Dear Mary

Q. A member of my social circle, a local celebrity of sorts, has created a Facebook group the title of which contains a glaring spelling error. I feel unable to accept her invitation to join, as doing so would generate notifications to my other ‘friends’, who no doubt would question my judgment. I now fear a froideur in my relations with said celebrity, who is sensitive to both slights and to any criticism of her work. Mary, what should I do?
Name and address withheld

A. Why not write on her message ‘wall’ that you are trying to join her group but the annoyingly overpedantic version of SpellCheck you have installed in your own computer will not let you
do so as it does not recognise the spelling she has used for its title. Can she take this as an acknowledgement that you are there in spirit? Having been alerted to her error in this nonjudgmental way she can unchippily correct the spelling while holding no grudge against you.