I’m Sorry, but Spelling Does Count
I have some help beyond spell check
First, the good news. Spelling and intelligence are not in any way connected. There are geniuses who can’t spell to save their lives, and there are people who don’t have two brain cells to rub together but can spell anything.
Now the bad news. Spelling does count. You can call it a typo, but that’s poor proofreading, at the least. If you published it wrong, we have to assume either you don’t know how to spell the word or you didn’t proofread.
Spelling English is horrible. I’m the first to admit that. Spanish is much easier; French is harder (come on: a word that sounds like “low” is spelled “l’eaux”? Then throw in all those accent a grave and accent the other way — I studied it for six years. I remember.) One of the major problems with English is that it is a result of many languages smooshed in together.
And sounding out the words doesn’t work because words that should rhyme don’t, and words that sound the same aren’t spelled the same — it’s a mess. And for every rule, there are thousands of exceptions. Be grateful for spell check, but it won’t always help. I’ll give some examples here.
A, an — forget the a before consonances and an before vowels. Would you say “a hour”? But “h” is a consonant. Would you say “an union”? But…
