2885: Spelling
| Spelling |
 Title text: Any time I misspell a word it's just because I have too much integrity to copy answers from the dictionary. |
Explanation
|
This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a PLAGIARISED WIKIHOW ARTICLE - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks. |
Some words are difficult to remember how to spel, but Google and other search engines have autocorrect for misspelled words in search terms, which will return results with the correct spelling, so some people enter their best guess of the spelling on Google, then copy the corrected version and paste it into their document.
Cueball is having a moral dilemma about whether it is okay to do that for the word 'plagiarism' (taking other's work without permission or credits) because he thinks that doing so would be plagiarism, and perhaps undermine the point he might be intending to make (e.g. "I don't support plagiarism", "I have never committed plagiarism in my life" or even "To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."). This doesn't really make sense as a specific dilemna. If it's wrong to do this for this word, it would be equally wrong to do it for any other word - the meaning of the word in question has no particular relevance to the ethics of the case.
The title text is referring to a similar moral dilemma, in which Cueball says he tends to misspell words because he would rather not "copy from the dictionary," considering that plagiarism. This is against the point of the dictionary, however, which is to serve as a reference precisely for people to look up what words are in the language, how they are spelled, defined, derived, and so on. The individual words being defined in the dictionary, by definition, cannot actually be the copyrighted intellectual property of a specific person, since they represent words already in use, rather than original work. Thus it wouldn't actually be plagiarism to copy the correct spelling from there. Only if you were to copy the accompanying entry without attribution would there be ethical and legal issues. But if one was really paranoid about avoiding plagiarism, one could always quote the source of each word they copied out of the dictionary, listing which dictionary they copied the word or words out of.
Transcript
|
|
This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks. |
[Cueball and Megan are looking at a laptop being operated by Cueball]
Megan: When I can't spell a word I usually just google and copy and paste it from the results.
Cueball: Yeah, but I can't do that HERE!!
[Caption below the panel:]
Why spelling "plagiarism" is especially hard
add a comment! ⋅ add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅ 
refresh comments!Discussion
citing every word in an essay because I really, really don't know how to spell Mushrooms (talk) 13:00, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Fungi. 172.70.86.80 14:17, 24 January 2024 (UTC) ;)
- Spore way of going about things. 172.71.178.77 15:00, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah, the lack of a period at the end of that sentence, makes it read "really, really don't know how to spell Mushrooms" & that works great as a sentence\statement, in this case!
- ProphetZarquon (talk) 15:49, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
Boo! at the spoilsport who took out my 'dilemna' easter egg. :oP 141.101.99.101 16:27, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
I like how someone misspelled "spell" until I corrected it. 1234231587678 (talk) 17:19, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
Funny, this setting doesn't look all that much like that of the Office of the President of Harvard University ... 172.69.197.133 17:31, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Do you mean Claudine Gay, that Nazi Hamas sympathizer who couldn't answer a simple question about Harvard's code of conduct with respect to advocating for anti-Semitic genocide, and had to resign disgracefully after it was revealed she plagiarized more than half of her academic publications? Do you mean her? Yes. It looks nothing like that. 172.69.134.217
Re. the ask in the incomplete tag for citations about plajerism being mispelled - Merriam Webster claims that common misspellings are "plagarism, plagerism, plagirism", but, uh, doesn't cite its source for that... 172.69.194.254 10:16, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- Dictionary Copyright
Citing a dictionary is a great example of attribution: A portion is directly quoted, with its source stated for verification purposes. Attribution is a great practice; copying without attribution isn't literal theft, but it is lazy & irresponsible, & actually detracts from the real value of the copy. Copying with attribution, on the other hand, is difficult to show any real harm from, & is arguably beneficial to all but rent-seekers. Attribution is essential! What other works, are cited with attribution, as consistently as a dictionary? Even scholarly papers seem oft-quoted without attribution... This is a disservice to both the listener, & anyone who might value the original, & potentially to the one copying. 'News' is another example of having less value without attribution... What's another good example of something that isn't as useful unless the source is cited? ProphetZarquon (talk) 16:07, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- On the other hand, far too many lazy presenters, speakers, and best men have included the phrase "Webster's Dictionary defines [everyday word everyone knows the meaning of but you're about to poetically but incorrectly redefine] as..." RegularSizedGuy (talk) 04:33, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
I wonder if many people realise that in many ways using an AI to write an essay is a type of plagiarism engine? RIIW - Ponder it (talk) 07:51, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- I've been seeing EU directives about putting any work generated with AI into the copyrightist juristriction of the prompter, not the AI, so in the EU, it might not be like this. I guess some people see it as a tool, like a typesetting word processor or "put numbers in, get numbers out" industrial calculation software. 172.64.238.57 22:07, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- Norway
This is probably just a coincidence (I don't think Randall has any particular ties to Norway), but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandra_Borch_and_Ingvild_Kjerkol_plagiarism_affair is quite recent. Villemoes (talk) 19:18, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
There's also this https://apnews.com/article/harvard-president-plagiarism-claudine-gay-14330935453134c7c9c9a9c496020568 and this https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/youtube-creator-james-somerton-plagiarism-accusation-response-rcna130860 which are fairly recent and in the English speaking world. I just think plagiarism is a common topic right now. 172.70.42.241 23:01, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
The explanation currently goes with the interpretation that makes sense based on the title text, but based on the drawing alone I figured Cueball didn't want "plagiarism" to appear on the search history of a shared computer or on shared network logs or something leading to him being circumstantially implicated in looking up ways to get away with plagiarism. Hence Cueball's concern with the location being "here" rather than the morals of the deed itself. AzureArmageddon 16:45, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
