Thought for the day

English spelling was not codified until the mid 18th century. So "proper" spelling is only about 250 years old. Shakespeare pre-dates it. The words of Petrarch, Erasmus, Machiavelli, Queen Elizabeth, Henry VIII, and well, you get it, all were spelled phonetically by whomever transcribed them. And think of the brilliance they conveyed. All the inventions realized and new worlds discover
ed. Does spelling really matter all that much? It sure didn't stop Einstein. We all (mostly) know what we mean with the words we write, even if we spell them incorektlee. And we have spell-check, for better or for worse.

We all use our calculators now to do division. We don't think twice about it. Why not use computers to spell-check words that are nonsensically spelled anyway? While, wily? Not, knot? Knew, gnu? Whom, wham? It's all goofy. Night, knight, site, cite, sight. Might is right or might could be? It's all a bit of a bother.

So , I vote for modernizing education and technology and stop spending so much time on spelling and testing it and lets find out if anyone actually understands what we mean rather than how we spell. As Mark Twain said....

I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.