Interesting article, including the conclusion, which is if you don't like being judged by your typos, get over it. You will be anyway. The article
also DOES suggest there is a correlation between spelling and intelligence. That doesn't mean that if you're dyslexic and make spelling errors because
of it that you ARE stupid. It DOES mean that there is a correlation. Really stupid people tend to be poor spellers, if they are literate at all.
Really smart people tend to be good spellers. That does not mean all smart people are good spellers; it just means the trend is valid.
What the article does not do very well is distinguish between bad spelling and poor grammar. Although they may also be related, they are different
issues. If you see someone type "teh" for "the"--such a common typo that it has become a bit of a joke with its own entries in Wikipedia and the Urban
Dictionary--we all know it is a common typo and we all know it likely has nothing to do with your intelligence. But when you see people mix up
"their/there/they're" or "it's/its" it may have something to do with intelligence, but it also may have to do with being unschooled. One thing for
certain: It does display ignorance, in the technical sense of the term, not the pejorative sense. Ignorance does not equal stupidity; it just looks
like it.
Now, there are those here who insist it doesn't matter. Perhaps it does not for you, personally, but in general it does matter because lack of
spelling and grammar skills limits you. As an employer I cannot allow you to write a letter on company letterhead if your skills are so poor as to
make the company look stupid. If you make typos on your resume, it shows a lack of attention to detail and means the resume gets tossed in the
wastebasket. As a publisher, if you send me an article riddled with typos, I'll reject it in disgust. If I am an editor and pull a manuscript out of
the slush pile with poor grammar, it goes right back in.
We have a person right now who has a Master's degree in her field. She is in a management position which requires her to write reports, give
presentations to the Board, and interact with the outside community in organizations like Kiwanis or Rotary. It's part of the job and is a
requirement. It's not optional. She expects to be promoted. She won't be because her presentation skills, especially writing, are so poor. Indeed,
anything she writes must be reviewed by someone who is a competent writer before it is let out into circulation. I wonder why she was promoted into
her current position in the first place, but I can't do anything about that. I think she was just there at the right time and not properly vetted.
This person is not stupid, but for whatever reason her lack of writing competence means that she will not be promoted within this organization. It has
limited her. This is not unusual. A couple of years ago the Board told the CEO they did not want to hear any more presentations from Person X. They
were poor and disorganized. A few months later that person was fired. Now if you work at McD's slinging Big Macs, perhaps it doesn't matter to you,
but if you don't pay attention to this sort of thing, you've narrowed your window of opportunity and are going to have to find another way to get the
big bucks. Perhaps you can, but the point is that you won't have access to a wide a field as you would if you were competent in the rather minor
issues of spelling and grammar that you ought to have learned in junior high school.
edit on 11/4/2011 by schuyler because: (no reason given)
Victim of my own grammar nazism! 
I'm going to have to go write some lines now........
