Got Proof?

Today is National Proofreading Day.

I'm a big believer in proofreading (despite what you may think from the evidence on this blog). Which means I'm often shocked when reading internet comments.  I expect some mistakes, sure, but there are certain words people clearly can't spell and they just don't care. (I'm not even going to get into bad grammar, or dumb but understandable mistakes like "your" for "you're" or "there" for "their.")

It's not like it's hard to get the correct spelling.  You don't even have to walk over to a dictionary.  You can look it up on the same machine you're using to write your comment.  But this is just too much work.  People believe they can spell a word however they want and we can just guess what it means.

Anyway, doesn't your computer correct mistakes, or at least point them out, half the time?  You'd think we'd be living in a golden age of proofreading, but it's like the Wild West out there.