If you misspell words people think you’re unintelligent.

You don’t get to choose whether they think that or not. It doesn’t matter if you think spelling is an anachronism, better left to the time of quills and inkwells. They won’t assume you were in a hurry and, though generally intelligent, just didn’t have time to proofread. They will assume you either don’t know or don’t care.

They will assume you are less qualified to educate or entertain them. Whatever your reasons for writing, one or the other is probably the desired end result. Don’t sabotage yourself. If you’ve got something worth writing, spell it correctly.

Here’s how to know if I’m speaking to you today: if you’re glad someone’s addressing this important topic, if you believe that correct spelling is a fundamentally important writing or business or life skill, you probably already know all this.

If, on the other hand, you wonder why everyone’s always making such a big deal about little details like this, you should know what others think about you because of your writing.

If you’re using a computer, spell checking tools are ubiquitous; almost inescapable. That should cover words which really aren’t spelled correctly. Now, go back and look for problem words like there, they’re and their; affect and effect; the three twos (tos? toos?) Know which is which and why. If you write for fun or profit, make the effort to make correct usage automatic.

A spell checker isn’t an ‘intent checker’. If you mean to write “send your message” and instead write “send you message”, the software won’t say a word, but your readers will think you speak like a Cro-Magnon.

It’s no excuse if the misspelled word is a complex scientific term, a foreign word or obscure (at least to you) place name. The first thing most of us are going to do when reading an unfamiliar term (well, if you’ve inspired us, that is) will be to look it up somewhere. If you’ve misspelled triskaidekaphobia or Ljubljana and we have to rummage around to find the correct spelling before we can even look it up, you’ve wasted our time. (This was interesting: WordPress’ spell checker flagged that scientific term, but not the geographic word.)

If folks note an occasional misspelling of a simple word, they will probably give you the benefit of the doubt, assuming that ‘teh’ is ‘the’ instead of assuming you’re an ignoramus. Do it twice in the same week, though, and assumptions shift quickly.

Tomorrow: Episode 2—The Superfluous Apostrophe