Honestly, who cares? BE is for everyone - from English graduates, to those with proper degrees

Outrageous! I shan't start a debate on the relative merits of the many and various degree courses out there as it could go on forever!

I'm off to bed to dream about grammar.

Shocking, positively shocking.

Seriously, benjy25, I have a different take on it. Having posted 6,481 messages (not counting this one) since February 2005, I am highly appreciative of questions that are posed coherently. That is, I'm grateful when I can understand what the poster has asked.

In my very early days on the forum, I cared about spelling. But correct spelling soon dropped down to item number 37 on my wish list.
x

RDIAENG.

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe. ceehiro.


...............

how long did it take you to mix up all those letters then ?

Google is gerat.... I hvae seen it sweheomre bferoe but cuold not fnid it...

Plus I spell like that anyway most of the time...

Geek alert, when I was learning morse code years back you learnt to use abbreviated words, similar to sms slang. When I listen to it now you only write down the first couple of letters and guess the rest. So who needs a spil chucker anyway.

if yo kne the wha you kno now yo coul ha deve it furt yo coul hav mad a fortu

You are fighting a losing battle i'm afraid.

The worst of the worst posts are either ignored or mocked by the peanut gallery anyway.

To me, there's a difference between a reasonably well-written post with a few spelling mistakes, and a post where someone has a limited understanding of the language they are trying to communicate in.

What annoys me more is when people type entire sentences in capital letters, such as subject lines on threads. See how many threads on here do this. It's down to a basic lack of netiquette.

What I find more annoying than poor spelling is degree-educated pedants, who claim to dream about grammar, failing to demonstrate a basic grasp of punctuation. Twice in your post (and again in the title) you use the dreaded 'interrobang' and you compound your error through overuse of exclamatory punctuation. Every sentence except the last "rant over" uses some kind of exclamation point. As I'm sure your dreamscape will tell you, overuse of overexcited punctuation diminishes its impact to the point of meaninglessness.

Must try harder. I'd give you a B- for this effort.

I used to get annoyed by it. I still do sometimes. In my dotage I am learning tolerance and forgiveness. Its not easy!

As long as a post makes sense then spelling doesn't matter, but....

It jars when I see homophones used wrongly, for example; their, there, they're. The wrong choice can change the whole meaning of the sentence. Its a mistake often made by educated people, who get paid $$$. Even more annoying is that they don't take the time to educate themselves.

Spelling errors aren't as annoying as the lack of punctuation, and use of paragraphs. The odd comma, full stop, and paragraph make the post easier too read.

P.S. Did you know that the use of the Oxford comma is correct practise in Canada?

Have just read Oaks post and am waiting for the corrections! .....
Interrobang??

So many people mix up to and too as well.

Surely you mean only that it is commonly used by Canadians.

An interrobang is a combination of exclamation and question marks (print slang, bang = !). It can't easily be rendered on a computer and so one, or many, of each character is, or are, used.

Oakvillian: The Pedant's Pedant. Top marks.