I don’t know if it’s still a thing, but when I was in middle school, it was common practice, before a test, to ask “Does spelling count?”
Once, I recall a wag in class asking that before a spelling test. Hilarious.
It all ended one day before a Civics test, when the teacher answered, “You’re not children. Spelling always counts now.”
That was a dark day indeed.
“You guys selling ‘Pasties’ now?”
Are you talking with a short a for the meat pie or the long a for the accessory?
Which one’s funnier?
Hmmmm probably the accessories.
Yeah, then, that one.
Me: Does spelling count on this test, sir?
Math Teacher: Shut up, and start the test.
For some of us spelling even counts on Facebook, except for those times the letters are so close together I hit the wrong one with my fat fingers and I don’t have my reading glasses on and can’t see I spelled it wrong.
My teachers always had spelling count. We never asked that question… First through third there was gradually lessening tolerance for misspelled stuff and by fourth you were going to get marked for it. We had one phonetic speller and she had it rough. [label was always laybul for example] (our school assumed that by the end of third grade you were reading, writing and spelling to a third grade level and now it counted all the time)