Spelling!, OK, sorry, it's driving me f'ing crazy! Options

[Series9]

Is there any chance of having a spell/grammar checker on this site?

I'm really sorry, but you guys should at least try to type the English language correctly.

I fully understand the occasional type-o, but come on, at least try to speak the language.

We have European members who speak (type) better English (American) than most of you cheap bastards.

Don't hate me for bringing this up, but it's starting to wear me down. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool_shades.gif)


Seeing tires spelled tiars makes me (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif)

[lapuwali]

I'd question when, or even if, the language will devolve furthur into dialects. Most of the regional differences in the US are pretty minor, and wouldn't linguistically be called a dialect. A genuine dialect often has a large difference in vocabulary, and sometimes grammar. In Italy, for example, villages just a few miles apart may speak dialects that sound like Italian, but can't be mutually understood. Many Italians speak both Italian as it's taught nationally, and a local dialect not spoken by anyone outside a 10 or 100 sq. mile area. The same is true in many other countries.

This has never really happened in the US, where 99.999% of the language is the same no matter where you go in the US. Differences for things like "hoagy" v. "sub" or "soda" v. "pop" (or soda pop, or soda water, or just coke) are pretty minor, and generally only pertain to names of things, not usage.

The differences between UK English and US English are much bigger, and amount to differences in usage ("in hospital" v. "in the hospital" is a minor example), not just names for things.

The main factor arguing against significant shifts in regional "dialects" in the US and the UK is the levelling factor of the mass media. When dialectical differences in Italy were being formed, it was uncommon for someone to meet or speak to another person from only 100 miles away during their entire lifetime. Only the educated few travelled or wrote to people over such large distances. This was true until only 50 years ago, so naturally, differences in language developed over the thousands of years Italy had been populated prior to that time. Today, I'm "speaking" to 100s of people who are from as far away as Helsinki just by typing this. And it's not like I'm using "public" or "book" dialect, as one does in Italy when a Milanese talks to a Roman; I'm using the only language and usage I know.