BTW, you guys probably have no idea how often I have to edit my spelling after the fact. Yes, I could preview, but do I? Nooooo.
Damn, I’m good. 
I think Extreme Literacy should be in the X Games.
I’ve been told I spell like someone whose mother tongue is not English and has a lot of faith in spell check’s ability to read minds.
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer…
Really, my spelling is horrible always has. I learned the “I before E” thing and ended up in a job where almost every e-mail has the word protein and often I deal with things like, casein while drinking caffeine. When I write a birthday card to my mom, I type it out, spell check it, and then hand write it letter by letter. Things like her name, I know how to spell, but spell check it anyway because it would look even worse if I misspelled it. So I most likely make more of an effort than those that can spell desiccate, ecstasy, dumbbell, and irresistible off the top of their head.
The funny thing is that I have helped several people with college level English papers, and was one of the better students in my college English classes. Back when pen and paper or type writers were all that were available, I learned that synonyms were my friend (look it up in the dictionary? Running into words like physical broke that habit). Often I would think of a sentence and by the time it reached the paper, several of the words had changed. Google has changed much of this for me. I can type in words that spell-check will not recognize with several similar or related words and its algorithm will usually figure out what word it is within two or three attempts. All of this to make sure that the arbitrary placement of letters is thrown onto the page in the same way as everyone else.
I follow the conventions out of politeness, because it helps others understand, and out of pride (I wouldn’t want to appear stupid). And out of politeness, if I understand what some one is saying I just sort’ve let pass without comment. The point of written communication is first and foremost the communication of ideas, not to show that you have been to finishing school.
In some situations, it shows attention to detail, a job resume is an example where paper selection, spelling, grammar, and font might be worth considering. Formal correspondence, homework, and professional or training situations sometimes require a higher standard but most of the time, communication is the primary goal.
The same can be said for speaking. Grammar, vocabulary and diction would be different in a play, speak or interview, than elsewhere, but I have better tings to do than debate “Pop vs. Soda” and whether a person uses good or well in a sentence in day to day conversations.
This probably come back to haunt me in a few years when I go back to school. The GRE for graduate level classes have a written portion that counts spelling. There I will have nothing but the computer a keyboard, the monitor, my terrible typing skills and poor spelling skills. Grammar and spelling will generate a score before the paper is even read for logic.
Simon, I was waiting for your response! I agree.
Who established spelling? Common usage. And that constantly changes in both minor and major ways. Ergo, my point.
The history of English folks blame first the scribes of the chancelry (british civil servants) and then the compilers of the first dictionaries in English, who include the celebrated Dr Johnson.
LOL. It’s a good thing I am only seeing this thread now, I don’t think I can bear Ergos and “logical conclusions” attached to such posts of such quality.
Ergo ergo ergo. Bill O’Reilly says it so it must be cool.
sort’ve = sort have
Perhaps you meant “sort of”. That would make more sense.
It is not simply a matter of nitpicking, but that spelling and grammar errors are a distraction for the reader, who must stop and try to fathom the intended meaning whenever encountering a bit of unintended gibberish like this. I know it was either a mistake or a misunderstaning on the writer’s part, but the writer has stopped the flow of communication, disrupted the train of thought that was intended. Such disruptions make the reader (this reader, at least) a bit cranky at times. Yer messin’ wit me head.
djm
we had, sorta, wondered about the cranky thing 
Miss Spelling
Part of my oddball sense of humor.
We need standards of spelling and grammar because people from different places will understand one another better if we use a long-established form of writing than if we use our own dialect, which is what happens when we spell things how they sound.
For example, I might write, “I weunt owt tu thu heun howce ta geut sum aigs for Moma wheun I heared thu telifoan reeng, an so I run intu the howce ta ansur it. It was a call from Doc Moots down tu thu hospittle, an he wanted me ta take a messidge. I sed ‘just a minnit, I gotta run geut a peun.’”
If you knew me, and knew my manner of speech, you could comprehend that, most likely. A person from Botswana, though a native speaker of English, may have difficulty.
There are some differences between the spelling and grammar rules taught in various English-speaking countries, but for the most part things written in the standard English from any part of the world is comprehensible to an English-speaker from any other part of the world.
The English language evolves through the invention of new words, and very occasionally new sentence and grammatical structures, but devolves through poor and lazy spelling.
There are more people speaking, and writing, English today as a second language than as a first language.
As someone who is for all intents and purposes a monoglot, I have nothing but praise for people who can make themselves understood in a language not spoken by their parents. I correspond with several people from other countries, and their written English, while occasionally difficult to comprehend with its mistakes, is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than my written or spoken <any language that isn’t English>.
That said, the language is changing because of the way it is used by secondary speakers and writers, and that’s something we ultimately can’t control.
As someone said a couple of pages back, it’s a question of courtesy to the reader to try to express yourself as clearly as possible, and that means spelling words correctlym, which I define to be the way a dictionary spells them.
If you have been bought up speaking and writing English as a first language, I think it’s very rude NOT to take the time and trouble to express yourself in clear, correctly spelt, grammatical English. Good content can be obscured by poor context.
Re: the red print:
No, WE are not discussing linguistic change. YOU are. All by yourself. The rest of us are discussing spelling. Ergo, no point.
Good post, Martin.
what? no point! shouldn’t there be a penalty?
Spelling is a part of how languages change. At one point, “guinea pig” was spelled “ginny pig,” for example. You’re smart enough to see the relation between spelling and overall change.
Jack has to spend an evening hanging out on the porch with you. 
Give it a rest, Jack. You’re grasping at straws. You always sooner or later wave your linguistic-change-is-inevitable-and-healthy-and-what-standards-are-really-about-is-the-tyranny-of-the-establishment banner about the place, and I’m not going to disagree with that. Not that I care either way. That’s out of my hands, and most certainly yours as well.
Spelling is not linguistics. You might care enough to learn the difference, unless you want to throw away definition, too, and call that linguistics as well.
I’d love to. We can make alcohol-free lemonade and listen to Enya.