Back in the day, spelling wasn't really a thing. I mean, obviously, people spelled words - literate people at least, of course. However, they pretty much spelled the words how they thought the words should be spelled, based upon sound, and since not everyone's going to interpret sound to letters the same as everyone else, each word got kind of tossed willy-nilly into a roiling free-for-all of spelling.
Then the rise of the printing press popularized the written word, and, gradually, the great minds of society came to the conclusion that they ought to standardize this crap.
I have no idea whom this fell to. It was probably a committee, or rather, two committees, seeing as the United States has more or less completely arbitrary spelling differences with the rest of the world. Colour? Color! Grey? Gray! For some reason, despite having moved to the States at the ripe old age of a year and a half, I grew up using the UK spelling; the US one still looks pretty peculiar to me so, just as a heads-up, if my "greys" and "colours" pop up a few times in the place of "gray" and "color," it's not that I can't spell, just that these things slip under my radar. I'm working on it, though.
Fortunately, I can, in fact, spell! "For heaven's sake," you sigh, "you're in your mid-twenties. I should certainly hope you can spell!" And you know what? You're wrong! Spelling isn't some of-course thing. The odd thing isn't that some people can't spell, it's that some people can spell. Much as we try to impose some logical standard on it, such as phonics, the fact remains that it's still pretty random and thus difficult to teach. Three of the smartest people I know, two of whom are authors and one of whom is my mother, can't spell their way out of a wet paper bag. Why on earth the Spelling Fairy saw fit to bless me, I have no idea, but I count myself lucky.
Since the Grammar Cop runs so strongly in my blood (man that's a peculiar mental picture,) this causes daily trials and tribulations as I strive to remind myself that it's none of my freakin' business, it's not hurting anything, and that there's little more condescending, irritating, or frustrating than unasked-for critique. On one thing, though, I'm a bit of a stickler, and that's misspellings that turn one word into another, because that actually alters meaning and even if I know what they mean, I won't always be the person they're writing to.
I wouldn't even bother with this, but that spell check in this case can't do a thing. You want to drink a root bear? Spell check is fine with that! You want to go beer hunting? Well, okay, but shooting them is more than a bit of a waste, and wearwolf...okay, so that one, spell check will catch. I just love it because it's such a fantastic thing to imagine. Every full moon, you turn into a dashing and cooperative live-wolf jacket! It's lycanthropy for the hip modern fashionista.
Basically, if you can't spell, don't feel bad. Just pay me to edit your work!
No, no, seriously. It's okay, especially in informal comminiques such as emails, IMing and text (don't get me started on textspeak, though. The poor abused keyboard will melt under the force of my searing visceral rage.) However, in formal writing, it's a good idea not only to let spell check do its thing, but also to ask someone touched by the Spelling Fairy to make sure you aren't accidentally preparing a delicious beverage composed of vanilla ice cream and a thousand pounds of hungry hairy omnivore.
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