Bad spelling anyone?

Reuters have an article today about bad spelling being a problem at universities these days, and one of the professors has recommended that we be more lenient on bad spelling and just accept that they are just other variants of the same word.

I don't know how you feel about it, but I quite like the fact we have rules even if I don't always get the right. For example I frequently confuse their and there. For some reason my brain just never wants to give the me the right one when I'm writing blog posts.

In Australia and New Zealand a lot of people confuse bought and brought, even though they're different words with different meanings you'll often hear someone say they "brought a loaf of bread" and what they mean if they've just been to the supermarket and bought a loaf of bread.