I think it's Bill Gates's fault.  (Maybe other software providers had a role, too.)  People rely too much on SpellCheck, for one thing, and it won't catch it if you use "who's" instead of "whose."

Also, SpellCheck sometimes has errors, itself, and they become part of the current language almost over night.  ("Sing-a-long," and "canceled," come to mind.  ["Canceled" is not wrong, but neither is "cancelled," which Word's spell checking tool says it is; "cancelled" is more in line with the general rule for adding suffixes.  "Sing-a-long" is just plain wrong and probably reflects the influence of advertising and marketing trends.]
 

Yeah, Kat, I find a lot of errors in my posts, too, because I don't take a lot of time to edit them and my typing gets sloppy after midnight or after a beer or two.   Sometimes I am amazed to see a "to," where there should be a "too" or just a dumb-looking typo like thios.

And, yes, spelling, grammar, and punctuation do matter--not so much in the forum, but in formal publication, e.g., newspapers,  magazines, product labels, etc.   What irks me is that even the journalists and English teachers often make common mistakes.  (Garrison Keillor, an admitted Englished major, has been known on various occasions to say "between you and I," or "to she and me.")

Sharon, my apostrophes show up here as such, via a Mac, but recently they have been turning into strange strings of characters, as though I were cursing on the keyboard, when I email them. Dunno why.

To all you folks who say it doesn't matter here at Mudcat, I agree with you where forum discussions are concerned. It does not really matter a lot here.

But when you post the lyrics to a song or poem, please try to get the spelling and punctuation right. People copy these and print them in songbooks, where they take on the ring of gospel.

Joe, I am glad you didn't find misuse of "who's" and "whose" in the DT, but I have seen it often in lyrics posted in the forum. It would be nice to have a way of pointing out these errors to Max or whoever selects songs for the DT. That way, they can be corrected before they get into the DT.

Genie