Excellent point that I never thought of made by Cara Powers. She comments:
"I blame it on spellcheck. I almost never look anything up anymore. I don't even think about spelling when I type. I just give it a go and watch for the little red underline."
. Yes, Cara you are right, I forgot completely about spellcheck as I never use it but basically you do not need to be able to spell. The software will do it for you. So things would seem to point to the fact that our ability to spell may be rendered redundant by the Internet. This may be true when writing online but what happens when you have to write a letter, fill in a form when there is no computer available? Or do you think we will reach the situation where all our written communication is done online or by computer and spelling should no longer be our concern? Could happen but ....
I firmly believe that language is closely connected to our culture and is in fact to some degree a mirror of our culture. An inability to spell also indicates that we are losing the connection to where words come from. It is interesting to note, for example, that 51 802 words in the English language are derived from the Greek language. I firmly believe we should never lose interest in the roots of our language - ultimately we will become all the poorer for this.
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I disapprove of the dwindling language skills -- poor spelling, poor punctuation, etc. But these are modern skills; people have only cared deeply about them for a century or two. Before that, spelling and punctuation were much more erratic and minimally formalized. So it's certainly possible to have a civilization without such.
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