Grammar and Spelling differences

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I'm not sure if this is the right board, if so I apologize and hope it can be moved. I just checked and I believe there's a subforum for writing, so I apologize for posting it here.

Anyways, I noticed something very interesting, which is that non-autistic people tend to be very poor spellers. They spell basic words like "their/they're/there", "where/were", "to/too", "a lot" and many other words wrong. However when speaking to other autistic people, I often notice that they do not make as many common spelling mistakes and are more likely to use proper punctuation. Why could this be? Is it because we are more analytical or naturally concerned with accuracy than neurotypical people?

I am one of the world’s worst spellers.

Let me also be clear I'm generalizing and I'm aware there are many of us who spell very poorly, as well as many NTs who are very literate.

I feel we probably proof read everything we write before posting/sending. Although definitely there are some autistics who have special talent for spelling, grammar, writing, proofreading etc. We are good at patterns and spotting errors. We also like to follow rules, which is what grammar is really, rules for writing.

It seems like you are theorizing that perhaps ND may be better at spelling and writing then NTs.

That might be correct as a general trait.

In my case, I suffered a massive stoke and lost almost all my knowledge of words as a result. I worked hard, very hard, almost unusually hard and was able to recover some but not all the loss.

So what is the point? Well my writing is at present horrible. I forget to add words. I make many spelling mistakes. Many times what I write is illegible or tends to say the exact opposite of what I am trying to say. So what is the point?

I use tools. I let the computer point to my spelling mistakes and I correct. Sometimes I will look up words that I use and make sure that they are the correct words. I will publish a statement (for example on WP) and reread it over and over again. So after several tries, I reach a point where I am satisfied. But it takes time and tools to make my writing somewhat accurate.

So perhaps MatchboxVagabond is correct by saying, "It's usually because most NTs are better at recognizing when to spend time on that and when not to."

I suck at spelling.

Also during "the heat of battle" when you're composing a post your fingers will type the homonym for the word you're thinking rather than the actual word (the wrong word that sounds the same as the actual word)....and you will type "weather or not it reigns I will where a rain coat". And you have to go back and correct it .

On the other hand, on informal online posts, I dont bother putting apostrophe's in words like "you're" and "dont" because I am confident folks know what I mean.

I am more of a stickler for vocabulary than spelling and punctuation. And gawd forbid...I will even correct others.

Back during the epidemic I kept calling "covid" "corvid" for some reason. Just a brain fart. Someone pointed out to me that "the virus has nothing to do with crows...'corvid' means 'having to do with the crows and crow family of birds'...it's 'covid, nor corvid'". Am a bird watcher ...I even already knew that ...dammit. Lol!


But I will correct others for making similar vocab errors like that...but it usually gets blow back.

I corrected someone for a similar word misusage. The person didnt complain. But others chimed in that I was a condescending bully, or something. Oh well.

But if you keep calling it "corvid" it would indicate that you either have the wrong idea about the thing (that it has sumpin to do with crows) or you're not aware that you're giving the wrong impression that you think that it has something to do with crows. Or just look ignorant. So I would be doing you a favor to suggest that you knock it off.

My grandma was quite good at spelling. She taught my Mum who could read and write from the age of two and a half onwards.

Every time I go back and read my posts, they look like they were posted by a German. I wonder if anybody else notices the same thing about my posts.

Spelling was always my favourite subject. I absolutely adored it because we had to write the words 10x each in cursive and I liked the repetition, along with studying the rules of phonetics. I loved spelling bees as they were one of the only times I felt comfortable to speak aloud in class. I remember spelling "anonymous" properly to win a spelling bee in fifth grade. It was a word I hadn't studied before but I could recall how it looked in books I'd read.

In Uni I studied Linguistics and became even more fascinated with the function of phonemes.

Synaesthesia has a lot to do with it as well because my brain remembers what "colour" a word is when I read it, and then I automatically know how to spell that word by recalling its colours.

One weird thing: After my first stroke I started having trouble spelling words with a schwa or /ə/ vowel. I notice even here on WP most of the words I type with a schwa get underlined and then I'll have to try every vowel or else google to figure out which to choose. I have no idea how I lost schwas by having a stroke, but I did.

schwa has long been the bane of my existence.

One language theory is that the brain has a lexicon and a rule database. The lexicon remembers things exactly as you have seen them before. The rule database can help you recognize words you have never seen by applying rules. There is no rules on how to spell a schwa. You have to use the lexicon for that. My rule base is strong but my lexicon is very weak.

Literacy has waned in the last couple of decades. I mean literacy in the sense of writing in proper grammar and spelling and word usage. Texting and e-mail are the most prominent causes. I won't go to OG here but when i started as a lawyer almost 40 years ago, every written communication, internal or external, was very formal and where appropriate deferential. Now we have first and second year lawyers who send e-mails to senior lawyers which read like they are writing to Mom or Dad. Ugh.

I'm aware that my grammar and spelling aren't perfect, in either speaking or writing. However, I do seem to be more concerned about than a lot of people.

Something I've noticed is that nearly all locals speak in double negatives. I.e., "They don't have none." "She don't live here no more." For some reason, this is the one that sounds very wrong to me. I guess it just seems curious to me that they seem to know every basic English word except "any" and "doesn't." I think part of is, in this area of California, people speak in a fairly flat, plain manner. So maybe it seems more like they should be grammatically correct than people who speak with a colorful accent, like a Southern U.S. accent. I'm starting to wonder if using double negatives is more common than not, overall, for English speakers in the U.S.

The other one that gets me is, on my Disneyland groups, when people spell it Disney Land .