Spelling and such

What happened to grammar and spelling? I was visiting another blog http://thelifeofsass.blogspot.com/ today and one of her archived posts caught my attention big time. She was talking about different signs she had seen with grammatical and spelling errors. This stuff drives me nuts. My dad taught English in OCS at Ft. Benning decades ago. We never turned in a 'rough draft' for him to review as he corrected spelling, grammar, etc., even when it was just for content! He sent a few of my older sister's letters back to her with corrections ;D When I was in HS he would get the paper from the small town where he grew up in W. Texas. I'd grab the local paper and we'd scan them for typos, etc. Just as a game. That led to my almost unnatural ability to proofread...there are times when I will tell you that something is incorrect grammatically or spelling-wise, but I cannot tell you why. Drives my kids crazy. Go look it up. I've told storekeepers, the doofus behind the counter at Starbucks that his sign was wrong and he tried to argue with me. I started using bigger words and he shut up and fixed it. Texas accent does not equal stupid, son.

My company does road construction and I spent two days this week faxing bids out to potential subcontractors. The state has certain requirements, so it takes me 2 days to fax them all out (I'm waiting to hear if I can use email exclusively), then I have to CALL all the ones (approximately 90%) that don't reply although the fax TELLS THEM TO. I received this one in return.

We will not bid to _________ until previous litagation is setteled. For none payment.

Do you have ANY idea how hard it is to type that and NOT correct it, much less allow the spellcheck to do so?

Frankly, the only reason that they got a bid invitation was because they are on the state list and we are required to. So it just goes into their folder. We had already said that the last job was the LAST one we would use them on. And why are they on the list? They declared bankruptcy last year? And no, we don't owe them money. They screwed up and expect us to pay for it.