Suppose a friend e-mails or texts you and talks about a group of people being a click, for example. In your reply, when you say something about said click, do you correct it to clique, thus subtly calling them a bad speller, or do you just go with the misspelling?
Most bad spellers already know that they’re bad spellers, so you’re not really doing anything but make yourself look like an insufferable know-it-all.
If I understand your question correctly, yes, I typically will use the proper word, if I catch it, in a response. There isn’t any reason to continue using a misspelled word to protect them, especially if its the topic of discussion.
It also doesn’t mean they’re a bad speller (technically, “click” is spelled correctly, just used improperly :)).
If they don’t have much of an ego, they’ll note the difference and make changes, or learn something. I’d honestly hope they do the same for me.
That’s not really the question though. The question is weather you intentionally mispell the word yourself. The proper action (IMHO) is to spell it correctly. Your friend may not notice, he may learn from it, or he may call out your spelling as wrong, in which case you correct him and laugh it off.
Just spell it correctly if and when you use the word.
I am an incredibly bad speller. Even when I use the same word twice in a single sentence, one of them can look wrong to me when the other looks right. I am not offended when someone uses the correct spelling or, in this case, the correct usage. In fact, it is doubtful that I would even notice. The word you spelled correctly might just look wrong to me. If a friend makes a point of telling me every time I misspell a word you can bet that I will find something in his life that he does poorly and drive that point home every single time he makes that mistake.
A reminder to those of you who are good at spelling: bad spelling isn’t just laziness. Well, maybe a little - we do have spell checkers these days.
You’re right, given the question I would spell it correctly in my reply but I wouldn’t make a point of using the word if it wasn’t natural - otherwise it’s obvious that you’re trying to correct them.
Boldings mine. 
To the OP - I’d spell the word correctly in my response but no more than that.
That seems like a good rule of thumb. I guess it depends on the particular friend though, and how they might take it.
I would use it correctly if I used the word in the reply, but it would be unspeakably rude to actually go out of my way to point their mistake out.
Yeah, I can’t imagine dumbing down my spelling on purpose, or someone taking offense that I spell correctly, for that matter. When texting, some people I know use txtspk, and I don’t (unless it’s the ONLY way I can fit it into the character limit), and no one has ever said boo to me about it.
Hell, often times my brain will just mentally “translate” the misspelling into what they meant/what I expected to see from context, so I won’t even notice that I’m “correcting” them by spelling it correctly.
Whether or not I actively call attention to a misspelling depends on the relationship. For a close friend, we wouldn’t think anything of saying “it’s ‘clique’ actually.” For a client or boss or somesuch, I’d just spell correctly. (A lot of times said client/boss/whatever doesn’t even notice, or at least, they continue to misspell the word.)
;)
And you’ll notice I screwed up the code there…I think there’s a rule that someone making note of someone else’s misspellings online will very often make their own mistakes!
That sounds right to me.
I mostly agree—the exception being if you were dealing with a friend, or a context, where you’re pretty sure they’d want to have their mistakes corrected.
Note to all SDMBers: If I ever make a spelling error that is due to ignorance rather than carelessness (i.e. not just an obvious typo or something), you have my permission to fight my ignorance by pointing it out to me.
nm
I usually correct my best friend’s spelling but he’s my best friend - I am truly doing it in his best interest and he knows it (he’s a bad speller). Also I won’t do it on his Facebook feed, but in private IMs or email.
Anyone else, I don’t bother. But I’d absolutely use the correct spelling in my reply if my reply used the word(s) in question.
That’s the thing…as hard as it might be to believe, many people simply don’t get or care that their spelling or grammar or terminology is wrong. I have several friends who are otherwise very smart and successful, who do not care. Don’t care and never will, and honestly their writing ability does not and will never affect them one way or another.
Spell-check at work, or a secretary, or someone else will fix it.
Me personally: it makes my teeth itch to see misspelled words or egregiously poor grammar but I must realise that it is simply not important or relevant to some people.
^This
I’m a good speller, and anal about spelling.
I try to refrain from correcting a friend’s spelling, but sometimes if it’s one of my absolute worst spelling pet peeves, I correct it.