Sunday, September 25, 2011

Spell Check

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew. 

I'm sure that most of us have come across the above poem and chuckled while reading it.  The point is to illustrate how your computer's spell check can be tricked, because it won't correct any of the words in the text (although mine puts a squiggly little red line under the word "chequer").  And while it may be great for a laugh, the above poem is slowly morphing into a sad reality.

Sure, every once in a while I misspell a word.  But every time I do, I know that I don't have it right, because something about it looks wrong.  I have always had a problem with the word "occasion", and I'm not sure why.  I used to think that the word had two c's and two s's.  I have made a conscious effort by learning how to spell the word, much like a child does.  This is not, however, the type of misspelled word that I am talking about.  I have seen people write "loose" when they mean "lose", "coarse" when they mean "course" and don't even get me started on "there", "their" and "they're"!  I was watching the news the other day and I noticed the ticker had at least one in every ten words spelled incorrectly.  There is also the misuse of the apostrophe and the overuse of the hyphen and grammatical errors that set my teeth on edge, but that's a separate blog topic altogether.


What is going on here?  Why are so many words being misspelled at such an alarming rate and everywhere we look?  At what point did bad spelling get overlooked?  Did the fact that it was being overlooked somehow result in it becoming acceptable?  Is it the use of abbreviated words while communicating electronically?  It may be acceptable in text messages to use the abbreviation "IDK" for "I don't know" or "IRL" for "In Real Life", but I have seen entire Facebook statuses with abbreviated or truncated words:  "I knw dat I shld b studyin but dis TV show rockz!"  (It does, does it?  That status right there suggests to me that you should be studying instead of watching television and updating your Facebook status!)  It seems to me that the progressive next step to this phenomenon is the general dumbing down of the generations to come.  We owe it to ourselves and to them to make sure this doesn't happen.  That is why we need to do something about it.  By the way, I never imagined that I would one day sound like my own grandfather. 


I am not suggesting that all of us collectively begin preparing for the Scripps Howard spelling bee.  I am not saying that we should become spelling Nazis, but we should try to correct the spellings around us, or at least recognize a misspelled word.  I also think we should get back to the lost art of reading a book.  Additionally, we should also practice our writing skills.  It has become more convenient than ever to be able to write.  Every household has at least one computer.  Every computer has the internet, which puts every resource we need at our fingertips.  It's interesting that we have resources online to check for words we may not know how to spell.  We can check the meaning of words and the context in which to use them.  We need to choose to avail of these resources. One of the reasons I began writing this blog is that I was beginning to feel my brain slowly atrophying from lack of use, if you will.  For every little task that required creative thinking and good motor skills, there now seemed to be an automated, quicker and easier solution.  While I am truly grateful for these solutions that make life more convenient, it seems like I am losing some of what had become an inherent part of my life.  This blog helps keep these skills honed.  Again, I am not suggesting that everyone write a blog.  I am merely suggesting that everyone do their little bit to remedy this trend of sloppiness.
 
I have written to the television station and made them aware of the rate of misspelled words on their ticker.  I don't know if they will read my letter.  If they do, I don't know if they will take any action.  But I have tried to make a difference in my own little way.  I am trying to keep in touch with people by writing letters instead of making phone calls.  These are baby steps to address a much larger, more global problem.  I think if everyone takes little steps to address the issue, the world will soon be a better place with no misspelled words.  One can only hope.

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