I wish I could blame Spellcheck!

In the Jan 2, 2019 Observer

It does not bode well that my very first column of the year in the Observer’s January 2nd edition has a glaring error in it.  What’s more, it’s an error that involves the history of Oysterville and the name of a family I know well.  In fact, some of that family are related, albeit by marriage.  I am distraught but there are no do-overs when it comes to newspapers – only errata announcements and corrections after the fact.  Once it’s out there, it’s a done deal.

If you read the local paper carefully, you may know of what I speak.  I am sorely tempted not to be specific and not to give any more hints.   I wonder if readership of my column would go up and comments on my blog (this one) would increase.  In fact, consider this a test!  I’ll not say more about this particular faux pas – at least not right now.

From the Internet

I do, however, wish to speak about this entire Spellcheck Era in which we find ourselves.  It is one of those blessing-and-curse situations, as I’m sure anyone who uses a computer knows.  It’s right up there with Siri on your car or phone GPS and Alexa on your living room table.  Rely on it with caution and, also, with a fairly good notion of the answer to your question before you even ask.  Otherwise, annoying things happen.

The auto-correct functions on smartphones are the worst. In 2014 there was a great article on Slate, an online magazine, called “Is It Time to Kill Autocorrect?”  It’s one of those tongue-in-cheek but oh-so-true articles and, among other things says:     A quick perusal of Twitter on a few recent weekday afternoons showed that someone tweets “stupid autocorrect” or “fucking autocorrect” approximately once every 65 seconds. And seemingly everyone has a story about bizarre or problematic “corrections”—“arguments” becoming “argue menus,” “hiney” taking the place of “honey,” and so on. The iPhone transforms “Steve Buscemi” into “Steve bus emu,” And autocorrect loves changing sentences to include “ducking.” It’s the ducking worst!

From the Internet

But back to my own transgressions in the Spelling Department.  I really can’t blame Spellcheck because, truth to tell, I don’t always remember to use it, besides which some things don’t show up at all.  And doncha just hate it when you display the error of your ways to the entire cosmos in one swell foop?   Welcome to my world.  And, I’m sorry, Dorothy – you know I know better!

3 Responses to “I wish I could blame Spellcheck!”

  1. LOL, Cuz! You are piping the perfect hymn to the choir!!! btw, that lemon juicer is the BEST! Love, transgressions forgiven, KK

  2. Dian Schroeder says:

    Sydney, don’t get me started – I get especially annoyed when I trying to type a name and IT JUST WON’T LET ME. It doesn’t help when people get cute with the spelling of their children’s names. We have a grand-daughter whose mother thought Taiylar was a cute way to spell Taylor, right, and that’s just the beginning.

  3. sydney says:

    As a veteran primary teacher of 39 years, I could write a book about the “clever” and “interesting” names non-thinking parents give their kids. One of my favorite stories — I had two first graders named Ian — one spelled the traditional way, I-a-n and one spelled Eeyan. I believe Mom-of-the-second-spelling just plain didn’t know any better, although there are, indeed,many spellings for Ian. Just not that one. Mom-of-the-first-spelling confided that during the first few weeks of school, she had quite a time convincing her boy that she and his dad hadn’t been mistaken when they named him. “I TOLD you my name should have an ‘e’!” Ian said.

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