Bad Spelling Pays on eBay

peebeejay writes "People say that as long as they're understood, spelling is unimportant. These people are unwittingly making others a lot of money online, according to this article in the NY Times (DNA sample and clean boxers required). So, aside from clarity and respect for your reader, there's another good reason to either spell correctly or use a spellchecker: get bidders to find your eBay items and give you their money! Or you can go ahead and see how many people bid on your 'labtop computers,' 'camras,' and 'earings.'"

Comments

you mean....

[hatrisc]

to tell me that they aren't called "labtop" computers? ... you could've fooled my dad.

Old, old trick.

[DdJ]

I've been using this trick since I started using eBay, something like six years ago. When you look for something, always look for misspellings first, because you're less likely to have competition. Even got a gemstone or two this way.

It's been known for years, and it hasn't changed much. I don't think this article is going to cause much of a change, even if it's widely read.

I check for this on purpose

[Space cowboy]

.. whenever I use ebay, I always try "alternative" spellings of words. Of course, being from the UK, I'm used to spelling things like 'color' incorrectly [its a JOKE!] :-)

Simon

Re:I check for this on purpose

[nuffle]

And is Brittish your British word for British?

Re:I check for this on purpose

[dogbowl]

That was one thing I learned while traveling through Europe. We would inevitable end up meeting/talking with British folks (mainly because they spoke the language) and they would always refer to the French or Dutch as "the Europeans"

Like, "The Europeans have this odd tasting candy" or "The Europeans have some odd TV shows".

At first it threw me for a loop .. I didn't know what they were talking about. I mean .. the British are Europeans with funny tasting candy and silly TV shows too. I didn't know they could detect abnormality among their own kind!

Reg Free

[swordboy]

Here

Mother of Perl???

[Dr. Charles Forbin]

According to the article, Mother of Perl is spelled incorrectly. Shows what they know.

Re:Mother of Perl???

[liquidsin]

Sweet stupid hell! I can buy Larry Wall's wife on ebay?!

Re:Mother of Perl???

[gotem]

I assumed it was his cat, actually. Everyone knows the first perl script was written when she walked across the keyboard one time.

That makes her a script kitty?

Re:This article is ridiculous

[ewwhite]

Try again....

Search for "labtop" on ebay :)

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Works for personal websites too

[daBass]

A friend of mine (whose website I host) is terrible. But at least his pictures of the "rockafella center" get him on the first page of Google! :)

Google has ruined my spelling

[SpaceRook]

I used to be a good speller, but I use Google A LOT. And it is so forgiving that my skills have declined. I expect all programs to know what I mean when I type "Jva prgfamminh boolks". I just kinda hit the keys that basically represent the words I want.

Re:Google has ruined my spelling

[Walterk]

Yuoor seerch - Jva prgfamminh boolks - deed nut metch uny ducooments. Um gesh dee bork, bork!
Nu peges vere-a fuoond cunteeening "prgfamminh".

Sooggesshuns:

- Meke-a soore-a ell vurds ere-a spelled currectly. Bork bork bork!
- Try deefffferent keyvurds. Um gesh dee bork, bork!
- Try mure-a generel keyvurds. Um gesh dee bork, bork!
- Try fooer keyvurds. Um gesh dee bork, bork!

no wonder they're losing

[plams]

unnix licsene for olny $699!!1!

An Extra Hyphen Made me $350 on Ebay

[hwsquaredcubed]

I was looking for a BikeE recumbent bike. There weren't any on Ebay. I tried "Bike-E" with a hyphen. There was an almost brand new demo model listed for $500. (They retailed for about $1200 at the time, I think.) I bought it, didn't even take it out of the box, relisted it with the correct spelling, and sold it for $850 seven days later. (I did have to pay for the bike to be shipped to me, which was about $35, I think.) I have also found that you can buy items that are poorly described and relist them with more thorough descriptions, links to the manufacturer's website, better photos, etc., and they will typically sell for higher than you paid for them.

Re:An Extra Hyphen Made me $350 on Ebay

[Rorschach1]

Very true. I bought a stack of HDS ViewStation X terminals at a local DRMO auction and sold a couple on eBay. I wasn't expecting much, because the last one I'd seen sell went for about $15 - but that had no pictures and a single vague paragraph about what it was. I wrote up a whole page about it, took a picture, and sold two of them for over $100 each.

L@@K!!1!! NYT ARTICAL WITHOUT REJESTRATION!!!1!

[squiggleslash]

For those who don't want to sell their organs to read this, visit the link searched for in Google and click on the link to the article. This works in general for NYT articles - Google search for the link, and when you get the "nothing found, would you like to try the link?" page, just click on the link. It's 'cos the NYT uses a Referer check or something.

This valuable piece of advice given in the spirit of the article - ie with a crappy header that'll ensure only people looking really hard will find it.

Bidding starts at $5.

I do it on purpose ... form of keyword spamming

[adzoox]

Since eBay says that adding terms to your auctions, that are unrelated is called; "keyword spamming" - I purposely don't spell some words right in the description so I can get others who may not spell words right. Some terms in the Apple category are often spelled incorrectly.

This, my friends...

[Anonymous Coward]

...is why Microsoft could make the claim that people would go to mikerowesoft.com and get confused.

Because people are that fucking stupid.

Re:This article is ridiculous

[LiberalApplication]

Actually, this is exactly the kind of thing I'd been hoping noone would bother to publish as "news", precisely because I (in my cheapass, impoverished, bargainhunting gadgetlusting ways) have always managed to find the things I've wanted on eBay for great prices simply by repeatedly performing searches on what I'd expect to be common misspellings/permutations of spellings of the names of the items (whew... long sentence... deep breath...).

That having been said, I wound up with a MITS Altair for $100 because it was listed as "Vintage Altar Comp", and a "sonydcv1" for about $300.

My point being that as geeks, we should encourage all non-geeks we know who have an interest in selling items on eBay to forgo spellchecks and not worry about spelling in general. We stand to profit from it! Any attempt to educate the general populace (as this NYT article attempts to do) will reduce the number of magic bargains to be found on eBay ;)

*blink*

[Daniel]

experts say the Internet -- with its discussion boards, blogs and self-published articles -- is a treasure trove of bad spelling.

They had to ask experts?

Daniel

Obligatory Simpson's Quote

[servognome]

Homer: "Look at these low, low prices on famous brand name electronics!"
Bart: "Don't be a sap, Dad. These are just crappy knock-offs."
Homer: "I know a genuine Panaphonics when I see it. And look, there's Magnetbox, and Sorny!"

Illiteracy on the internet

[Pedrito]

I remember back in the early days of the web, when it was just becoming popular, that John Dvorak hailed it as the coming of true mass literacy. His belief was that with so many average every day citizens posting web pages, surely this would lead to increased literacy.

It couldn't have been a year later that he retracted that prediction and instead said that the web has proven just how illiterate Americans (and I presume others) are.

Anyway, just thought I'd toss in my little anecdote.

feedback loop

[ScottSpeaks!]

"Before the Internet came along, poor spelling by the public was by and large not exposed,"

Just as importantly, it wasn't reinforced. Kind of like the lady who felt reassured by seeing "chandaleer" on hundreds of web sites, people whose reading consists primarily of web pages, e-mail, and chat (rather than books vetted by proofreaders) are learning to spell incorrectly. It's like the blind leading the blind. I've got nothing against spelling changes in principle; language is going to evolve. But this seems more like a case of language forking, almost geometrically.

Ironically, the internet seems to be taking us back a few centuries, to the days before English spellings were standardized by the likes of Webster and other lexicographers. Which was fine back when all parsing of text was done by humans, who could easily figure out that "Thomas Smith" and "Tomas Smythe" were the same person. But as this article points out, it can be a problem when more literal computers are concerned.

Re:This article is ridiculous

[jazman]

LOL! Priceless - look at the description for http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =3456315281&category=177

Choice quotes

"I am not lying when I say that this labtop is hands down one of the fastest computers I have ever seen in my entire life. On the other hand, I am also completely clueless when it comes to computers so please bare with me."

Oo-er - are we getting our clothes off together? (It's "BEAR with me")

"keyboard has more buttons than I know what to do with"

"a floppy drive, a CD rom drive, and another drive that I have no clue what to do with"

"And...a rechargable battery"

"some disk that I suppose you'll probably need"

and to top it off "Chances are that you'll probably want to run this computer by a shop and get it cleaned out"

Then he says "if you have any questions email me." Yeah, like he's really going to have a clue amout MHz, GB, serial ports etc. I wouldn't recommend asking anything more difficult than: "What colour is it?"

He also can't spell "I nicked it" - he says "this is not my computer (I'm selling it for a friend)"

Re:This article is ridiculous

[andy landy]

I've always said that the best (and worst) thing about eBay is that it's full of stupid people. It's not just bad spelling that can get you the bargains, often people under-price their "Buy it now" items, or advertise things incorrectly, i.e. "This laptop has a 500MHz processor", but the model number they've stated suggests it's a 1GHz.

This 'feature' isn't going to go away because the NYT has mentioned it. The problem comes from clueless people, who will still be clueless now! I doubt people deliberately mis-spell items on eBay and now are thinking "perhaps I should spell things correctly from now on"

P.S. Remember to take full advantage, if you find cluelessness on eBay, "View Seller's Other Items" might be your key to many more bargains!

Re:"Plam" pilots are very common, too

[Benwick]

Representing college literature professors in the arts I can safely say I would simply never buy something advertised as a Plam Pilot. What if it really was a Plam Pilot, like maybe some weird knock-off Palm from Vanuatu or something?

Bad spelling really turns me away from these things... Even though there's no real connection between spelling and intellect, it is very hard to read poorly crafted prose and respect it if it's badly written. Oh well, not lkie abyndoy's pinayg aotitentn...

Lay off the NYT

[Call Me Black Cloud]

The registration is free and you don't even need a valid e-mail address. What's with the complaints? The 20 seconds you have to spend *once* to input bogus information is certainly a fair price for the online content of the NYT.

Sheesh. People here would complain if you hung them with a new rope.

Re:earings!

[Golias]

No... 'Earings are what they 'ave in the 'Ouse of Commons, guv'nor.