How come Americans are so bad at spelling and grammar?

I think that that then and than are similar to homophones, words such as there, their, and there, which sound the same. I have noticed many, including myself, misusing them when typing, in my case typing fast, not because we don't know what the words mean, but because the brain to fingers connection is faster than thought. I remember reading something to that effect, but don't have a source.

Another thing
in every country there are people who have difficulties in spelling.
You sometimes can´t even look up the correct spelling as you do not know
how to spell the word
th or t or thou or tuo.
So it is so arrogant to correct people´spelling as you do not know if the person has spellingdifficulties.
PS
I think I corrected six mistakes.

There is a mistake in mine, two thats. That kind of mistake comes with fast/incomplete editing, not stupidity, even from me.

I really agree with you.
Mistakes when typing fast and or not editing.
Writing by hand one usually make less mistakes.

This all reminds me of one of my cousins. She had quite severe dyslexia as a child and worked hard to combat it. She flunked latin twice while dealing with this. I'm not even sure dyslexia was a known problem when she was starting high school. In the SAT testing of senior year in high school, her score in the verbal test was mediocre and her score in math was 800, the top grade possible then.

When she went through university years, she used a tape recorder in class, and her ears and brain - I think she did fairly little note taking, perhaps just writing short notes about the subject. She could write, but she wanted to absorb the information by listening. She graduated with fine grades; later she got her CPA (certification as public accountant) and worked for the US government.
Fifty years later, she reads novels as fast as I do, and that is quite fast.

Oristar could use lessons on how people, Americans or other people, can differ.

We use the OED ta weight down our saur kraut vats . Its got a half decent bulk to it.
You dont understand enough of the US language to comment on ways we cripple it and cornhole it.

Keep using the OED as a reference , that way you'll sound about half smart.

Thank you so much for your tip.
Of course I have to check out the Oxford Dictionary - after all it has a much better English than the Webster which is American.
I have both and I will start only using the Oxford Dictionary.
Maybe this will improve my English, that next time I am in United Kingdom
nobody will take me for being Schottish or even worse American.

They're getting it from the internet including facebook. We now have the whole world typing in facebook English.

Additionally, saab, to stop oristar criticise you, you should install a Text-to-Speech-software - pronounce it correctly to write it correct, you know.

I'm sure, you don't use the online version for the sauerkraut - it would give a lingering aftertaste!

Thanks for the secret tip.
Learn well with excellent tools like OED and speak like a hick in America and you will end up being a savvy in the eyes of Americans.
Well, Long Live America!
Because learning is hard while pretending to be a hick is easy.

Good idea!!!
Then I will even find out if his English is so perfect as he makes us believe.

I thought what he writes comes out in speach in his voice.
Sorry - not too familiar with everything in modern technic

obviously literature is not a tool of learning for you. Too bad. Youve missed several sources from various writers besides Mr Murray.
"sounding as a hick" takes much more learning than youre probably able to comprehend. I understand, since you sound like you come from a culture that does not celebrate diversity or individuality .

Who is Mr. Murray? probably he is not one the writers named Murray that I've favored, nor the recent Scottish tennis star, nor current English golf reporter.

I ask since I rarely look at Oristar's posts.

He was commished to develop what became known as the OED. The Brit Philological Society instigated it in the 1880;s

We have a biography of him around here somewhere, written by Elisabeth Murray, his eldest granddaughter. It was published in the 1970s, but it was written as though it had been published a hundred years earlier. A mildly interesting subject was made oppressively boring.

Ah, so.

Websters first edition of his English Dictionary of the American language included so many wore words than that of Sammy Johnsons.
So many of Webster's words were derived from multi cultural sources and incorporated into the spelling , etymology,pronunciation and even their selection in his ed I. THOUSANDS of Words like skunk, gourd, tomato, and a host of verbs derived fromSpanish, Indian and Germanic sources were selected by him as "good American English"

He didnt **** with any pronunciation rules like the Brits, instead he offered pronunciation in a fashion that became a way to include primary, secondary, and tertiary meanings to words(he numbered them)

His dictionary never sold well until the second ed was revised(By his heirs the Merriams) to wipe out some of the political (Anti-Federalist) insertions that Webster made during hi many decade efforts at these two editions.
Why do American speak the way we do---Because we can.