Well, I finally caught up to the end of this thread, although I assume there will be a few extra posts by the time I post this.
It does not really matter if you get your spelling wrong, as long as the meaning is clear. Unfortunately, this is not always the case, and I for one give up on a post if I have to read it twice and still am not sure what it means.
Although in a few cases these may represent contributors who have English as a second language, or perhaps some specific disability, I'm afraid that in most cases all they indicate is that someone does not care enough about the subject to read it themselves before hitting the submit button.
In fact, the standard of spelling or grammar rarely reflects educational level - as mentioned above, spelling and grammar should have been learnt in primary school. More often it represents the degree to which the poster cares about the impression they make on others - rightly or wrongly, poor English makes a bad impression, regardless of whether it really matters, and regardless of whether the reader even believes it matters.
I was never particularly good at English in school, being better at physics and mathematics. But being in a position where I have had to assess PhD theses as well as written documents in all sorts of fields from software documentation to aviation safety to job applications, as well as spending six years as a technical editor, I have come to appreciate the benefits of writing good English if you expect anyone to bother reading it.
John
John
JDNSW
1986 110 County 3.9 diesel
1970 2a 109 2.25 petrol
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