Correcting spelling these days is a losing proposition. Either they can't do it to begin with and will never learn, they just don't care because illiteracy and social media shorthand are destroying our language, or they can't be arsed to go back and make corrections.

I can understand non-English speakers having a hard time now and again, but native speakers leave spelling/grammar Nazis such as myself (Can't help it; I'm a teacher.) frothing at the mouth.

Happens all the time. So embarrassign.

"Swidish"

Bravo gentlemen. The appalling spelling and poor grammar of many respondents needs to be addressed. Just a day or so ago I read someone's comment where they used 'plane' instead of 'plain.' It's one thing if the writer's native language isn't English, but for native English speakers, such mistakes are inexcusable.

I've had people working for me who have had atrocious spelling and grammar, who somehow think that simply admitting this weakness excuses them from making any effort at improving on it.

Then again, I worked some years ago with an HR manager who would circle spelling mistakes he found on resumes, put a letter grade on them, and send them back to the people who submitted them.

Spelling and grammar matter - that's what 'spell check' is for.

Two ad my too sense

Spell Chequer

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue Miss Steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word And weight four it two say Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid It nose bee fore two long. And eye can put the error rite.
Its rarely ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it.
I am shore your pleased two no,
Its letter perfect in it's weigh.
My chequer tolled me sew.

– Sauce Unknown

I got this from the USAF's AFH 33-337, The Tongue & Quill

It's incredible how people criticize Microsoft all the time for various issues and yet they wholeheartedly trust the results of spellcheck and grammar check--even though neither program understand context and cannot decide what would be the actual word/spelling required. We place too much trust in machines/software to correct our mistakes.

When AI reaches the ready-for-use stage, it just might decide it has had enough of fixing our mistakes and just fix us.

Bring back Schoolhouse Rock.

Sumbit... Surely it hasn't always said that!!

Welll sumbit! Never noticed that!

It was noticed and has been like it for quite a long time. With all the other issues Jim has to deal with this just has not reached the top of the pile.

It seems to me that people who learned English as a second language often have better grammer and spelling than native Anglophones, unfortunately. Maybe the school systems are better in their countries.

Better grammar even

I have found the same actually - it was particularly evident in a book I read a couple of years ago with chapters written by multiple nationalities and the non-native English speakers had clearly either been taught better or had paid more attention in English classes.

Not that I can claim to be competent in many foreign languages - I was very embarrassed to learn from a couple of Dutch girls at a railway station in Luxembourg in the 1980s that they were taught three foreign languages at school whereas in the UK we are lucky if we are taught one.

Hi Gary,

I've read this ''sumbit'' hundred times, but I didn't noticed.

Anyway, I think this is just a typing mistake, not properly a matter of illiteracy.

I'm non-native english speaker, but I just try to pay attention when writing.

Cheers

HobbyBoss, this is really difficult to forgive. Hope the kit is good

To quote The Bard:

"If little faults, proceeding on distemper,
Shall not be wink'd at, how shall we stretch our eye
When capital crimes, chew'd, swallow'd and digested,
Appear before us?"

I think for most, the problem is complacency; they get in a hurry and don't take the time to go back and re-read what they've just written. It's no fun; I know. However, I always make a habit of going back and reading what I've just posted before the EDIT button disappears. Amazing how many of my own typos I've caught that way. And never, ever hit the SEND button on an e-mail until you've read it through at least once.

Oh, and let's not bash the great work Jim does on this site at little or no cost to any of us. If he fat-fingers a word or two, is it really worth it to call him out in public, as opposed to sending a short PM?

My $0.02...

Ummm, this section is for reporting problems.

The poor spelling and atrocious grammar situation is NOT going to change; it will only continue to degenerate... We only have ourselves to blame. I have a spell-check on my computer system, and it too, has a nasty habit of overlooking proper spelling in certain applications.

It seems that proper spelling and grammar have taken a back seat in our educational systems. "Texting English" laziness, indifference, "trash-talking", along with a lot of bad proof-reading in printed material, popular "rap music" and the media's unchecked corruption of the language, have all contributed to turning our language into a bastardized parody of it's original form...

You opened a can of worms.

Quite right, Gary. I got caught up in everyone's enthusiasm. Sorry.

[Sarcasm]Spelling/Grammar Police = Rivet Counters[/Sarcasm]........

So you sound as though you think that we're ruining more than just people's hobby now then (as my rivet counting apparently does). Wow, I didn't know I had such power.

Then again, there are authors whose work I won't buy due to bad spelling and grammar, so maybe there are those for whom it doesn't ruin their day to read text that is clear and correctly punctuated. Still plenty of proofreading coming my way anyway.....

He we is getting oldr an don't member al der spellen