Spelling Bee should have been compulsory

Yes they do. Absolutely they do.

Confusion of homophones is a key indicator of dyslexia.

Schools do teach spelling
In fact, they probably teach it far more than they did when I was in school. And we need to remember that in the 1970s there was a huge national literacy campaign because so many people had significant literacy issues.

It is not, however, valued by anyone else.

Pre social media, lots of people used written language relatively rarely. Lots of manual jobs, factories, retail etc didn't people to write so literacy levels overall were always low. I look at the FB posts of my wrinkly relatives and my jaw drops. It's just become more obvious as we communicate with the outside world in print.

Aloud and allowed used interchangeably is what I see a lot of online.

I am now so much more tolerant as I have experience of a child with dyslexia and she struggles so much with spellings. And I just assume these people may have dyslexia.

If it's a sentence opener then it's "My partner and I".

The way to tell is by removing the other person and working out whether you'd say "me" or "I". You wouldn't start a sentence with "me".

People misuse pronouns in all sorts of strange ways. I think it's because English has so few inflections and nouns don't have different cases, they don't have an understanding of the way that pronouns work.

I: nominative
Me: accusative
Myself: reflexive

"Myself" is used in all kinds of inappropriate places because "it sounds better" (according to my old boss). I once refused to send a letter out over my name because he insisted that I use "myself" rather than "me" ("Please contact myself"). The only time it's appropriate is when talking about one person/thing acting upon itself. (I wash myself. You embarrassed yourself. He got himself out of a tight spot).

The number of posts on here that start "Myself and my partner..."

We used to have spelling tests at primary school many years ago but they were written, i.e. the teacher would say 'spell favourite' and you'd write it down. No humiliation involved.
It would usually be 10 words, written on paper, collected and then marked. If you got some wrong you'd be tested on those ones again.
But I was an avid reader as a child and started reading adult books quite young, (eg Neville Shute) which definitely helped with spelling.

Absolutely! I've had to write for an American audience for my work so much lately, its made my British spelling worse. Differences like defence vs defense keep tripping me up.

I think it comes down to how much you read really.

I've always been an absolutely massive reader. I'll generally get through a book a week, and that's down from probably two a week when I was a kid.

DP on the other hand just does not read for pleasure. She's not dyslexic or anything, she doesn't struggle to read at all, she just doesn't enjoy it and would rather spend her free time making something clever with her hands instead. She does however listen to a lot of podcasts, audio plays etc,

As a result, she's just got far less exposure to the written word, whereas I have far less exposure to the spoken word. She regularly has to ask me how to spell something, whereas I'm far more likely to require help with the pronunciation of something.

To give an example from last week. I mentioned something that had happened in Arkansas, and she promptly fell around laughing at my pronunciation, asking why on earth I was sticking an s on the end of it. I googled it and pointed out the ruddy great s on the end of it. She of course was right about the pronunciation, but had no idea how it was spelt, whereas I was the other way round.

Yes, feeling superior because you had better access to eduction and a family who were able to help you with it, or didn’t have to cope with dyslexia is a bit of a weird flex.

You’re correct! Sophie invited ‘me’ for tea. Sophie invited me and my friend for tea.

Only now everyone seems to write myself and yourself, which I hate and makes no sense.

It’s not really about spelling, is it. (I also have always found spelling easy but have a son who just can’t seem to do it, despite reading a lot and being able to get 10/10 on spelling tests!) It’s mixing up similar words or ising words that have been misheard/not seen written down (or only seen written down on e.g. social media rather than in books, etc.).

Some others I’ve read on here quite often:
It was defiantly (definitely) the red one she wanted.
I just needed some restbite (respite) from them.
We love all of them accept (except) the pink ones.
I couldn’t be bothered to cue (queue) up for the coffee machine.

Aw sequinces annoy me.
But so does "Anyone got a set of draws they're giving away ?"

I once, drunk, made a comment about sequinces on a FB selling post. It did not go down well.

I really don’t believe that any child should be subjected to any sort of humiliation in front of a group of people

why does everything has to be reduced to be "humiliating"? It's a life skill. Sometimes you are not the best, either you need to try harder or you concentrate on something else.

Can you imagine if every sportsperson threw a tantrum everytime they are "humiliated' because they didn't win a race? That would be the end of sport.

The lack of resilience for completely non-embarrassing and random even is depressing.

@Ontheedgeofit Very true. Schools should definitely focus on it more. I remember I was impressed on my first date with DH because he could spell “arachnid”.

The English language doesn't alway make this easy!

"Bureaucracy" always used to give me problems, and words like "diarrhoea" and "rhythm" look like they were put together from throwing darts at an optician's wall chart.