English Writing Skills

[caf]

You could always hire a professional spell checker.

I do. That is why magazines hire editors.

And, for ANOTHER correction... you should have used "are" instead of "is"...

"And the reason that speak and speech "ARE" spelled that way is a matter of tone not derivation."

I don't know how many times I overlook my own mistakes when doing the dozens of rereads necessary before submitting an article. And, typos are often the worst problem when a word is correctly spelt, but improperly used... for example... loose and lose. I often type "and" when I intended to use "an".

Mea culpa.

But glad you now know why speech and speak are spelled the way they are. You see, you learn something every day.

Back to topic and not aimed at you, I don't really have problems with spelling on the forum or for that matter grammar - unless the grammar error makes for ambiguity.

More of a problem are the posters who don't think through an argument before they post or only evr see their own narrow point of view.

[IanForbes]

I agree, caf. It's only the "holier than thou" group that I get a kick out of. Everyone makes mistakes, including chief editors in high end magazines. The only thing that bothers me about "some" editors are the ones who think they know more than the writer does about the subject the writer wrote about in the first place. Sometimes they change the article to a point where it is just plain wrong.

But, this thread has been entertaining as well as informative. I used to be a terrible speller and didn't get better until spell check corrected some of my more common errors BEFORE the editor took my story.