[Acrylic-bob]

So the general consensus appears to be that it doesn't really matter if you don't spell correctly . Which seems to me to point out the failings in the education system more eloquently than anything else.

If you acccept the proposal that intention is more important than than the means of expression and pursue it to its logical conclusion...you actually end up with a fairly accurate representation of the state of, not only the borough but, of the country too. The rules that our forbears accepted and applied to their daily lives, which enabled them to build a succesful town, no longer have any currency. How far off are we then from the point at which one and one only make two when the reckoner can be bothered or it is considered politically correct to make it so?( I acknowlege that this state has already been reached by some members of HBC. )

In saying this I recognise that some people do have genuine difficulty with words and they have my entire sympathy. We generally make allowances for that. But I think that if we extend such allowance to general laziness and sloppiness in speech then we are ultimately colluding in the degradation of our cultural heritage.

Surely the purpose of speech and written language is to communicate your meaning as precisely as possible, not give a vague approximation of what you intend to say.

How would it be, for example, if you employed a builder to build you a new home and he decided that he couldn't be bothered to put in the precise number of windows of the shape and size specified in the plans, and instead decided to include only one. Would you conclude that he was exercising his right to self-expression and since his intention was clear you shouldn't criticise him and meekly accept what was offered?

Or if you were on the market and asked for half a dozen apples and were sold a picture of them instead. The intention was clear, but the means falls far short of your your expectation, do you criticise or do you walk into Wilkinson's to buy a frame for the picture?

Or yet again, if the wages clerk decided that accurately calculating wages was boring and decided instead to employ an entirely random system of calculation, and on some occaisions couldn't be arsed to do it at all! Would you meekly accept what was, or was not, offered?