Once upon a time we kept spelling mistakes safely locked away from the public domain. We fought a war against the tirrany of mistakenism and permitted only the very young, the mad and the poor to commit this crime of sloppiness. We enforced our rulings and the proper way to spell in special books called dictionaries, absurd repositories for words that made them seem as solid and unbendable as our own view dictated.

Now the bars have been lifted and the beast let out; spelling mistakes to be found in every nook and cranny of our world wide web. No longer can we rigidly enforce how our language behaves.

But don't you think that this is representative of a new freedom, one that promises more creativity in language? And is it not also more honest to express yourself in writing without worrying whether you are getting it right?

What? A proliferation of virally degenerate incomprehensions is the face of a new freedom? Disintigration of meaning the new creativity? I suppose you're going to tell me now that spelling mistakes are somehow more honest, that when you hit the send button on your messages that you have not been bothered to spellcheck, you congratulate yourself for being more sincere than most. Sincerity? on this hyperactive mirror show that is the Internet? Hrumph!


More ideas:
spelling mistakes as blind spots
spelling mistakes a trace of endearing 'failures' i.e. cute
spelling mistakes as highly individualised data for Google mashuping and producing data maps like computer programs or knitting patterns of ourselves. Can be read by robots.

Ghost in the machine:
dyslexics still floating around as the 'chosen' ones - artists/outsiders with special access to pictures.