When will people learn?

I'm so irritated right now that I could just spit.

A fellow C-Town resident (who I've never met) has a blog that I occasionally visit. Why don't I visit it more? Oddly enough, it's not because of his occasional political rantings. I can deal with those. We all need to vent sometimes (though he is a bit of an extremist).

The reason why I don't visit his blog is because his spelling errors and typos make it painful to read. Today, I couldn't take it any more and left a snide remark in his comments.

So here's my question: When did people stop taking spelling and grammar seriously? When did people decide that it's ok if they appear ignorant and uneducated?

Every email I get from a certain superior at work contains numerous errors. Last month, we were planning a special edition about the Atlanta Falcons. And yet, I kept getting emails about the "Falcon's" special. Guess what? I can't take you seriously when you do that. You're a professional in the journalism field, and you don't know the difference between plural and possessive? Apostrophes aren't that difficult to figure out. Most people managed to master them in the third grade.

And don't even get me started about the way the way that this person spells "oops." Seriously. "Oppps?" Come on.

I know that we all make the occasional typo, the occasional grammatical gaffe. It's only human. But seriously, folks, spell-check only takes you so far in life. If you don't know the difference between "you're" and "your" (not to mention "to," "two," and "too" or "they're," "there," and "their"), then LOOK IT UP!

And just in case you don't know how to do that, either, try these handy websites.

Dictionary.com
Merriam-Webster Online
English Plus "Grammar Slammer"
Online Writing Lab
All About Homonyms