I pay very close attention to grammar and spelling, in large part because I make my living as an editor. I also spent about a decade teaching legal writing to first-year law students. So I skip over the impossible-to-read posts because they just plain irritate me. I spend too much time during the workday dealing with grammar and spelling errors.

(But I love Cinder and Smoke!)

I agree entirely that the educational system (at least in the U.S.) has failed students in the language arts areas for many, many years. When I taught writing classes, I was shocked at the poor grammar and spelling exhibited by college graduates. When I told one student how unimpressed I was, he brushed it off--told me that when he was a lawyer, his secretary would catch all that stuff. I told him he'd have to at least be able to write a resume and cover letter without misspellings, or he might not ever get a job.

An unfortunate number of my co-workers--law school graduates all--make regular mistakes in basic grammar and punctuation. Spelling errors are reduced somewhat by mandatory spell check built into our software--but mandatory spell check had to be added because of the large number of spelling errors that were occurring.

And quite a few people did not get hired by my company in the first place because they had misspellings in their resumes and cover letters.

I've been making my living as one form of writer or another since the late 1970s, and I still keep a dictionary close by. Sure, it's easier to just make it up as you go along and to dismiss any criticism. It's easier to say "I'm just not good at that."

But nobody was born speaking or writing English or any other language. We all have to work at it. If you don't care to work at it, that's OK--as long as you recognize that it will affect the impression you make on others and that it will exclude you from a number of good-paying jobs.