Reply #29: I've always thought it was BCAUSE schools teach spelling by phonics

[Occulus]

Lots of people don't seem to know that they're and there and their are three different words with three different meanings. Same thing for lose and loose- and I'm 98% certain that one is because they both have an "ooo" sound in them, and "all 'ooo' sounds have two o's".

I guess my point is, if we teach spelling by how words sound, people will spell incorrectly. Words aren't always spelled the way they sound in English, and I'm getting the impression that that fact is being glossed over.

Whose and who's are two more. Then there's the use of the apostrophe, but that's a separate issue.