What Happened to My Spelling

They call me the English Police. Not that I’m a London Bobby (after that famous Home Secretary Robert Peel), no I’m just serious about grammar and spelling. I used to be so fierce about it that if an unaware publicist sent me a press release at The Hollywood Reporter or at BRE that was misspelled or grammatically incorrect, I'd toss the offending piece of paper in the trash. But first, I'd call the person and tell them what I was planning to do. It was actually good training for the careless. And, it was easy for me to spot something spelled wrong. I have always been a champion speller. Suddenly I have to look at a word once or twice to see if it is spelled correctly. Bob forbid, if I am someplace without spellcheck, I now find myself in trouble. When did this all go wrong? Did I just get lazy? Once outraged at online people who couldn't be bothered to capitalize the necessary places, I now have my settings adjusted so they will do that for me before I send anything. Today during a post, I couldn't think how to spell something, so I just substituted another word that I could spell. This is, no doubt, the first step on the slippery slope on the pathway to Hell - for Ruth Adkins Robinson.