# Misspelling rogue as rouge - enlighten me



## Azul (Jan 2, 2005)

I've been reading posts on EN World for a fair bit of time now and I'm frankly baffled by the chronic misspelling of the word "rogue" I tend to see here.  A significant number of people seem to perpetually (and I'm suspecting purposefully) use this misspelling and I don't know why.   :\ 

As someone who is equally fluent in French and English (and learned French first), my brain instantly interprets "rouge" first as meaning the colour red (and makes me intuitively expect the following words to be in French), second as the English term for reddish cheek makeup and lastly my language centre goes "Aha! The context of the word tells me that it's that annoying misspelling again...  that or this character is a Fighter 3/Red 5/Foundation 2/Blush 8".     I do realize that that's just my personal quirk (and yes I am a bit of a spelling nazi), but it's my sheer annoyance at reading that misspelling over and over again that's prompting my question.

*What's the deal with "rouge"?*

Is this simply a typo that happens to plague posters on a collective basis (whereas other misspellings of "rogue" are rare)?  Is it some purposefully misspelling like L33T-speak?  Is it a conspiracy to flummox grammar nazis, makeup artists and francophones?  Is the misspelling tied to some tradition or old EN World war story that I just haven't read about yet?  Do a significant number of posters find the word "rogue" harder to spell than "antidisestablishmentarianism" (and for that matter, did I just misspell the latter word) despite it being five letters long and frequently spelled correctly in the PHB/DMG/MM/almost any D&D book really?  Is my brain on the verge of detonating like in the movie Scanners?  Did I forget to take my medication this morning or is the sheer trauma of not knowing this information beginning to affect my sanity?    

Enquiring minds want to know!


----------



## Tonguez (Jan 2, 2005)

i can't believe I read all of that

but the transposing of *ogue and *ouge is common in English misspelling

its seen in tounge too but rouge is more commonly use ar enworld...


----------



## Samuel Leming (Jan 2, 2005)

It's just a common and annoying error.  No conspiracy.

I can see two possible sources of the error, though.

First, most of us just have to memorize the spelling. American schools no longer teach what the 'u' is there for.  At least not the one I went to.  The 'u' is there to force a hard 'g' so the 'e' hardens the 'o' instead of softening the 'g'.  Without the 'e', you'd also sound the 'u'. Yeah, I know.  :rollseyes: 

Second, some southern accents here in America use a very wide 'o' and there's a very subtle 'u' sound as they close their mouths for the 'g'.

So here's my hypothesis. Take a person that doesn't know what the 'u' and 'e' are for and is used to hearing a bit of a 'u' sound before the 'g' and you get 'rouge' instead of 'rogue'.

I only replied to this because you use the flumph avatar. 

Sam


----------



## Pbartender (Jan 2, 2005)

No, I think it's a little simpler than that, Sam...

It's entirely common, when typing quickly, to transpose two letters within a word.  Your brain goes into typing auto-pilot mode, and one hand briefly gets ahead of the other.  It's the same reason why 'teh' is such a common replacement for 'the'.

Or, when your brain goes on auto-pilot, you inadvertantly fall back on certain letter order combinations that are more often used and easier for your fingers to type.  In the case of rogue, 'ou' is a much more often used combination in the english language than 'ue'.  It's only natural for us to put that 'o' after the 'u', if you aren't paying attention.

The real problem isn't so much that people mis-type or mis-spell the word...  Everyone makes mistakes, after all... but that they don't take the (very small amount of) time to quickly proofread their posts for obvious spelling and grammar mistakes.  That, and most of us are too lazy to go back and edit a post once a mistake has been noticed.


----------



## painandgreed (Jan 2, 2005)

Especially since it's supposed to be spelled "thief".


----------



## Starglim (Jan 2, 2005)

Pbartender said:
			
		

> No, I think it's a little simpler than that, Sam...
> 
> It's entirely common, when typing quickly, to transpose two letters within a word.  Your brain goes into typing auto-pilot mode, and one hand briefly gets ahead of the other.  It's the same reason why 'teh' is such a common replacement for 'the'.




I don't think that's right. I've just tried it, and the wrong spelling feels more difficult to type. My impression is that a large minority, or a majority of posters to RPG boards, and some RPG writers, believe that the sexy cheek-makeup spelling is the correct one.


----------



## Starglim (Jan 2, 2005)

Maybe it's because "rogue" looks as if it should have two syllables. The masses know vaguely that the word should have a "u" in it, and have never heard of rouge much less heard it pronounced (that's "ruuj" for those who may be wondering), so they use the spelling that looks right.


----------



## Asmo (Jan 2, 2005)

I´m sure it´s a conspiracy, staged by rouges.

Asmo


----------



## Samuel Leming (Jan 2, 2005)

Pbartender said:
			
		

> No, I think it's a little simpler than that, Sam...
> 
> It's entirely common, when typing quickly, to transpose two letters within a word.  Your brain goes into typing auto-pilot mode, and one hand briefly gets ahead of the other.  It's the same reason why 'teh' is such a common replacement for 'the'.




Simpler is better... When it actually explains what's going on.    I still blame lack of training in pronunciation.  I know it really hampered me when I was younger.

Hey, not looking to start an argument.  Please direct any ire you're feeling towards automated spellcheckers. 



			
				Starglim said:
			
		

> I don't think that's right. I've just tried it, and the wrong spelling feels more difficult to type. My impression is that a large minority, or a majority of posters to RPG boards, and some RPG writers, believe that the sexy cheek-makeup spelling is the correct one.




Yeah.  There are MANY people that believe the 'rouge' spelling is correct.



			
				Starglim said:
			
		

> Maybe it's because "rogue" looks as if it should have two syllables. The masses know vaguely that the word should have a "u" in it, and have never heard of rouge much less heard it pronounced (that's "ruuj" for those who may be wondering), so they use the spelling that looks right.




There are places in Louisiana and Texas where 'rouge' is pronounced more like 'rew'.  Go figure.

Now we have a third theory.  Anyone want to propose a fourth?  After that we'll probably deserve a fifth. 



			
				Asmo said:
			
		

> I´m sure it´s a conspiracy, staged by rouges.




Yay! Let's go get that fifth!

I better give up before we're completely off topic.

Sam


----------



## Pbartender (Jan 2, 2005)

Samuel Leming said:
			
		

> Hey, not looking to start an argument.  Please direct any ire you're feeling towards automated spellcheckers.




No arguement, no ire...  Just another idea for an explaination.

You may be right...  Either of us might be right, depending on who's doing the misspelling.

I know that I'm a pretty good speller.  I (usually) only misspell a word if my fingers flub up, and I don't notice the mistake.  But I'm not everybody (fortunately for everyone else).


----------



## Gez (Jan 2, 2005)

rogue/rouge
thief/theif
deity/diety
tongue/tounge

A way to solve that would be to push for another spelling reform in American English. Change all the -gue words by -gg words. Rogg, tongg, etc. After all, -que was replaced by -ck in check. "But it wasn't replaced by -ck in barbeque" some may say. Indeed, it's because it's not barbeque (which should be pronounced barbeck) but barbecue (pronounced barbekyou). Confusion comes from the roughly phonetic abbreviation of BBQ.

Anyone got something to propose for words in -ie- like thief (theef?) and words in -ei- like deity (deyty?) ?

After all, since kids these day are too dim to learn the reasons why words are spelled like they are (etymology, in other words), all the laws and exceptions that governs spelling -- otherwise, they would be taught that, wouldn't they? -- spelling needs to be mangled until it reaches a point where there's nothing to learn about it anymore.

_This rant is courtesy of the Bring Rolleyes Back found._


----------



## shilsen (Jan 2, 2005)

It's because many people are both uneducated (or at least seriously underequipped due to a poor educational system) and too lazy to try to rectify their weaknesses by sufficient reading and attention to detail when using language, whether written or oral. And no, I'm not bitter . I'm just an Indian teaching European drama translated to English to American students. Why should anything about language make me bitter?


----------



## hong (Jan 2, 2005)

shilsen said:
			
		

> It's because many people are both uneducated (or at least seriously underequipped due to a poor educational system) and too lazy to try to rectify their weaknesses by sufficient reading and attention to detail when using language, whether written or oral. And no, I'm not bitter . I'm just an Indian teaching European drama translated to English to American students. Why should anything about language make me bitter?



 Dude! I feel your pain. Let us talk about the cricket.


----------



## Liolel (Jan 2, 2005)

I think its just that people make mistakes when typing, and that people notice whene rogue iss mispelled more often because the mispelling forms another word instead of something that is obviously a typo.


----------



## Boddha (Jan 2, 2005)

Did someone say cricket?


----------



## hong (Jan 2, 2005)

Boddha said:
			
		

> Did someone say cricket?



 Oops! I misspelled "croquet", as did you. HTH!


----------



## fusangite (Jan 2, 2005)

A number of changes have taken place in the past 20 years in how people treat the letter "g." It used to be, when our parents were taught English, that "g" went "j" when followed by an "e," "i," "y," and sometimes an "a" and it went "g" when followed by a "u" or "o." People do not see this as a rule anymore and, as a result, some spellings have changed, such as: "judgement" is now spelled "judgment"; and "guage" is now spelled "gauge."

I think we can look forward to more "gu" words losing their u's and other related developments in the next few decades.


----------



## CronoDekar (Jan 2, 2005)

I don't know; it doesn't bother me much.  What I get irritated at is seeing the word "lose" misspelled as "loose."  Whereas "rogue" is a relatively uncommon word, "lose" is very common.  And it's not even anywhere near as complex as the they're/their/there or your/you're problems!  I crumple up and yell to the Rogue Gods of Grammar "NOOOOOOOOOO!" (especially when it's obvious it's not just a typo), and then because of my Frenzied Grammatist levels I go on a rampage throughout town.  I will not tell details of the rampage because it is too gruesome, but let it be said that all small animals tremble at my approach (well, all the squirrels... usually).

Oh, and topic.  Probably just because they know all the letters that go in the word, but aren't quite sure of the order.  Either that or it's a deliberate attempt to make us Frenzied Grammatists go crazy just to show how broken the prestige class is.  I think they're just envious because their DMs didn't let them take it.


----------



## Wormwood (Jan 2, 2005)

Apparently spelling mistakes really annoy me.

 Let's just leave it at that. 

 [/edit]


----------



## IronWolf (Jan 2, 2005)

Liolel said:
			
		

> I think its just that people make mistakes when typing, and that people notice whene rogue iss mispelled more often because the mispelling forms another word instead of something that is obviously a typo.




With the typos aside....  <grin>

mispelled = misspelled
mispelling = misspelling


----------



## Emirikol (Jan 2, 2005)

*I before e 'cept post-c and in may, holidays and be wrong no matter what you say!*

I put my thoughts on this already in the DMG II thread.

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=112601&page=2&pp=20

jh


----------



## monkeyshines (Jan 2, 2005)

Liolel said:
			
		

> I think its just that people make mistakes when typing, and that people notice whene rogue iss mispelled more often because the mispelling forms another word instead of something that is obviously a typo.




I agree - it's probably no more complicated than a common typing error.  Things like "teh" and "pwned" started the same way, before people started using them intentionally.  When people are typing quickly their fingers just sort of take over, I think.  I just did an experiment where I was typing a sentence with rogue in it, and even KNOWING that my whole point was to see if I would type it wrong, I did.


----------



## Lazybones (Jan 2, 2005)

Its teh most rediculous thred their is. 

* * * 

After four years grading student essays (community college freshmen, for the most part), nothing about modern grammar and spelling surprises me anymore, whether encountered on the Internet, at the workplace, or in the media. 

I find that reading and writing a LOT helps me improve my communication skills. There's also an entertaining short book called _Eats shoots and leaves_ that offers some interesting commentary upon common mistakes.


----------



## Orius (Jan 2, 2005)

I think most of you guys are overthinking the matter.  It just seems to be a common spelling error to me.  I've made it plenty of times before myself, not just in typing, but in handwritten game notes.  I don't think it's a big deal.


----------



## HeavyG (Jan 2, 2005)

Pbartender said:
			
		

> It's the same reason why 'teh' is such a common replacement for 'the'.




Well, that and many people misspell it on purpose. It's Teh Cool.


----------



## Umbran (Jan 2, 2005)

I think it has a lot to do with typing.  Transposing letters is easy if they are adjacent in the word but typed by different hands.  The difference between "rogue" and "rouge" is the difference between "right, left, right" and "right, right, left" in typing order.  If the left finger is a little too quick or slow, you can type the wrong word.  Same goes for the common "the/teh" misspelling.


----------



## Greylock (Jan 2, 2005)

I see Rogue mispelled as rouge on every fantasy RPGing board in existence. It's no conspiracy, it's just idiocy.

Now, folks who mispell Dual as Duel, as in "My duel weilding rouge r0x0rz!"? Them is the conspirators.


----------



## Captain Tagon (Jan 2, 2005)

painandgreed said:
			
		

> Especially since it's supposed to be spelled "thief".





One can certainly be glad that isn't the case anymore.


----------



## Torm (Jan 2, 2005)

Rouge is the character class, and rogue is a spaghetti sauce, right?


----------



## Dakkareth (Jan 3, 2005)

I'd say a big part of the problem is, that 'rouge'  just like 'rogue' is a word. A few minutes ago I misspelled 'just' as 'jsut' due to the finger-sequence mix-up as explained above. 'jsut' however is not an English word, so it gets spotted easily and is a far less common misspelling than those already mentioned in this thread. You don't find those at a single glance.


----------



## Glyfair (Jan 3, 2005)

Pbartender said:
			
		

> It's entirely common, when typing quickly, to transpose two letters within a word.  Your brain goes into typing auto-pilot mode, and one hand briefly gets ahead of the other.  It's the same reason why 'teh' is such a common replacement for 'the'.




I'll also note that the design of the keyboard makes certain transpositions common.  When I was taking typing in high school, many years ago, my teacher decided to switch to an innovative new typing system.  The tests were designed to bring out the common errors.  When you graded your test, you would be referred to certain tests that would practice those specific issues.


----------



## Azul (Jan 3, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> I think it has a lot to do with typing.  Transposing letters is easy if they are adjacent in the word but typed by different hands.  The difference between "rogue" and "rouge" is the difference between "right, left, right" and "right, right, left" in typing order.  If the left finger is a little too quick or slow, you can type the wrong word.  Same goes for the common "the/teh" misspelling.




Hmm...  I had the dubious blessing of having both strict English profs and strict typing/keyboarding profs back in high school.  I guess I just don't naturally assume accidental transpositions because it was drilled into me at an early age not to make such errors.  I may just be working with an erroneous set of assumptions when it comes to common typos and misspellings, seeing purpose and intent where it really isn't.

The "teh" misspelling is part of L33T, so I generally ignore it even though I find it annoying to read chronicly misspelled words.   :\ 

The reason the "rouge" misspelling prompted my query is because 1) it is so bloody frequent and 2) it's a freaking class name.  It seems to me that most gamers seem to be relatively bookish and I guess I just expect them to not screw up game-related terms systematically on a massive scale by mere accident.  It's not like people chronically misspell "paladin", even though it is a far more obscure English word than "rogue".  That is what led me to wonder if there was a cliquish cachet to spelling "rogue" as "rouge".

As for the possibility of American English further deviating from British English... all I can say is "UGH!".  I already find the current divide between the two (and between them and Canadian English) quite annoying enough, thank you.


----------



## Captain Loincloth (Jan 3, 2005)

I fink sum peepull ar jest stoopid an kant spel!!!  Whut whe nede iz fer teh stoopid peepull knot tu poste enny moor!!!


----------



## Harmon (Jan 4, 2005)

Some of us don't use spell check, double check our spellings or for that matter know the difference- I mean most of my rogues wear rouge so...   

Sorry, I think it has to do with typing and not paying attention or not being able to spell worth a dam.


----------



## Arnwyn (Jan 4, 2005)

fusangite said:
			
		

> People do not see this as a rule anymore and, as a result, some spellings have changed, such as: "judgement" is now spelled "judgment"; and "guage" is now spelled "gauge."
> 
> I think we can look forward to more "gu" words losing their u's and other related developments in the next few decades.



Which is, of course, doubleplusungood.


----------



## Blue_Kryptonite (Jan 5, 2005)

Pbartender said:
			
		

> Everyone makes mistakes, after all... but that they don't take the (very small amount of) time to quickly proofread their posts for obvious spelling and grammar mistakes.




However, it may also be the way the human brain parses. After all, as widely circulated (though of undetermined veracity of cite):

"Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a tatol mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe."

Rogue and Rouge are even closer together, thus causing the "skip" implied above to mark the word as proper.


----------



## jester47 (Jan 5, 2005)

Its because of standard keyboard design.  

In the letters we have:

Q W E R T   Y U I O P 
 A S D F G    H J K L 
  Z X C V     B N M 

I have divided it up by hand.  Umbran's point that it is a right left right vs. a right right left indicates that the index finger on the right hand is simply quicker to respond than the index of the left because it has the momentup of the force that was used behind typing the 'O' behind it, whereas the left index finger is moving from a cold stop.  

The real test is to see if other posters that do NOT make this mistake are on differently formated keyboards.  If you put one of the letters 'O' or 'U' on the other side of the board the chances of making the same mistake are greatly reduced.   Thus if it still happens, then it is not a typo but a lack of spelling knowledge.

Aaron.


----------



## Zappo (Jan 5, 2005)

CronoDekar said:
			
		

> the Rogue Gods of Grammar



You mean the Rouge Dieties of Grammer, right?


----------



## Azul (Jan 6, 2005)

jester47 said:
			
		

> Its because of standard keyboard design.
> 
> In the letters we have:
> 
> ...




So, does anyone here use a Dvorak keyboard and do you tend to make the same spelling mistake as the Qwerty typists?


----------



## Ankh-Morpork Guard (Jan 6, 2005)

Dr. Anomalous said:
			
		

> "Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a tatol mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe."




I always love reading things like that.


----------



## Arbiter of Wyrms (Jan 6, 2005)

CronoDekar said:
			
		

> I don't know; it doesn't bother me much.  What I get irritated at is seeing the word "lose" misspelled as "loose."  Whereas "rogue" is a relatively uncommon word, "lose" is very common.  And it's not even anywhere near as complex as the they're/their/there or your/you're problems!  I crumple up and yell to the Rogue Gods of Grammar "NOOOOOOOOOO!" (especially when it's obvious it's not just a typo), and then because of my Frenzied Grammatist levels I go on a rampage throughout town.  I will not tell details of the rampage because it is too gruesome, but let it be said that all small animals tremble at my approach (well, all the squirrels... usually).
> 
> Oh, and topic.  Probably just because they know all the letters that go in the word, but aren't quite sure of the order.  Either that or it's a deliberate attempt to make us Frenzied Grammatists go crazy just to show how broken the prestige class is.  I think they're just envious because their DMs didn't let them take it.




*must hold rage class feature in abeyance*  

The class is called Frenzied *Grammarian*.  If you can't get it right, roll initiative!  

I have to agree though, that while "rogue/rouge" is pretty bad, "lose/loose" grinds at my soul more noticeably.  When I see folks mess up "to/two/too," though, I have to make a Will save to stay online.


----------



## The_Universe (Jan 6, 2005)

That's crazy.  Even as my mind screamed that the phrase was nonsense, I was still able to decipher its meaning with minimal effort.  Cool!


----------



## CronoDekar (Jan 7, 2005)

Arbiter of Wyrms said:
			
		

> The class is called Frenzied *Grammarian*.  If you can't get it right, roll initiative!




That's part of the reason people think it's broken -- Frenzied Grammatists easily go into a frenzy just by hearing the name of their class!  I mean, really, PETTY?!


----------



## Mercule (Jan 7, 2005)

Azul said:
			
		

> So, does anyone here use a Dvorak keyboard and do you tend to make the same spelling mistake as the Qwerty typists?



I've used Dvorak for a few years, now.  I occasionally get "teh" as a typo, but I don't often seem to get other common typos.  I'm a grammar/spelling nazi, though.  Even without a spell-checker, I think my posts are usually pretty clean.

Mostly, I think it's a matter of people either being lazy or inconsiderate.  There seems to be wave of people who think it's cool to sound illiterate and uneducated, or who at least seem to think it's unnecessary -- but that could get into politics pretty quickly.

What bothers me more than mispellings that may or may not be typos is the incompetent use of homonyms.  I, truly, cannot fathom how it can be difficult to understand the difference between their, there, and they're; your and you're; or two, to, and too.  To graduate high school without that knowledge is just absurb.

I can excuse it some on a messageboard where everyone is being casual.  What drives me absolutely nuts, though, is finding those sorts of things in professional documents.  And I see it all the time.  I've been reviewing some training documents lately, and it's probably a good thing the person who put them together has left the company because I'm pretty sure I would have acted... uncivily toward her.


----------



## Wolf72 (Jan 7, 2005)

I misspell roug ...doh! I almost did it again, ahem.  ... rogue all the time.  Also when I'm typing the, I often get teh or hte ... student becomes studnet.

I blame better software, my current version of word picks up those mistakes and fixes them ... so I tend to ignore them and end up posting silly things.


----------



## Ranger REG (Jan 7, 2005)

Azul said:
			
		

> Enquiring minds want to know!



I don't want to say anything bad but we got more dyslexics inside the RPG community now than in 1990's.  

Sighs. There was a time when I hear a success story about _D&D_ being educational, like one of my old players had to take a surprise vocabulary quiz and he was able to spell "dexterity" correctly.

Kids today.


----------



## Cyberzombie (Jan 7, 2005)

HeavyG said:
			
		

> Well, that and many people misspell it on purpose. It's Teh Cool.




w00t!  All teh 1337 uzers spell ti "rouge".


----------



## Wycen (Jan 9, 2005)

I was in a play by post story at www.planescape-torment.com when they opened their forums and one of the people who I met and is now a friend had a character he posted as rouge modron, to interact with my modron.  I started painting everything I came across red and he couldn't figure out why, until finally off screen I told him he probably meant Rogue Modron, instead of red-rouge modron.


----------

