Taking back are cuntry

 This one really isn't going to go the way you think.

The phrase at the top was used and shared many times on social media in August in the UK when  a wave of shameful anti-immigrant and anti-foreigner riots flared up in the UK. The riots followed the usual pattern of these kind of things. Seed some lies, stoke up anger, get people out who quite enjoy hitting people. It wasn't pretty, nobody could be proud of it, and the reaction across the whole of the country was 'No, that's not what we are like. Stop it.' And basically, they stopped it.

But I'm not going to talk about the stupidity or cruelty of deciding who is a good person by the colour of their face, or the type of their religion. I am actually going to talk about spelling.

Many people who opposed the riots and insurrection shared a genuine post where one of the participants or instigators had expressed a desire to 'take back are cuntry', with exactly that spelling. Even though there were clearly very good reasons to oppose the people wanting to 'take back their country', people seemed to focus a lot on their stupidity as shown by their ignorance of the normal rules of English spelling.

Now I have to tell you that the confusion of 'our' and 'are' is very widespread in primary schools and in early learning of English, because phonetically, the two sounds are nearly identical. And why have that extra 'o' in country when it makes perfectly good phonetic sense without? So two common and easy spelling mistakes, but not ones made by 'educated' people. 

So my question to you is this: When you are deciding who is good or bad; moral or immoral; sinful or sinless, is spelling absolutely the best place to start? It is perfectly possible that someone who makes spelling errors has had a head injury after a lifetime of blamelessly correct spelling. It is also possible that someone has for one reason or another missed out on standard education (it happens) but is otherwise fully grown up from a moral standpoint.

And, conversely, would you believe in someone's truthfulness or moral rectitude just because they can spell the word 'rectitude' even with the spellchecker turned off? I feel that would be unwise. Some excellent spellers have black hearts 'like greasy bullets' as Cro would have said. And they only look after number one, even if their spelling and grammar is elegantly sound. 

And think too, that if it is clear that you are judging people by their spelling abilities rather than any other more relevant qualities, you may well lose the audience that you are seeking to convert. If you focus on presentation rather than content you just give one more reason for someone not to believe you or to feel resentful that you do not listen to their concerns.

And there is, in the UK whether we like to admit it or not, quite a lot of useless snobbery. Not just from very high to very low, but from half-way up to the people right below you. It is a national sport to see how you are better than the next person down. Not everyone takes part in this sport, but many do. And there are lots of shibboleths to judge if someone is acceptable. Do they have 'tea' at 5:00 rather than 'dinner' at about 8:00? Do they genuinely think Big Brother is interesting? Do they come from the wrong kind of estate (an acquaintance of mine heard this classic about forty years ago in Oxford, when the listener lived on an estate with a drive and gatehouse, rather than the one with the burnt-out sofas (or couches)

And really, if we are trying to get the country (or cuntry) heading in the right direction, isn't it good to find common ground rather than division. If something about morality, standards or right and wrong cannot be said and understood essentially by anyone in this country, then you are probably saying it in the wrong way. 

And good spelling does not make you a good person. Nor does bad spelling make you a bad person.