#74 Spellchucker

One of the many daily annoyances we now face is the damage to our language wreaked by blind reliance on spellcheck. As one example, when I just typed in the word “wreaked,” I didn’t put in the “W” at the beginning of the word. Spellcheck caught it all right, but it only gave me alternatives to the incorrect spelling that started with “R.” If I didn’t know better, I could have picked reeked, r-e-e-k-e-d, and ended up with a word that meant stunk. “One of the many annoyances we now face is the damage to our language stunk by blind reliance on spellcheck.” Hmm.
And it happens everyday. And it makes it through more than one editor. Another example if you need one, I just typed in thorough instead of through and spellcheck didn’t catch it; nor did its green-squiggly-annoying-brother, grammercheck.
Speaking of odd things in spellcheck: Microsoft Word doesn’t recognize the word barista. You’d think Bill Gates and Howard Schultz would be able to get together on this one. Seattle is the expensive coffee capital of the freaking world. You could at least put the word for coffee jockey in your gul durn Redmond spellchecker, Mr. Gates, Sir.
Anyhow, here’s two egregious examples of spellcheck stupidity. I have in front of me a Triple-A magazine. It advertises various packages I could purchase if I wanted to go on a Triple-A getaway. Unfortunately, I can only afford a Double-A getaway, but I don’t want to spend all my vacation time with ex-drunks. In the middle of the magazine is an ad for trips to Mexico and the Caribbean. They are billed as rejuvenating destinations. “Rejuvinating” is spelled with an “I” after the “V” rather than the correct “E” after the “V.” I wondered how a national magazine could possibly have escaped an appropriate editing correction. Then I saw why. “Rejuvenating” was in a smaller font, but it was all in caps. Spellcheck doesn’t work when your words are all in capitals unless you specifically enable it to do so. Don’t ask me why, I’m not a mega-billionaire, so how the heck would I know.
Two: I’m looking at an ad that has now come through our local Val-Pack at least three times. It’s a coupon for cigarettes. It’s actually a pretty good ad as these things go. Unfortunately it got spellchecked. The headline come-on says: “Wanted, Cost Conscience Smokers.” Yes, I said Conscience. As in: I can’t in good conscience recommend you use this word, sir. What they meant, of course, was conscious, as in, I’m awake enough to notice this word is not being used properly. Or as in: I was conscious of the error and since I had no conscience I let it slip by and made everybody look stupid. Where they screwed up here was in trying to get hoity-toity. They should have just said: Wanted, Cheap Smokers. Or better yet, Wanted Good Editors...
America, ya gotta love it.