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Ok, my take on this... Well it annoys me to see people who can't spell or use correct punctuation when using their first language. I'm not irritated at them, but at the school system which taught them, because if they've been through a reasonable schooling system then they should be using correct spelling and punctuation without even thinking. I also get annoyed at myself when I come back to read things that I've written and notice mistakes (I expect I've made a few in this post!) I suppose I like to take pride in my work, no matter what form it takes - and it's my own failing not to realise that when it comes to the written word, some others don't :-) Ahh, but aren't spelling changes due to foreign influences (meaning outside of community, not necessarily country) different from spelling changes through laziness or bad tuition? Plus, the former are more likely to be adopted by a smaller community first and then spread to a wider area, whilst the latter tend to be isolated and random occurances across a far wider area. As an example researching the use of 'thief' and 'theef' (a far older equivalent) will give you some useful data. Researching 'theif', a reasonably common modern-day error, will not likely yield anything useful as it will have roughly the same chance of occuring throughout the educated English-speaking world independant of location (yes there will be some discrepancies to that) Dialects are another matter; English and American English being good examples. It's amazing how many American English spellings are now becoming commonplace over here. bootylicious in these parts, I believe ;) Joking aside, that is - as far as I know - a new word rather than something that's originated in a common mis-spelling... If anyone's got this far without falling asleep, the "Common Errors in English" page at http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/errors/errors.html is an interesting resource for language nuts (although it should be "Common Errors in American English" - see 'ax', 'offense' etc.) Similarly, the World Wide Words page at http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles gives a nice history of some English words and how they have altered over the years, particularly due to overseas influences. Thus endeth the lesson... cheers Jules