The Writing Life...The Spelling Conspiracy

Now, that I use Twitter and instant messaging more, my spelling has taken a nose dive. When I tweet or IM, I actually spell things incorrectly on purpose to save space and time. Now, when I’m writing or posting to our blog, occasionally I will pause and wait for Spell Check’s red line to appear. And often, when it doesn’t appear, I look at the word in question and think, is that really how you spell that…should I Google it?

And what’s the deal with homonyms. People know what you mean. When you’re talking, no one ever stops and says, “When I just said ‘there’ I meant t-h-e-r-e, not t-h-e-i-r.” Although it’s the kind of thing I notice…when someone else uses the wrong word, in the whole scheme of things, does it really matter?

I’ve had years to learn how to spell words correctly. I really feel sorry for kids that are just learning to spell. When they grow up will there even be a correct way to spell things? Or will we finally figure out, as any third grader can tell you, learning to spell things correctly is just some big conspiracy to cut down on our play time?