This has come up for me a few times and I'm never sure what's appropriate.

I compose my posts in a text editor (UltraEdit) where I can more easily see what I've written as well as correct my atrocious spelling. Sometimes when I quote someone, my spell checker will flag one of their misspelled words. I don't know if I should leave it be or change it.

I'm not suggesting one should point out the error, but is it considered uncouth to "silently" correct someone else's writing when you quote them?

Unless it's for obvious comic reasons, I try to leave a persons quote with their words and meaning intact. So I leave spelling and grammar errors in the quote. I think the only appropriate thing to do is to put a [sic] by the word to show that you know its wrong, but haven't changed it.

Once you start changing spelling, you may be inclined to change grammar and other things and could end up (inadvertantly) (Sp? ;) ) change the meaning of the post.

I write reports that get reviewed at a higher level. In one report I sent in, I discussed the work of someone named Allan. The reviewer changed the name everwhere it occured (about 10 times) to Alan. Unfortunately, that was wrong. The Report was sent back to the organization Allan worked for and the next year, he kidded me about spelling his name wrong. You never know.

Originally posted by SzczerbiakManiac
This has come up for me a few times and I'm never sure what's appropriate.

I compose my posts in a text editor (UltraEdit) where I can more easily see what I've written as well as correct my atrocious spelling. Sometimes when I quote someone, my spell checker will flag one of their misspelled words. I don't know if I should leave it be or change it.

I'm not suggesting one should point out the error, but is it considered uncouth to "silently" correct someone else's writing when you quote them?

My practice is just to leave the quote verbatim, without changing anything. If people know that I'm quoting someone, I take no responsibility for what that person wrote, whether it's spelling, grammar or content.

Originally posted by SzczerbiakManiac
is it considered uncouth to "silently" correct someone else's writing when you quote them? Yes. Even with the spelling errors, that is what they said/wrote. Your "correcting" their errors means you are changing what they said. Not kosher.

I too tend to leave it untouched. But if you do feel the need, use proper editing marks. Either use [sic] to point it out, or if you simply want to correct it, put the corrected version in brackets [].

Originally posted by Ghoulish Delight
I too tend to leave it untouched. But if you do feel the need, use proper editing marks. Either use [sic] to point it out, or if you simply want to correct it, put the corrected version in brackets []. Do be careful how you use [sic], though. Although technically, it means "the original person wrote this incorrectly, and I KNOW this is spelled incorrectly, so I am pointing it out to you just so you don't think *I* don't know how to spell" -- and a lot of times, you end up implying that you are smarter than the other person, and that you are trying to show off that you are (or you are trying to point out that the other person is a poor speller). Either way, it's not really necessary. If it really bothers you, consider paraphrasing the original poster (instead of using quote tags) and in the process of doing so, use correct spelling.

I may have made this sound like a bigger deal than it actually is for me. Since I use a plain text editor, it doesn't know not to check the quoted material (unlike how Eudora does when quoting an e-mail.) Most of the time I just run the checker and don't pay attention to where the error is. Sometimes I'll notice after I post my message and then kind of scratch my head about going back and "correcting" the word(s) in question.

I thank you all for your input though! :)