I don't think it's a matter of immigration, I am living in a country with a relatively recent immigration and a lot of natives are making horrendous mistakes (u

I don't think it's a matter of immigration, I am living in a country with a relatively recent immigration and a lot of natives are making horrendous mistakes (usual suspects: "there" for "their", "who's" for "whose", "definatly" for "definitely", etc.). You second point is absolutely correct: English spelling is a nightmare especially if you don't have any alternative phonetic system in which to represent it. My Italian wiring makes "there" and "their" two completely different words (they would be pronounced differently if read phonetically in Italian: "ther-a" and "the-eer") - English speakers don't have the luxury of a discriminating phonetical representation. By the way, this whole thread is about "grammar pedants" - but in fact we're just talking about spelling. The construction of the sentences is very rarely wrong.