Wall-magazine proofreading with Arabic keyboard characters and half-space
The Persian Club is sending a one-page wall magazine to a district competition. The typist, working on an Arabic keyboard, submits twelve entries. The teacher must approve a final list before printing. The entries are: (1) كتاب with Arabic kaf; (2) یک with Arabic yeh; (3) میرود; (4) میرود; (5) کتابها; (6) کتابها; (7) مسئله; (8) مسله; (9) عضو; (10) ازو; (11) خواهر; (12) خاهر. The competition rules say: use standard Persian orthography as in school textbooks; Arabic keyboard characters that are not Persian must be normalized; half-space is required in certain prefixes and plural endings. The teacher has no Persian keyboard, only a chart of Persian letters. The magazine will be printed, so an incorrect character cannot be corrected after the print run. The teacher must also explain the decisions to two students who think 'any form that reads the same is fine'.
1. Sort the twelve entries into four groups: correct as printed, wrong character, wrong spacing, and wrong spelling. Give the corrected form for every non-correct entry.
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- Correct as printed: (3) میرود, (5) کتابها, (7) مسئله, (9) عضو, (11) خواهر.
- Wrong character: (1) كتاب uses Arabic kaf; correct کتاب with Persian kaf. (2) یک uses Arabic yeh; correct یک with Persian yeh.
- Wrong spacing: (4) میرود should be میرود with half-space; (6) کتابها should be کتابها with half-space.
- Wrong spelling: (8) مسله should be مسئله; (10) ازو should be عضو; (12) خاهر should be خواهر.
The distinction matters because (1) and (2) are character-code errors, not spelling variants; (4) and (6) are spacing errors in otherwise correct words.
2. Explain the half-space rule in 'میرود' and 'کتابها'. Why is 'میرود' not preferred in formal school print, even though readers can understand it?
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می- is a verbal prefix and -ها is a plural suffix; both are grammatical morphemes attached to a stem. In formal Persian print, the boundary is shown with a half-space (zero-width non-joiner): میرود, کتابها. The connected forms میرود and کتابها are readable, but they hide the morpheme boundary and are less preferred in textbook and examination style. They are not different words, so this is an orthographic/register decision rather than a meaning error. For a printed wall magazine, follow the school textbook convention consistently: if the magazine uses half-space in میرود, it should also use it in کتابها and similar forms. Do not 'correct' one and leave the other.
3. A student argues that 'خاهر' should be accepted because the و in 'خواهر' is not pronounced. Decide and justify.
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Reject خاهر for formal written work. خواهر is the standard spelling; the و is retained etymologically even though it is not pronounced in normal Tehrani-style speech. خاهر is a phonetic respelling, not an accepted formal variant. The same logic applies to words such as خواهم and خواهد, where the silent و remains in the standard orthography. The student's observation about pronunciation is correct, but the conclusion does not follow: Persian orthography is not purely phonemic, and the examination rewards standard written forms. Mark خواهر as correct and explain that pronunciation and spelling are separate decisions here.