Keeping it all in perspective

I do get a little steamed when I see misspellings on menus, notices, posters, TV advertisements - some would say that's an understatement and that I go on a full-blown rant - I would tend to agree with them, actually. Judgmentally, I perceive it as laziness or at least carelessness. I suppose I put a lot on having standards and I get disappointed, more than anything when I see spelling mistakes - is that pathetic?

When I see a misspelling, my thoughts do not turn to the original writer of the piece but with the layout artist or type-setter or sub-editor - do these people not realise there's a reasonably nifty feature - in direct contrast to that piece of crap paper-clip thing - on most word processing packages called SPELL CHECK ? Seriously, when I saw the word 'brief' spelled as 'breif' on a TELEVISION COMMERCIAL, I needed a little lie-down.

It's TV, people! Lots of people watch it.

Lots of little kids studying for spelling tests (do they still even have spelling tests anymore? - that could explain a lot) while watching television (don't tell me you never did homework in front of the box, because I would be calling you a Mr/Ms Pants on Fire), boning up on the whole 'i before e' thing would be totally confused by that stupid ad.

USE THE SPELL CHECK !

Of course, I am going to be totally humiliated if I get caught on this blog misspelling a word.

To keep it in perspective, I realise that there are bigger things in this world to worry about: the environment, world hunger, raising my kids to be decent human beings (and good spellers!). It won't all fall down on a misplaced vowel. But in my own way, I see the beauty of language as a hold-out against a lot of other ugliness.

Thus endeth the lesson.

(Hey - I just used 'spell check' and it identified 'blog' as a misspelled word - oh, the irony! It offers up: bloc, Bloch, blows, bloke, bolos, blouse and blocky as alternatives - Bloc, I can understand, but BLOUSE? BLOCKY?? BOLOS???)