Ok no drum roll please. According to the British research group, Mencap, thanks to spell-check, predictive text and all the wonderful accouterments of modern life, we are becoming bad spellers.  They surveyed 2,000 adults and found that a third could not spell "definitely" and "separate."  Surprised?  We're not!  We kind of saw this one coming.  But it gets more depressing.  Alexander Nazaryan of the New York Daily News reports that "a third could not spell the words 'definitely' and 'separate.' Two-thirds got the spelling of 'necessary' wrong. And hundreds were unable to use the words 'there' and 'it's' correctly in a sentence."  The last bit is kind of serious, don't you think?

Reporters from the Daily News tested New Yorkers to see how they fared and unfortunately, no better. But they do point out that the people who got the right answers were older and female. Of course, they're older. Previous generations were forced to learn how to spell words the hard way--a dictionary--and for not wanting to waste so much time looking the word up, they were forced to just learn the spelling once and for all. Now as for females doing better, no comment (though this writer is of the smarter gender so it does take a lot to rstraint to not give an opinion on that).

The only thing consoling us from this news that we already knew but still hate to reckon with is that the bookish company we keep would ace these tests with flying colors.  Well, of course, that's another perk of being a reader: you learn spelling and correct grammar so you don't come off as a nitwit (when spell-check malfunctions or the three times a year when you are forced to write on paper).