Apparently my you’re* meme is still getting lots of attention. This reblogger decided to make an argument out of it, with sources and everything. Here’s what she said. I’d copy/paste but that wasn’t working well for some reason.

Anyway, the quote that she brings up is totally correct, I agree with it. But I frankly don’t see it as relevant to the rest of your argument. You say that spelling is a set of conventionalized rules. This is also true. Two hundred years ago there was no standard of spelling. That’s also true. It’s also true that literacy wasn’t really important two hundred years ago. Neither was standardization as it turns out. It took us fifty years of steam-engine railroads before we thought of making a standard track width so that trains could go on any track in the country.

It’s also certainly true that you should not be thought less of for not being capable of upper-level mathematics. But here’s the thing: calculus is a little harder than spelling. I can only assume that if you’ve got the Internet at your disposal and I can correct you on your bad spelling, that you’re capable of adhering to those (admittedly arbitrary) rules. But just because the rules are arbitrary, that doesn’t mean that they’re not valuable. Adhering to those rules of spelling is vital to visual communication (aka books, Internet, etc.). You say suggesting that someone for whom spelling is not particularly important should not be devalued. I agree that they shouldn’t be as devalued as in my meme (I’ve already mentioned that it was an exaggeration of my exasperation), but you’re god damn right I’m going to think a little less of you if you consistently are too lazy or blithe to put in the effort to properly and effectively communicate with another person. Call me intolerant if you wish. I prefer to think of it as valuing basic communication. 

Again, I’m not saying that a single grammar mistake is a huge catastrophe. I’m talking about consistent abuse of language.