Reading back my post, it seems petty and childish now... But I'm back on my meds! :)
1. It's usually the native speakers that do the messing up. For instance: In french, there's no word "users" but there is a word "producent", so you wouldn't be likely to make a mistake like "produsers". As another example, in german, the words for "their" and "there" are so completely different that there's no chance you'll confuse the two. I learned english from the age of 12, and I know I suck at it. But native speakers should know a little better, don't you agree?
2. We all make typos, emotional or not. Going over your text before pressing send on a new thread goes a long way in eradicating them.
3. Agreed. I'd like to add to that, that the internet has turned us all into content producers and, by extension, into teachers. It's more important than ever that we correct each other, since we're learning more from each other, and less from "authorities".
This importance is relative of course. Proper spelling will do surprisingly little for you in a life-threatening situation. C3PO comes to mind.
And we're reading more than ever, so who knows, things might take a turn for the better. Although it's more likely that the language will be simplified some more and spell checkers will rule the world.
Can monkeys surf the net, and corrupt our kids?
Chimpanzee chatrooms, next on Sick, Sad World.
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