Before anyone accuses me of being the dreaded "spelling police," let me just say that I don't care for the most part but I love the Fodors' search function and rely on it heavily.

But I've learned that I have to think like an idiot to get at all the information -- question about Versailles or a museum? Better check "Versaille" and "musuem" as well.

Wondering about Budapest or Stonehenge? Look at "Budpest" and "Stonehedge."

Researching Edinburgh and Australia? Search "Edinburg" and "Austrailia."
(If I'm looking for hotel in a given city, reminder to check "hotle" too.)

And punctuation comes into play as well -- entirely different results from searching "ATMs" vs "ATM's." Or the ubiquitous "taxis" vs. "taxi's."

Thank you - I'm sure examples of frustrating searches are legion.

I am much more comfortable with you acting as a spelling policement than I would be if you were handing out "advice" on how a grown man should dress. And no, if you WERE my "hubby" I STILL wouldn't ask you how to dress!

As long as he or she is not handing out advise on my Sienna and Amlafi Coast itinrey, I don't care!

Don't you mean iterary? Or perhaps interrery? (I've seen as least 15 different versions.)

How did you do those italics 29FEB?

And whilst we are on the subject of punctuation, I've been worried about that apostrophe in Fodor's - Fodor's /what/ for goodness sake? Full colour gold guide I understand, but just on it's own? Hmmm.

My list of spellings of itinerary is up to 35.

29FEB: But hopefully <i><blue>someone</blue></i> in the thread spells things correctly

(If you click "<u>Search full topic and replies</u>" that takes care of things nicely)

Well, all I can say is that even though this is the "New, Improved" board, it is still one of the most pathetic excuses for a BBS (Bulletin Board System) that I have ever seen.

I can name a dozen open-source (free) BBS products that run rings around this. The search feature is worse than pathetic. The user interface is lousy. Should I go on?

Oh, and in that I have been building and using messaging systems since before the web existed and was an original beta-tester of the Mosaic browser, I think I know what I'm talking about.

dave

I think you usually have to search for a couple possibilities in many cases. There isn't anything you can do about some of these which are commonly misspelled (or ATM's versus ATMs, both are acceptable, I believe). The editors of publications where I contribute have told me for years to dump the apostrophe in plurals on abbreviations/acronyms, so I never use them, but it used to be the custom, I believe. It boggles my mind why so many Americans simply add an apostrophe to pluralize regular words. I don't understand this at all. They have graduated from grade schools, after all.

My niece is engaged to a man with a PhD whom she describes as very intelligent and then I saw him do that on his Facebook page. He misspelled other words, also. And he is not a scientist or something, he claims to be an expert in public relations, advertising, etc.

But I will defend Versaille as that is one I forget also. The reason is because there are so many proper names that British people add "s" to for no reason whatsoever that I can comprehend. So I usually figure an "s" should be dropped as it is bogus. Now I know Reims is legit, but that one is pronounced.

But why do British people add an "s" to Marseille, for example? Then that spelling is often copied in English-language guidebooks. There is another very common place name they do that, also -- Lyons.

And I admit I get confused about Bruges as it seems to have several variants and I don't use it enough to remember which is correct (at least for where I am using it, France or Belgium). I think it is Brugge in Belgium but I think Bruges in French. So that one is confusing to me as I usually end up writing Brugges.

I always search a couple variants in the search box if I don't think I have them all. Now for Versaille(s) I would try it, but I would not want to search for "musuem" which is probably a typo. I would never search for a word like that, anyway, it's too generic. A lot of people add too many unnecessary words to searches, anyway. For example, if you are searching for a museum, you don't usually need to add that word, but just the proper name. Same for hotels.

Graduating from grade school (is that a real graduation now?) is no guarantee that someone has learned the difference between it's and its. Even very good writers these days make mistakes in usage; some of my favorites just can't seem to get their heads around the difference between lay and lie.

Whether spelling matters or not, some people are going to misspell some words. I have learned to live with it.

And as some of the responses in this thread indicate, especially with place names, multiple spellings can be expected.

This is not a book that can be expected to have consistent proofreading and spelling; this is a collection of questions and answers by people with all sorts of different interests and priorities. That is what makes it more interesting than a guide book. I'll put up with some misspellings for the privilege of reading it.

Hi <i>Fashionista</i>, I'll top an excellent thread about "Formatting with bold, italics, underline, colors..." posted by <b>justretired</b> a while back.

Several good points have been made and I wish the search function would recognize them -- for instance, that searching for "euros" and "euro's" should lead to the same info.

Re <b>janisj</b>'s suggestion to use the advanced search, this is often useful. But it only goes back three years and results in peripheral results, where the searched term is not the main focus of the thread:

"We decided to skip Stonehenge."
"Had lunch at the Versailles Diner."

But I agree, the wealth of information on this board makes it worthwhile and it's probably good to venture outside the box a bit, rubbing shoulders with the miscreant spellers.

"Stonehedge>

or maybe Stonedhenge - like at the Solstice Parties held there by modern day self-called Druids.

Your OP is simply absurd IMO - onward thru the fog, mate.

<<But I've learned that I have to think like an idiot to get at all the information>>

It doesn't necessarily follow that incorrect spelling equates with an idiot. I think that people who make such a point of incorrect spelling are just plain rude.

<<Your OP is simply absurd IMO - onward thru the fog, mate.>> I compleetly agree Pal!

Sounds like a temset in a teaspout to me.