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Tuesday, January 20, 1998 Published at 18:28 GMT



Talking Point

Does spelling matter? Your reaction

<% ballot="49098" ' Check nothing is broken broken = 0 if ballot = "" then broken = 1 end if set vt = Server.Createobject("mps.Vote") openresult = vt.Open("Vote", "sa", "") ' Created object? if IsObject(vt) = TRUE then ' Opened db? if openresult = True AND broken = 0 then ballotresult = vt.SetBallotName(ballot) ' read the vote votetotal=(vt.GetVoteCount(ballot, "yes")+vt.GetVoteCount(ballot, "no")) if votetotal <> 0 then ' there are votes in the database numberyes = vt.GetVoteCount(ballot, "yes") numberno = vt.GetVoteCount(ballot, "no") percentyes = Int((numberyes/votetotal)*100) percentno = 100 - percentyes ' fix graph so funny graph heights dont appear 'if percentyes = 0 then ' percentyes = 1 'end if 'if percentno = 0 then ' percentno = 1 'end if else ' summut went wrong frig it numberyes = 0 numberno = 0 percentyes = 50 percentno = 50 end if end if end if %> Votes so far:

100%

0%
> >
  Yes: <% =percentyes %>%   No: <% =percentno %>%

People get far too worried about the odd letter in the wrong place. What really matters is the content of the sentence. If you over-criticise a pupil on the grounds of spelling, then that pupil won't develop far more important creative skills.
Bob Dwyer, English teacher, London





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