EXACTLY. I can’t think of any other field of academic study where getting the answer “almost” right is accepted.

capitalization of the first character in a sentence is the correct protocol except when you’re stealing office time to put in some comments into neatorama

Misspellings really only hurt the writer, and even if you “legalized” these misspellings, they would still exist as indicators of the author’s lack of command of the language, with whatever attendant deficiencies you associate with that.

My beef is that it’s just not that difficult to figure out the correct spellings for words with crucial distinctions like there/they’re/their so that both the writer’s intentions and the reader’s comprehension are in harmony. I’ve seen people use the different spellings of those homonyms in the same paragraph, incorrectly. If you’re going to take a stab at using the different forms, why not learn what they mean?

There means there. It’s right there.
They’re means they are. It’s pretty self-evident.
Their means possession. You can remember that one because it’s the one that’s not the other two.

The relative simplicity of learning these spellings makes the writer who has not taken the time to do so seem truly ignorant, perhaps unfairly, and wrecks the credibility of the author, even if his points have merit. So you do yourself a favor if you take a minute to write correctly: you create a foundation upon which your ideas and opinions can be absorbed without the distraction, and the contingent reliability issues, of improper spelling.

The other irony here is that what Smith is suggesting is not a natural evolution. Rather, it’s a formal change to educational curriculum that votes to standardize misspellings (at which point, they would no longer be incorrect spellings of the words.) So instead of solving the problem of learning how to spell the word one way, educators would actually be required to learn a new “correct” way to spell words that they already knew how to spell correctly.

The other aspect that would be interesting is how these changes be accepted in the rest of the world. I’d hate to see a college paper of a kid who is brought up in one community that tolerates variant spellings.

And what about the international reception of this on the internet. If we wanted to search for a speech from Twelfth Night would we going to have to search run multiple searches for “speach twelfth night,” “speech twelth night,” “speech twelfth night,” and “speach twelth night?”

Why can’t morons just shut the hell up and learn how to spell?

Yeah. That failed too.

Another note: British include the “u”, Americans exclude it, and Canadians use either.

If we accepted every erroneous spelling as a valid alternative, it would take far too long to read anything of any reasonable length. We would also have problems distinguishing between homophones. Smith’s logic is absurd.

also, like many others mentioned, it would completely devalue what evolution we humans have gone through (and please spare me the religious debate against evolution… evolution is not just a theory related to species origin.) part of who we are is the language we speak. if we let our language dissolve, our intellect will soon follow. then we’ll all be grunting and making sounds at each other, and maybe we can bring the dinosaurs back. if our species can go backwards, why can’t others come back?

- Nicholas Dollak
“…what works for the legal system does not necessarily apply in liguistics…”
Muddled. Use either “work” or “apply”. Something applies “to”, not “in”. And finally, you spelled “linguistics” incorrectly.

-chudez
In English we capitalize (“capitalise” in the UK) the first letter of a word at the start of a new sentence or paragraph.

- Warenwirtschaft
“Legalize variate spelling can’t be a good idea.”
Surely you meant: “Legalizing variant spelling can’t be a good idea”

- Crantz
ONE USES CAPITAL LETTERS WHEN SPELLING “OK”

-Polx
I know it sounds “cool” and “edjumacated” but “mayhaps” is not a word.

They vary from week to week.

Harbor is an alternate of Harbour, not the otherway around.

English English predates American English quite significantly,the alternate stems from the source not vice versa.

GHOTI = FISH ?

The GH from Cough, the O from wOmen, and the TI from Station.

For someone who loved language he had some rum ideas for it’s overhaul.

wot wood this doo 2 da langwidg?

And I am further appalled that this was suggested by an English academic.

I should examine their admissions policies at Bucks* New University before espousing the diminution of the language.

If your students are too ignorant to be able to write coherently, mayhaps they should not have been given a place in a tertiary educational establishment?

I have read in amazement “Should of” in place of “should HAVE”.

What next? Variant mathematics?

(* Bucks is the accepted shorthand in England for Buckinghamshire, it’s not Honest Buck’s New University.)

Spelling was standardized by the invention of the dictionary…before Samuel Johnson, people actually did spell things pretty much however they wanted. This did not deter the creation of great works of literature, but it did require people to be rather attentive to the works they read. Perhaps not such a bad thing, all things considered…

THERE = THER = DER = THEAR = T@R#

and different people can even use the same abstract squiggles for different words:

PERSON A: THERE = DER
PERSON B: THEIR = DER
PERSON C: THEY’RE = DER

with that said, language just naturally evolves (or doesn’t and dies out). there will be people who will stick to the “traditional” rules and there will be people who will break the rules and “innovate” and over time, a compromise is always found.

I know, there’s a famous grammar example of difference in:

1) What’s that up in the road ahead?
and
2) What’s that up in the road, a head?”

Probably not similar to your test questions, but it reminded me of that.

I can’t believe “thier” is on the list. NBC could do a six month campaign of David Schwimmer explaining “Their/They’re/There” via “the more you know” for a fraction of the governments efforts, and probably cure that disease forever. And as far as allowing misspellings as a society? That’s a poison.

The results can be comical (such as a sign outside a certain “cemetAry” in Blackwood, New Jersey), confusing or even dangerous in certain situations. Once I failed the written test portion of a job application because of a grammatical screw-up in a question. It was unclear exactly what the question was asking, and depending on the spelling of a word and the placement of a comma, there were three possible (and very different) meanings! All of them were probable as well. When I asked for clarification, I was tersely told to “just answer the question.” (I’ve discovered that this response translates to “I don’t know, and I’m angry that you asked the question.”) So I re-wrote the question all three ways, and provided three different answers. Apparently, this was the cause of my failing the test. The store folded in three months — whether this was due to poor communication skills, I may never know.

Besides, this isn’t a new idea.

But then again, aside from “twelfth” I have no problem spelling properly. I’d like to hear the opinion of someone who can’t spell.