I'm pretty detail-oriented -- I notice small things. But I read words in big chunks and never seem to remember more than their shape, and only my fairly weak knowledge of Greek, Latin, French and such lets me figure out the bizarre ad hoc English spelling.
Maybe it's a neurological limitation; I'm not dyslexic (which I just had to confirm how to spell), but I am left-handed and I've noticed for some reason the sinister tend to have more frequent spelling issues.
Some of it is just that I can't overcome my renormalization biases. It's absurd to me that "fourty" isn't correct. I used to hate writing a check for "forty" because it always seemed like an adjective not a number. Genny Zees: A check (or "cheque") was a way students in the 19th century used to lie to the restaurant that "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today", because (weirdly) people with no income weren't allowed to have a credit card.
So anyway, it's always both frustrating and amusing when the iPhone autocorrect halts my progress because it can't figure out what I mean. I have no idea why it doesn't do a phonetic mapping. It seems to recognizing lexicographic errors (like typing the adjacent letter on the keyboard), but it should accept phonetic spelling and just pop the right thing in there.
I mean, I knew that "bignets" was wrong, but come on Apple, you couldn't give me "beignets" back out from that? I mean, I got their weird French ending right, how much more help did you need? I realize you're not going to be inclined to life experiences generating empathy about spelling if your leadership is all "Steve Jobs" and "Tim Cook" and you cheat on the Polish by shortening to "Woz", but hey you gotta meet users where they at.
Of course, all this is especially bad if you grow up with a middle-class New York / New Jersey accent and an immigrant parent who isn't a native English speaker and so your phonetic efforts also lead you astray.
On a related note, in my childhood we used to concoct (how the hell is that the right spelling?!) a citrus beverage from a cylinder-shaped fruit with an off-gamboge color. Never see it anymore and can't find it on Amazon.
I think it must have been Mormon or from Utah or something, because the fruit, or maybe just the juice, was called "orrin". 😉
I miss having those stacked in the freezer draw.