Misspellings on eBay.

Some eBay users are making the most of spelling gaffes. When the clueless or careless auction off "labtop computers," "camras," and "sapphires," they do get bidders, but rarely very many. Some buyers troll for bad spellings, purchasing items cheaply and reselling them. John H. Green, a jeweler in central Florida, once bought a box of "gers" for $2. They were gears for pocket watches, which he cleaned up and auctioned for $200. David Scroggins of Milwaukee bought three Compaq computers for a pittance by asking for "Compacts." Other creative spellings in recent auctions include "bycicles," "telefones," and "dimonds." Perhaps computer spelt checkers are to blame. Much as calculators did for arithmetic, spell checkers have made good spelling seem like an obsolete virtue. Some misspellings are flagged by eBay. But Jim Griffith, an eBay official, advises users to take an old-fashioned approach: "You go to a store called a bookstore, and you buy something called a dictionary."