IS spelling going oot the windae?

Was it ever, indeed, in the windae? Is windae how you spell windae? And I don't mean windy. Already, I wish I hadn't started this. You often feel the same reading my stuff? Noted.

Apart from anything else, I'll need to check this article for spelling or risk a letter of complaint: "My attention has been drawn to your edition of April 15 in which you missp - misp - in which you do not spell correctly the word 'herbaishus', as in gardin border, ken?"

I hate to say it, but the open access of the internet has revealed that, very often, our fellow folk cannot spell. I was going to say "for toffee", but they couldn't give two effs for that. One classic I caught recently said: "Manors cost nothing." Er, I think you'll find manors generally cost a substantial amount, while you can often pick up manners for a song. "Red whine does have alcohol in it." Red whine? What's that, a socialist complaint? Here's another: "Low and behold." But it would be beneath me to comment on that.

Folk often spell the same word, particularly names, two or three different times in the same paragraph. Perhaps it's all due to the habit of pressing "send" without a second thought. Falling off my high horse, I must admit: we've all done it.

But don't we all have spellcheckers now? Fair enough, the above examples may be Freudian slips that spellcheckers wouldn't catch. But many others shouldn't get through. "Independance" is a common one, "definately" another. Maybe writing to forums involves using wee boxes that don't spellcheck.

Perhaps spelling doesn't matter, as long as we get the gist. But I suspect most of us like a bit of order in written language. The alternative is a bit of ordure.