Principal Valiant

Today on Wired.com there's a story about a particular kind of online fraud, and in discussing one case, the writer says that a company lost a lawsuit by default because "[i]ts principles never showed up in court".

And I'll bet its principals didn't, either.

There's no excuse for a published writer and a paid editor not to know that "principle" and "principal" aren't the same thing; the words may share a pronunciation and a distant past, but they have no meanings in common. It's like wanting to say "scents" and writing "sense". And then not noticing that you made a big fat mistake, or worse, thinking you spelled it correctly. And having your editor think the same thing.

I don't know how many times I've said it; being able to use a spell-checker doesn't mean you don't have to know how to spell.