How do you spell "Utah"?

[muckefuck]

For some reason, I went on a total spelling-snob tear in Utah. I'm not sure why. I've always agreed with the Times correspondent who said that having bad spelling is "no better or worse than having egg-stains on one's tie." I hate spelling flames, because they're always the least interesting response to a bad post. I hate when people leap to judgement about the mental capacity of an individual based solely on whether they have an "a" or an "e" in an unstressed syllable.

But bad spelling just seemed to be everywhere there. It first struck me near our hotel, where we saw signs for "Bellé" and "Chenéz". (Don't tell me that foreign words don't count. If you don't know French, then what the cordon bleu are you doing using it to name your business?) Then we took a hike down the main drag to read menus and window-shop and, by the time we reached "Cisero's" (an Italian restaurant, if you can believe it), I'd had my fill of "pablanos", "andonilee" sausage, and wines from "Chili".

I think what offended me about these instances was that they represented, in essence, tacky decor. You spend $100,000 designing a dining space to give a luxurious, upscale feel and then you can't pay an editor $10 to make sure your menus don't embarrass you? It's as bad as, I dunno, sending out your waiters with egg-stains on their ties. Why not neglect to wash the floors while you're at it?

Things finally reached a pinnacle on the road to the city where we saw a lighted sign announcing "EXIT CLOCED". It was around this time that I considered jotting a Utah Spelling Hall of Shame in my notebook. I even thought about going through the menu reader in our room, searching out all the mistakes, and presenting them out of context as a quiz for readers of this forum. But that represented a level of obsessiveness I wasn't prepared to reach.

[Note: Since this a spelling rant, it's guaranteed by the laws of fate to have at least a half-dozen typos in it. Pointing them out will not score you cleverness points, so do it only if you can't stop yourself. Yes, I know there's a spellchecker available; I don't get along with 'em. They always want to "correct" perfectly legit spelling choices like "humour", "I'd've" and "chorizo".]