Are You a Victim of Spellcheck?
As I get older, I’m noticing something. I don’t spellz so well anymore. You won’t notice this in my emails, letters, or proposals. That’s because I use spell check.
But on this site and in my handwriting you see another side of me, a drooling idiot who can’t spell simple words like “your,” “delegate,” or “perfect.”
It’s even more disturbing to me than it is to you. When I was in school (way back in the early 90s), we didn’t have spell check. Most people didn’t have personal computers. I didn’t even learn to type until the 7th grade. And did we have spell check on the word processing machines we learned on? Nope.
I wasn’t winning any spelling bees, but I could at least seem something more than a grade school drop out.
In fact, back then there was a stigma associated with poor spelling. When one of the kids in my school decided to take a jab at our Principal (Mr. Wall), he famously wrote on the bathroom stall, “Brun Down the Wall” instead of “Burn Down the Wall.” He was then viewed and treated as something less intelligent than the rest of us. This person would go on to became a very successful construction foreman and the first in our graduating class to buy a house. As a kid he would also buy the other students’ dead cars for nothing, completely rebuild the engines, and sell them for a large profit. His business sense, ingenuity, and mechanical ability were highly advanced for his age. But his spelling sucked and therefore he was considered the lovable fool.
Communication is becoming more important in our world. That is the trend I see. But ironically, the emphasis on grammar and spelling has seemed to diminish over time. We have become dependent on spell check like the crack addict is dependent on the rock. And while it seems harmless, I find myself crossing out and rewriting words that I should know how to spell.
Do you find yourself a victim of spellcheck? Is there something we can do about it? Leave a comment.
