Nerds are smart, but do they have good spelling or grammar?

I admit it.

I am a nerd with a fondness for perfect spelling and grammar.

And I am going to stop and nitpick some of my fellow nerds out there (and regular non-nerd people) who apparently cannot spell.

And apparently does not know the differences between there, they're and their. The last one isn't even pronounced the same.

Here is a quick and easy way to remember. It is so easy. I cannot understand why so many (stupid) people cannot figure this out.

There and Here. Locations.

They're and They Are. Contraction. They're over there. See the difference?

Their dog is stupid. Ownership / Possessive. Their dog. Her dog. His dog. My dog. Our dog.

I am pretty sure we were all taught the differences for these in grade 4 or so. And yet regularly I see people screwing up.

Give you an example.

I saw a graphic on Facebook earlier today which used the word "hero's", which is possessive. eg. The hero's sword, the hero's armour, the hero's stallion that he rides on into battle.

Except what the person who made the graphic was actually trying to say was heroes. They had confused the plural of hero with the possessive of hero.

And now that graphic is all over the internet (thanks to Facebook sharing), with the spelling wrong.

It is not like spelling or grammar is hard or anything. They're easy. Simple. You just follow the rules.

I have a sneaky suspicion however that the people who are misspelling words and messing up their grammar never learned how to write a proper essay in high school. They might have even gone to university in Toronto, New York City, Boston or some other location with multiple large and well respected universities... but they were probably cheating on tests and using an essay writing company to write their essays for them. Or at least hiring someone to do the editing and proofreading.

These days anyone can hire someone else to write an essay, write their resume, dissertation, or even do ALL of their course work for them.

In theory you could hire someone else (if you were wealthy enough) to attend school for you, do all the work for you, and the teacher would never know it is not you because they would see the same face in the classroom all the time.

After all, when you do get out in the real world and start working in an office job, do they really care what your grades were? They just want you to have a degree in whatever.

Most of the people in office jobs have english degrees, communication studies degrees, psychology degrees, etc. They're not working in the field they studied for. They are just pushing papers in an office tower, doing whatever they are told to do.

It is a wonder that we even bother to go to university. People do it because it helps them to get a job or a career, but the vast majority of people end up in a field unrelated to what they studied or pushing papers in an office.

Which makes me wonder what happened to me?

I didn't cheat. I wrote my own essays. I did all of the work assigned to me. And now I run my own business and am pretty successful at it. (And while it is not directly related to what I studied, it is loosely related to it because it is creative.)

I guess that shows the difference between the people who did their own work and the people who cheated / hired someone else to do it. The cheaters wind up in boring jobs and the self-reliant people start their own businesses and become successful.