Sound the word out--the e makes it a long a sound--LAYTH, rather than LAHTH....Buy a dictionary cheap at a used book store and look the d**n words up...If you can't use a brain for a simple task, how can you possibly think that a truly idiotic spell-checker is going to work? It is written for people who know what the proper word will look like and can sound it out...don't just let it choose your word on its own!!

Let me explain what happened. I try not to post a question here unless I can't find the answer elsewhere. So I searched google using the incorrect spelling - lathe and plaster - which I promise will be the last time I ever type it incorrectly. I found lots of references with that spelling, so I didn't look further - or is it farther? - for another spelling. And since I thought it was pronounced with a long A, the spelling seemed correct.

Again, I am horribly embarrassed at my spelling mistake as it is clear how strongly it has bothered you, and I certainly didn't want to do that. I hope I have humbled myself sufficiently that you can forgive me.

In fact, I think that every time I see your name from now on anywhere on Gardenweb, I will type in the word lath just to show you how well I have learned. I know I will be bringing joy to your life each time you see it.

And I am going to save this thread as one of the Gardenweb classics.

Dere columbusguy, I'm from Ohio, to.

Southern Ohio, but one of my DDs happens to be in Columbus today, and what a beeeuuutiful day it is--not one cloud in a baby-blue sky. Hope your day has improved. ;)

If you have installed lath on the your wall studs then you had have lathEd it.

I wasn't directing it specifically at graywings...but I have seen it so often here that something just finally got to me. I do fiction writing at an ancient history site, and understand that misspellings do occur...a lot of my stuff is written spur-of-the moment at 2A.M., but there I do catch most of mine which are mainly due to speed and keyboard layout.

Many, many people here are quite knowledgeable about restoration, so I guess I expect higher standards--earlier that day, I was at a professional restoration site, and saw so many errors that I thought 'there is no way I'd use these people'.

The other thing which gets to me is computer-speak and technology--and the fact that a lot of people just assume that since it is high-tech, it is going to function perfectly. Well, that is not true with things like spell-checkers; they are only as good as the person who uses it: it will offer suggested spellings which it thinks are alternates to your typed word, but it also was created by people who assume that if you see the proper word, you will know which one to pick. With our current educational system, the time will soon come when they will likely give up any pretence to grammar or spelling at all and give in to text usages.

Finding out that cursive writing is no longer taught in public schools also contributed to my despair--when I heard that, my mouth literally dropped open in shock and it took a bit for me to collect myself. I already knew our math skills were woefully behind the rest of the world, but the fact that we won't even be able to read something not printed was truly astounding. My mother saved a couple of my penmanship books from elementary school as I found out going through her effects, but I should have known back in '98 when I wrote something out at work and one of the other people couldn't figure out even from context that the letter I used to start one sentence was a capital 'Q'.

I have a difficult time imagining a world without cursive writing, but I was shocked when our local high school dropped 'shop' and 'home ec.' I know I'm dating myself with those terms, I think by that time they were called industrial arts and family/consumer science.

The world is changing too fast for me; that's another reason I appreciate my old house. (Which has no lath and plaster, so maybe it's not all that old.)

I done seen nuf of dat rond hear.

haf a gud day evrone

bes o luk.

I strongly encourage graywings and everyone else here to give ColumbusGuy whatever he wants!

lath lath lath lath lath