I have a college degree, and my job requires extensive written communication. But I have to admit this one has been flying under my radar. After reading your comment, I can’t honestly say with any degree of certainty which way I would have spelled it if asked to use the word in a sentence.
There are quite a few commonly misspelled words that raise their ugly heads here from time to time. Recently there was a topic that contained the word “hobbiest” instead of “hobbyist” over and over.
The good news is that I come here for the woodworking…. not the spelling. Some of the finest craftsmen in the world have little or no formal education. As long as they give good advice, I don’t care how they spell it. :-)
This was not meant to be a hypercritical, anal rant by any means.
More of a lighthearted, comical post… sort of.
It had just been bothering me for some time now, so thank you for listening to me vent.
I was an English major in college, yet I still make mistakes.
We’re human, thus we err.
And I agree with Charlie in that we’re (hopefully) here, more in a common bond of working with wood, than most other things we may or may not have in common.
-- Jonathan, Denver, CO "Constructive criticism is welcome and valued as it gives me new perspectives and helps me to advance as a woodworker."
Hi Jonathan….................very nice to see you here and you have made it to your 100th day…........I find that misspelled words does not bother me…........I have misspelled or miss-typed a number of words on here myself. ..................don’t sweat the small stuff Jonathan…......I find that there are too many other things in this life to be bothered about other than a misspelled word.
I’m still trying to picture an English major in the workshop! Oh well. Like I’ve always said “Don’t sweat the petty thangs. and don’t pet the sweaty thangs!!” Bill
My beef is the word nuclear pronounced nucular. Of course there is no such word. Politicians, scientists, newscasters, G.W. Bush, they all used the incorrect pronunciation. It drives me nuts. When I point it out to people they look at me like there’s something wrong with me. Someone pointed out that to most people it sounds ‘right’. To me it sounds just like when people say, “I don’t gut none”. So, I’ve learned to live with it as most people don’t even hear the difference.
yall can correct me if im wrong but i would guess most people know of a lantern mantle and they would much more often seen that spelled out then a mantel maybe?
-- if you dont have it, build it, especially when its a stupid idea
It’s my experience that most people in the US misspell a lot of words and often can’t pronounce some they have spelled correctly. Then there’s geography …....................... and…...people don’t speak proper like what I do. hehe
-- Roger-R, Republic of Texas. "Always look on the Bright Side of Life" - An eyeball to eyeball confrontation with a blind person is as complete waste of Time.
I got past this spelling thing on LJ a long time ago. Pretty well every Project you read has spelling errors in it. One of them used the word “the” 3 times in 2 sentences spelled “teh”. PULEEZZZ!!!
Yes. It bothers me but as pointed out before there are other things in LIFE that might be worth getting your Knickers in a Knot about. I visit here to get my Knickers Un-Knotted ….LOL…
Judging by a lot of email I get, some people don’t even want to bother using Spell Check before they send it. Forget Grammar and Capital letters and Paragraphs. The prevailing attitude seeems to be that it’s really not all that important. That to me is a Tad Sad.
Craftsman and I have the same complaint about pronunciation though. It gets me on some of the Home Improvement Shows on TV. The thing on top of your house is not a “RUF” it’s a “ROOF” OO OO OO. The eavestrough is not attached to a “Facer” it’s a “Fascia” “Face-she-uh”. A large upstairs hall is not another “Foy-er” “Foy-a”, Foyer is a French word meaning Entrance or Grand Entrance.
I’m not sure about you folks “Down There” (USA) but little old me up here (Kanada) OOPPSS (Canada) did not particularly care for ….every time I would say “Thank You” usually after buying something, which is a little Obscene in and of itself …. receive the reply “No Problem” what the hell happened to “You’re Welcome”.
Then we have that ever infamous word “Irregardless” and I Love to tell who ever said it …”There ain’t no such word.” and the ensuing discussion. (Some times known as being a “Fecal Disturber”) FUN FUN FUN!!!
GEEZ Jonathan why did you start this thing …LOL… Say something mildly surprizing to someone and you get “SHUTUP!!” That’s apparently been softened to “SHUT THE DOOR!!” EH!?
How cum they dont have no spill chucker on hear????
Okay! That’s it. I’m gunna go reed my Diktionerie for a wile.
Some dictionary lists both spellings and defines a mantle/mantel as “a shelf that projects from a wall above a fireplace; and the finish around a fireplace”.
English is not my first language but it is my “goodest” lol
Spelling “the” as “teh” started when I was OD on Topamax. That is one thing that I haven’t been able to stop:-( even though it is a common typo. Sometimes it comes out “hte” but never “the”. Really P——- me off to have to correct it every friggin tiime I type it:-((
-- "some old things are lovely, warm still with life ... of the forgotten men who made them." - D.H. Lawrence
I have a guess about mantel/mantle: maybe the fact one presses the keys T and E with the left hand and the L key with the right is meaningful, because the right hand is quite always quicker and one may press the L key before the E, switching them. Possible?
(It seems a somewhat Biblical error, if I may joke)
most often mistake I make is …tino instead of …tion. I, too, used to get upset over the common, or uncommon, misspellings until I remembered that we h ave many, many folks here where American is not their native language.
If you think this is tough try learning to write Thai.
Lee
-- No piece is cut too short. It was meant for a smaller project.
i’m with Charlie, Some of the greatest never even finished 8th grade. Who cares about the spelling as long as they can get thier point across. There are a few words though that do come up from time to time
-- Live by what you believe, not what they want you to believe.
I am responsible for my own spelling and grammar… that is all! If I can read it, that’s fine with me! Maybe we could have an official “spell-checker”... like Jonathan!!! (just kidding, Jonathan – I’d rather see your projects!!) ;-) Ellen
-- Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
The problem is that both mantle and mantel are correctly spelled words, they just mean different things. That keeps it from coming up on spelling alerts.
Like Charlie, in the context of woodworking I’m not too concerned about correct spelling because I’ve noted that so many woodworkers who don’t spell as well as myself do so much better work than I can do. I would be glad to trade those skills with them. I do think that we should spell right if we can though as others might learn from it. This has happened to me many times on LJ already. So now I can spell some words correctly that I have been misspelling for a lifetime.
It’s always better to shoot for the moon and hit the fencepost that to shoot at the fencepost and hit the ground.
Boy, I did not mean to open up a can of worms here! I’m not sure what I expected to happen though?
I’m with Mike in that maybe a few people will learn from this.
We are all here to learn from each other collectively, whatever it may be about, as far as I’m concerned. I sure know my knowledge has grown by leaps and bounds over the past couple of months, and I’m just barely scratching the surface.
I do love this website and those members on it, believe me, this is a fantastic community, full of helpful individuals that are willing to share their knowledge and expertise with the rest of us, and I do appreciate that.
And regarding a lantern mantle, yes, that is the correct spelling.
However, a shelf above a fireplace is spelled mantel.
That was all I was getting at.
Trust me, I don’t let all the little spelling errors on here get to me. I believe I have an errant typo every now and then that I don’t catch until it’s too late.
As several members have said, as long as I can understand it, that’s what counts. And you’re correct. I am not here to critique everyone’s writing, so please don’t make me the spell checker!
Speaking of a mantel though, I have finally begun work on the built-in bookcases with surrounding mantel. I just started cutting all the plywood for the mock-up bookcase carcasses. Hopefully they’ll be built well enough that I can give them to someone. I rather learn and make mistakes on the less expensive stuff. ;)
(I suppose that’s probably why the spelling of mantel has gotten to me, as I’ve been somewhat obsessing over the details, combing post after post for pictures and ideas on how I want to go about constructing this thing, not to mention, thinking about it while I’m driving down the road, or at work, or whatever. I just want this to be more than my wife expected. I love surprising her and exceeding her expectations!)
I finally finished a project for a friend of mine. I will post up the details of the project, plus what I learned, as well as pictures, once I know that he has received it (as I wouldn’t want to give the surprise away if he were to happen to log-on here.)
ChuckV… that was funny!
woodpeckerbill… what do you imagine happens when an English major trapses down his steeply inclined and narrow chute-of-a-staircase, into his highly unorganized and dust-laden, makeshift workshop in his unfinished, insufficiently lit, and spider web-filled basement, in an attempt to use a tool, or set of tools he has never used before? Maybe I should start a blog: “An English Major in the Basement.” ;)
-- Jonathan, Denver, CO "Constructive criticism is welcome and valued as it gives me new perspectives and helps me to advance as a woodworker."
Ahh English! My dad having immigrated to Canada from Finland found it to be a constant source of frustration.
There, their, they’re … to, too, two … then the differences between UK and US spelling. Colour vs color, labour/labor.
Some think it might be easier to learn Mandarin! But that’s taking this thread in a direction I’m not sure it would want to go considering the past discussions on the quality of chinese made tools LOL
I think the real problem is English (American) itself:
It’s no wonder people have trouble with spelling:
Dearest creature in creation, Study English pronunciation. I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. I will keep you, Suzy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Tear in eye, your dress will tear. So shall I! Oh hear my prayer. Just compare heart, beard, and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word, Sword and sward, retain and Britain. (Mind the latter, how it’s written.) Now I surely will not plague you With such words as plaque and ague. But be careful how you speak: Say break and steak, but bleak and streak; Cloven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery, Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore, Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles, Exiles, similes, and reviles; Scholar, vicar, and cigar, Solar, mica, war and far; One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel; Gertrude, German, wind and mind, Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet, Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Blood and flood are not like food, Nor is mould like should and would. Viscous, viscount, load and broad, Toward, to forward, to reward. And your pronunciation’s OK When you correctly say croquet, Rounded, wounded, grieve and sleeve, Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour And enamour rhyme with hammer. River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, Doll and roll and some and home. Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour. Souls but foul, haunt but aunt, Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger, And then singer, ginger, linger, Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge, Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very, Nor does fury sound like bury. Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth. Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath. Though the differences seem little, We say actual but victual. Refer does not rhyme with deafer. Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer. Mint, pint, senate and sedate; Dull, bull, and George ate late. Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven. We say hallowed, but allowed, People, leopard, towed, but vowed. Mark the differences, moreover, Between mover, cover, clover; Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, Chalice, but police and lice; Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal, Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal. Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, Senator, spectator, mayor. Tour, but our and succour, four. Gas, alas, and Arkansas. Sea, idea, Korea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria. Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean. Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion and battalion. Sally with ally, yea, ye, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key. Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver. Heron, granary, canary. Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface. Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass. Large, but target, gin, give, verging, Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging. Ear, but earn and wear and tear Do not rhyme with here but ere. Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen, Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk, Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation—think of Psyche! Is a paling stout and spikey? Won’t it make you lose your wits, Writing groats and saying grits? It’s a dark abyss or tunnel: Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale, Islington and Isle of Wight, Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough— Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup. My advice is to give up!!!
I sometimes get frustrated with misspellings and misuses, but you have to acknowledge the evolution of language. I doubt mantel and mantle have held the same meaning since their inception. Some guy 100 years ago could be mad at you for misusing them. If you understand what someone is saying, can they really have used the wrong words? Obviously, a standard is helpful, but maybe the standard is set by usage, rather than the the other way around.
Personaly I’d rather talk like one of the guys without having to worry that my ENGLISH teacher is looking over my shoulder, this is a forum about wood and what we do with it, isn’t it? How many of you have ever been on a job site? I’ve been on them around the country, want to talk about miscommunication (Basement – cellar, Sub- hoggie,.. you get what I’m trying to say) What I have read from the posts that interest me, is, I understand what they are trying to convey. I’ll be the first one to admit that I may not be grammatically correct (I majored in Engineering, you know Calculus). To me! it’s what’s between my MIND and HANDS and in the end, thats all that the WOOD cares about!
You know what really gets me, A poster, say in any forum (IE fixing a car) ask’s about about a specific problem, gets an answer on how to repair said problem, then has the nerve to correct thier grammer. In other words,,,,,, WE CAN”T KNOW EVERYTHING TO PERFECTION!
I’ve made a living with the written word through the years, so I easily see the spelling/grammar errors that are common on this board. They bother me very little because for most of these posters, language just isn’t their “thing”. While I might know how to parse their sentences, I won’t live long enough to ever come close to knowing as much about what’s important to them—tools and woodworking—or to developing their level of skill. I grew up “bi-lingual”in the rural South myself, surrounded by people (including family members) who maybe “didn’t talk too good”, but who were not stupid and who possessed other traits that really count. I also admire the people who manage to communicate on this board when English is not their first language.
Sure, there are some things that are like fingernails on a chalk board: people who don’t begin their sentences with capitals; people who don’t know the difference between “its” and “it’s “, or “your” and “you’re”, or “less” and “fewer”. Even so, I recognize that most people just aren’t as into language as I am. The ones who get my goat are the ones who screw up thinking they’re being erudite, saying things like “…is comprised of”; “unequivocable”; “infer” for “imply”; “orientate”. The most widespread example of snobbish hyper-correctness is one you see on TV all day every day: using “he/she and I” instead of “him/her and me” when they are the object of the verb, or the related proper name/pronoun blunder: “Tom bought lunch for Joe and I”, or “Things are not good between Jane and I”. This is stuff you learned in fourth grade. Sorry, just venting.
-- Getting old is a good thing, but being old kinda stinks.
see this is a easy question to answer the American English is not English its lazy talk letters missing prononced differently and spelt differently so mantle is mantle in engilsh will my English anyway
From my computer which is a lot smarter than I am on these things and soon it will be running our power tools. Can you say CNC?
mantle 1 |ˈmantl| noun 1 a loose sleeveless cloak or shawl, worn esp. by women. • figurative a covering of a specified sort : the houses were covered with a thick mantle of snow. • (also gas mantle) a fragile mesh cover fixed around a gas jet, kerosene wick, etc., to give an incandescent light when heated. • Ornithology a bird’s back, scapulars, and wing coverts, esp. when of a distinctive color. • Zoology an outer or enclosing layer of tissue, esp. (in mollusks, cirripedes, and brachiopods) a fold of skin enclosing the viscera and secreting the substance that produces the shell. 2 an important role or responsibility that passes from one person to another : the second son has now assumed his father’s mantle. [ORIGIN: with allusion to the passing of Elijah’s cloak (mantle) to Elisha (2 Kings 2:13).] 3 Geology the region of the earth’s interior between the crust and the core, believed to consist of hot, dense silicate rocks (mainly peridotite). • the corresponding part of another planetary body : the lunar mantle. verb 1 [ trans. ] poetic/literary clothe in or as if in a mantle; cloak or envelop : heavy mists mantled the forested slopes. • archaic (of blood) suffuse (the face) : a warm pink mounted to the girl’s cheeks and mantled her brow. • [ intrans. ] (of the face) glow with a blush : her rich face mantling with emotion. • [ intrans. ] archaic (of a liquid) become covered with a head or froth. 2 [ intrans. ] (of a bird of prey on the ground or on a perch) spread the wings and tail, esp. so as to cover captured prey.
ORIGIN Old English mentel, from Latin mantellum ‘cloak’ ; reinforced in Middle English by Old French mantel.
mantle 2 noun variant spelling of mantel . mantel |ˈmantl| (also mantle) noun a mantelpiece or mantelshelf. ORIGIN mid 16th cent.: specialized use of mantle 1 . Mantle |ˈmantl| Mantle, Mickey (Charles) (1931–95), U.S. baseball player. He played for the New York Yankees 1951–69. Baseball Hall of Fame (1974).
Aha!!! I just knew this whole thing had something to do with altitude sickness! My sister and her hubby (Ft Collins) would more likely comment on grammar rather than content.
-- Einstein: "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift." I'm Poopiekat!!
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