Fun with Spelling and Grammar (was: Ultimate Guide)

[m.bockermann at t-online.de]

First of all: thanks for the answers on the Ultimate Guide question. I guess it is worth it to check the book out, but that it's not so pressing that I would have to buy it tomorrow.

Lorien_Eve wrote:
> I've joined several Yahoo! 
> groups only to realize that the majority of the members completely 
> slaughter the language and I abruptly leave the group. I cannot 
> carry on a conversation with people who so obviously (to me, at 
> least) make these errors.

And Mary Ann replied:
>>>>Ah, good.  Now I now that I'm not the only grammar snob around. ;)  
That's the problem with all these nifty spelling and grammar rules on 
the HP groups, see...it makes us allergic to other groups without 
such strict rules.  I'm so far gone that coming across unsnipped 
material at the bottom of an email drives me mad!

Is it possible that some of the spelling and grammatical sins are due to the poster being a non-native speaker (or writer, to be more exact)? I noticed that there are people from all over the world here and when English is your second language, the correct application of their/there or its/it's or such might can be really hard. 

Or can you native speakers tell another native speaker with language problems from a non-native speaker? I'm not being sarcastic here, I'm really curious. Can you native speakers tell wether a poster is native or not? I'm not being sarcastic here, I'm really curious. I'm not a native speaker myself, so I wonder if you can spot us from a mile away or only notice it by accident.

I *was* able to spell my native language (German) for almost 20 years. Really. Truely. And then... what happened? They went ahead and *changed* the rules!!! Now I am unhappily living ever after in total Babylonian confusion. *Knowing* the rules is not enough to break 20 years of habit, training and indoctrination it really *******s when your pupils know their spelling better than you do.  )-:

Greetings,
Ethanol