Last week, a reader, Joan Laumbach, asked me if I’d deliberately misspelled a couple of words in a recent column. What I answered differed from what I thought. I told her something like, “If the material was in quotation marks, I probably rendered the word the way I heard the person pronounce it.”

But what I thought was: Trujillo, you blew it again.

We can always blame spell-checkers, which spell things correctly, even if the words are the wrong ones, like “to” and “too.” But we’ve been down the spell-checker interstate before.

Modern word processors are sophisticated enough to point out a missing verb or even a word or phrase in the wrong case, number, gender or tense.

In college, I was impressed when the art history professor, the late Elmer Schooley, said, “I eat nails when I see careless misspelling.”

He referred to the spelling of “Mesopotamia,” which some in the class spelled “Mesopotania.” The tell-tale “n” is like the consonant in words like “California,” and “Caledonia.” In fact, how many words end in “amia”?

Schooley’s rationale for the iron diet was that such misspellings indicate students aren’t reading their assignments, instead relying on their memories to help them with the phonetic transcription of the word.

The admonition against careless spelling seems even more important today. For example, too many people nowadays spell things according to what they hear rather than read.

For instance, for years we had a government employee who unabashedly referred to herself as a “liberrian.” It’s bad enough when non-librarians elide that troublesome “r” that follows the “b,” but when a liberrian herself does it, we also wonder how well she spells.

The English language is filled with examples of pronunciations that purists have given up on. Few people take the trouble to include the first “n” in “government,” because it’s too easy to skip that sound, but yet they seem to spell it correctly.

As an erstwhile teacher of composition, I grew accustomed to fielding expressions that merely sounded like what they represented.

Like when, in the same essay, one student included the expressions “time and memorial” for “time immemorial,” “yes, ma’am” for “yes-man,” and my favorite, “supposably.” That word apparently means the speaker is able to suppose.

What, supposably, may be the reason we encounter such misuses of the language? I contend many people perform “survival reading” and seldom read for pleasure anymore; they hit the books long enough to pass a course or examination, but they rely on their hearing to conjure up interesting and unusual spellings and uses. Some people even have trouble with the pronunciation of “pronunciation.”

That’s why people offer to “take a different tact” when they mean “tack,” which has its origin as a nautical term referring to the positioning of the sails. It does not denote diplomacy.

We hear, “History is his forte,” with the object pronounced “for-tay,” It’s simply “forte” — one syllable. “For-tay” refers to musical loudness.

Someone who couldn’t spell “grill” nevertheless had one for a ‘53 Buick, and accordingly tried to peddle it on a local trading post radio program, where the announcement advertised “a girl for a ‘53 Buick.” Let the bidding begin.

Someone complained about being “lack toast and tolerant,” and another used the expression “for all intensive purposes.”

Pete DuMont, who a few years back operated a book-and-coffee shop on Bridge Street, said several customers would ask for a cup of “expresso.”

He noted that the word is “espresso,” and that it’s expecially easy to substitute an “x.” DuMont said that when people ordered expresso, he would serve their choice of coffee in a hurry.

And people apparently aren’t reading much when they fail to see that it’s a dog-eat-dog world — fiercely competitive, and not a doggy-dog world.

And notice the confusion involving “moot” and “mute.” “Moot,” which rhymes with boot, means open for debate. “Mute,” which rhymes with cute, is silence.

Discussions of the local water situation center on “potable” water, which too many people rhyme with “laudable.” They treat the word as if it refers to placing water in a pot. The word is supposed to rhyme with “floatable,” or the way an easterner might pronounce “portable.”

In a number of popular rap songs, performers use the word “conversate.” Try “converse.” That’s a little bit of an irritation when I listen to hip-hop music. I’m the guy in that car with the earth-shaking music.

Yes, we hear, but sometimes not too well. Sometimes misuses of words and expressions turn out to be a blessing in the skies.

But if that’s the case, one wonders what the Beatles were thinking when they sang “The Girl With Colitis Goes By.”

• • •

People love to see those on top take a tumble. That may be the reason people booed the representation of the New England Patriots Sunday.

Here’s what happened:

During intermission of the San Diego-Indianapolis playoff game, winners of the Punt, Pass & Kick competition, for boys and girls 8 through 15, were honored. Each participant gets sponsored by an NFL team.

Unfortunately, one of the winners, high school freshman Amy Grant, wore the jersey of her sponsors, the Patriots. Boorish Indianapolis fans, whose biggest rival is New England, let out a chorus of boos.

To make up for the Colts fans’ underwhelming display, Patriots officials are inviting the 14-year-old to join in the game-opening coin flip this Sunday. It’s as great a gesture as the Colts fans’ behavior is reprehensible.

Why should anyone boo a 14-year-old?

Why should fans boo anybody for any reason?