Usually I’m vary of making generalisation about most of a whole country’s population, but on most internet fora I’ve visited where most of the users are from the US, people who’ve made a single spelling or grammar mistake have been bullied and made fun of. It’s not quite as bad here, but I’ve seen members answer a question just to point out that there’s a error without actually answering several times.

Welcome to the world, it's full of jerks. You can usually tell when someone isn't a native speaker vs. them being incredibly lazy. It's honestly pretty ridiculous to make spelling errors at this point given the fact that spell check is soooo abundant. Just now, firefox underlined "soooo" in red because it isn't a recognized word. Is it really that hard to spell things correctly? Again, I don't harp on a few spelling errors or non-native speakers struggling through our convoluted language, but if your words are so jumbled and/or incorrectly spelled that the message is unclear, I think it's fair to point that out for the OP's benefit.

It might seem like a lot of Americans are that way but that's perhaps because it's their critical comments that stand out. There could be many more who don't have any problem with minor grammatical errors and spelling that don't make any comments about them. I try to make most of my posts as error-free as possible. However, if someone else has made some errors in their post but I can understand what they're saying then that's fine with me.

I really wouldn't go as far to say Americans do this more than anyone else. I thought we were supposed to be stupid... I find quite a few English, German, French, Russian, Italian, et cetera who do the same thing in their native language. Careless typos aren't bad, it happens to the best of us. But "your" instead of "you're", "is" instead of "are", and other such mistakes reflect poorly on the writer. What is the harm in correcting them here, where it doesn't matter, instead of letting them continue on with these errors. What if someone writes a formal letter riddled with grammar issues? Of course that person won't be taken as seriously as they should be. It's not a matter of me being able to read through it or not, people will judge others based on grammar mistakes. I can witre wtih mxeid up lterts and you cluod elsiay undenratsd waht I am tnryig to say, but that doesn't mean it's appropriate.

Well, it's just a certain group of Americans, I try my best to spell everything correctly, but I'm not going to blast you for incorrect spelling...unless you are writing a book or something like that.

I think you're just plain wrong about that. I haven't known many Americans who are that way unless the English is really bad. And, to single out us Americans is pretty silly. Every country has it's own group of aholes.

For SOME of us it's not about belittling others or feeling superior, it's about accuracy, period. Careless use of any language leads to misunderstandings. Have you ever written a computer program, particularly one in "machine" or assembly language? If you have, then you already know how critical proper syntax can be, and what can happen when you slip up. Further, the more people that let these syntactic errors go simply because they "got it" this time, the more likely it is that those errors COMPOUND in the future. It really is important that there are some "guardians of the language", and the more the better. The French are legendary for their efforts to insulate their language from change, for instance. It's not acceptable to engage in this process for nothing more than ego gratification, however, regardless what nationality the persons might be. I do not accept that Americans are any more guilty of this behavior than people residing within other arbitrary borders. I am a native speaker of English, and though I took three years of French instruction virtually none of that have I retained; I have no doubt that, if I were to visit French-language forums and try to engage people, I could encounter the same range of reactions, from the well-intended corrections to the malicious grammar Nazis. The only reason this is an issue specifically with Americans is because English is becoming the common Internet tongue (and perhaps common tongue period), and it does happen to be true that fewer Americans know a second language than, say, most Europeans. The United States has tended to be a more insular nation because of geographic isolation (look at a map of the nations in Europe and how they interconnect, and then compare that to a map of North America), and that has led to linguistic insulation to some degree, as well. Since the Internet was invented here and was by default dominated almost exclusively by Americans for some time, it might also be understandable that some Americans still fail to consider the likelihood that the person who authored the poor writing they are reading might NOT also be American; they forget it's a global community. The bigotry can work both ways, you see.

I offer a suggested correction in the 5 minute time frame of a posting of a question. If it's beyond that, it's already cast in stone. If you don't see words spelled correctly, it will not help you to spell them correctly when you use them. Sloppywet is not concerned about correct spelling and I offer suggestions because I am neurotic and we just laugh over it.

Well it depends on who i am speaking too, if English is not someones first language i will not call out mistakes. Because i am embarrassed when someone calls out mine in front of everyone when speaking Spanish or French. But for people who speak English to 'type lyke dis n spell stuff inkerect' I get very agitated and wonder what they did in English class for 10 years =/

It's not about understanding the message but about the message the writer is sending. One of the greatest tragedies in this society is the outrageous cost of education and the incredibly poor results of it. There's nothing that irks me more than that! A poorly written piece with lots of mistakes in spelling is the equivalent of someone with smelly shoes, ripped jeans, dirty shirt and disheveled hair. If you don't want people to judge you based on your appearance, dress properly. When dealing in this type of forum, if you don't want people to judge you as ignorant, at least, use spell check