Crimes of Illiteracy

Orthographical catastrophes

advanced notice

This is the term for notice that entered college at age 15. Anyone who writes this surely means "advance notice."

discreet and discrete

Confusion between these two words has been cropping up a lot lately. Discreet is the word for inconspicuous or confidential; discrete refers to things that are separate or individual. I love my iDine Prime membership (which gets me 20% off at participating restaurants), but when the company (formerly Transmedia) sent a notice stating that I would soon be able to use my regular ol' credit card instead of the separate Transmedia Card and thus enjoy my savings "discretely," I balked.

FAX

There's no reason to put this term in all caps, since it's not the case that each letter stands for something. It's just "fax."

federal

Since it's not the custom to capitalize common adjectives in English, this should be lowercase in "federal laws" and other such cases.

I.D.

This can't be an acceptable abbreviation for "identification," since there's only one word in question. ID is the only proper abbreviation.

Juilliard

I could buy a Steinway if I had a penny for every time I've seen this name butchered. Plug "Julliard" and "resume" into a Google search and marvel at the number of graduates who can't spell the name of their alma mater.

The institution's entire admissions process should consist of asking applicants to write down the name of the school. It would be a most effective weeding-out strategy.

manger

This is probably the typo I've seen most of all - one the spelling checker doesn't catch. It comes from people trying to type "manager" and thinking of December holidays instead.