OK, I have spent the better portion of my day reading over 600 comments on a fark.com article. The article in question is here: http://www.divinecaroline.com/22276/83052-eight-spelling-mistakes-smart-make .
Now, I cannot argue that this article is at best an inept attempt at making people feel better about a complete lack of grammar and spelling skills. I also cannot argue with most of the commentary on FARK, however, most of the argument has little to do with the actual article.
Most of the article is, in fact, about elementary school level grammatical mistakes, not spelling. Improper conjunctions and word usage does not equal spelling. These are basic mistakes that would be expected from my 8 year old. My 11 year old should know better. I do not consider myself a "grammar Nazi", yet I do consider myself educated enough to avoid most of them. Who and whom still trip me up, and although I am a very good speller, even I make use of the spell checker to double-check.
Everyone that has graduated grade school should know the difference between they're/their/there; to/too; you're/your. Irregardless is a word. Please stop arguing about this. It is not proper word usage, but it is a word. There is a lot of slang in the dictionary, whether or not a word appears in the dictionary, does not denote it being proper.
What all of this truly shows is that people rely far too much on their spell check and do not take the time nor care to make sure they are formulating proper sentences with the correct word usage. As I have noted before, spell check cannot proof read for you.
Try this for a change. Next time you are writing an email/article/essay/posting, please read it again before you click send/submit. If everyone did that, about 70% of these mistakes would be caught and corrected.
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As an additional note, I am not beyond making grammatical mistakes myself. If you find a mistake, feel free to point it out, just don't get holier-than-though about it.
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