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.