Is it just me? Am I really the only person who thinks it matters if you spell words correctly as well as use them correctly? Is it too much to ask that when a screenwriter sets his story in Iran, he knows how to spell "Ayatollah Khomeini?" Apparently, the answer is yes, it is too much to ask. And apparently, I am the only person on my creative team who thinks it's odd that someone who expects to be paid for his work would approximate the spelling thus: "Iatola Komani."
In truth, I've long since given up hope that people will use "its" and "it's" correctly. I no longer cringe when people spell automobile brakes as "breaks." I don't flinch when I see "gauge" written as "gage." Those silent letters are tricky. (Although no one ever seems to spell "knife" as "nif.")
Sometimes it's enough to e-mail my fellow grammar-snarkers with examples of egregious spelling and other errors: pre-Madonna for "primadonna," for example, or my current favorite, "They were pail as ghost's." It's not often you see that many mistakes in just five words.
It's not as if I'm a perfect speller. I cannot spell "inaugural" to save my life. I used to misspell millennium until the millennium when I finally got it through my head that it was 2 Ls and 2 Ms.
But that is what Spellcheck is for.
Am I the only one who thinks this matters?
Thursday, February 4, 2010
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