I can not spell. i haven't been able to spell since i flunked spelling in second grade. but i know that i have a problem, so i use spell check. but spell check doesn't understand usage/context ie: their and they're are both correct to spell check even if used incorrectly. that is one reason why people spell incorrectly, even if they are using a computer-- spell check says it's okay. some people don't spell well because they don't know they have a problem. they don't even bother to go and check-- it looks okay to them. i know the word is wrong; i just don't know what's wrong with it. my latin and german professors dispair of me. my papers were littered with (sp)'s written by me before they were turned in. after 3 years of college german, a professor finally counted all the languages that i had spelling problems with: english, latin, french, german, spanish, italian and stopped counting as it seems my weakness also extended into more archaic languages as well. but my neices and nephews, brought whole new meaning to my inabilities when i started reading their letters and papers. evidently, content was more important (and this i question as well) than the technical aspects of writing such as spelling, grammar, punctuation etc. my wife and i share a special pet peeve over mis-used possives. diggerb

... "Renee Shepherd introduced the two French hybrids Dona and Carmello and I didn't think much of either of them..." I agree with Carolyn on Renee's Carmello -- grew it about 6 years ago and found it to be ho-hum, mildly sweet. My Marmande, on the other hand, has a rich, zesty tomato flavor with a nice, thin skin and has been predictable over the ups (hot hot hot early summer this year) and downs (the usual cool June/early July) in my area. I'm not exactly a francophile, but do think the French have a certain way with food and if a tomato is considered to be great tasting by the French, then I want to give it a go in my garden. Jaune Flamme sounds interesting and, being a small tomato, it might do well here. The top 3 sites on a quick google describe it thus: Tomatofest - "full-bodied"; Seedsavers - a "bitey flavor"; Reimer - "very sweet." The former sounds like what I'd like to plant, the latter not so much. Korney and Carolyn, how have you found it? Am still hoping to find another large frenchie that doesn't require a really long, warm growing season. Merci deux fois, Rain

I have two sayings that irritate me. One, which I have only ever read or heard from Americans, is 'I could care less' which clearly means the opposite of what the person is trying to convey. The other is 'the proof is in the pudding' which is meaningless. 'The proof of the pudding is in the eating' clearly means you can only tell how good something is when you use it for its intended purpose. I would also say orientate - many of these things are Commonwealth usages, and what sounds right is directly related to what you heard growing up. 'In back' sounds weird to me, but 'in front' is fine. And I had a hard time stopping my two boys saying 'wait up' when I felt the 'wait for me' I'd always used to sound much better :) I would never use plate as a verb in my conversations but I think it is acceptable in a professional kitchen.

Back when I was pregnant with my first child, during labor, the doctor said "you are 10 centimeters dilated. She pronounced the first syllable to rhyme with 'lawn' whereas I've always pronounced the first syllable to rhyme with 'men.' I thought it was just her way of saying it. But then when I was having my second child, the nurse (different hospital) also said it like 'sawntimeter' so I knew it wasn't just one person. Yes, the only times that I heard centimeters pronounced that way was by labor and delivery nurses. I found this article about it: http://doccartoon.blogspot.com/2012/08/whats-sontimeter.html