life situation.  We cannot just break the magic pen, to force whoever happens to be The Author to write with a mundane pen that cannot change the story.  The Supreme Court is necessary, and its responsibility to interpret law is inseparable from the inherently abusable power necessary to fulfill that responsibility.  What we really need is ethical judges that we can trust not to abuse that power.  What we need is people with a real education in and understanding of the origins of the Constitution.  We need judges who are willing to search records and writings of people who wrote and influenced the document, so they can gain a more full understanding of its intent.  We need judges who trust the Democratic process enough that they will not give into the temptation to allow their own personal opinions to influence their rulings, even when they don't agree with the results.

For a Democratic government to be successful, it must trust the people it rules.  Representatives, elected or appointed, need to stick to their appointed tasks, even when they believe that their way is better.

I believe that the entire Supreme Court needs to be replaced with honest judges, however, this is not an easy task.  This position is a life-long position, and the Constitution carefully (and wisely) protects Supreme Court Justices from being easily ousted, to prevent political abuse. Unfortunately, it also makes it difficult to oust the corrupt judges that have been appointed.  Beside that, how do we find authors who won't abuse the power of the magic pen?