[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

For a person of normal intelligence to fail to acquire enough knowledge for proper usage of his or her native tongue in twelve years of schooling bespeaks a mental lethargy I cannot fathom.

(First set of italics my own).

In the absence of any other explanation, I'm going to assume that the intelligence criterion isn't fulfilled in a lot of cases.

And, you see, that's the real nub of this gist: when you don't take care over your spelling and grammar, people think you're stupid; or at least have plenty of ammunition for saying that you are. Unless you say something pretty clever in chat-ese, you may be writing "gandlf (sp?) is best coz he stiks to his mishun and so he wins", but I'm reading "I am a moron, and my opinion doesn't even matter to me".

But for someone to defend that mental lethargy and uphold it as a virtue...that conclusion requires a suspension of thinking altogether.

Maybe it is a virtue. These people aren't confining themselves within the straitjacket of meaning, as I do. Presumably this gives them greater freedom of expression, so I'm going to try it:

fdshviuhurigvREGERGHt greg hreu8gy844t4363vb vgfuids ghvfdvFGREGRg greh gSASTghvbruihb

Which, I think, categorically explains once and for all who Tom Bombadil really was. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]