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.

Comments (3)

The older I get, the more I love well-crafted language - and the more I have to rely on spelling software.

I even draft handwritten greetings on the computer to make sure I get it right.

I had to make a 'spell-check' joke once to cover my mistakes when recording meeting notes on an office white board. Not good.

So, there's more important skills than spelling for writing, the computer checks it anyway, and we don't need to be able to spell to read well... However, I think for me the clincher is the enormous amount of stress put on children who can't spell and are termed dyslexic - this barely exists in languages that are phonetically consistent like Italian and some Scandinavian languages, and spelling bees are unheard of! I'm currently learning German and it's a difficult language, but one redeeming feature is that upon hearing a word you can take a very good guess at the spelling. Having taught English to foreigners, I can say this is such a nightmare: why don't comb, tomb and bomb rhyme, but they, say and weigh do? In a sense, we're stigmatizing many children for failing to master something utterly illogical, using this to make generalizations about their overall intelligence and skills!
Of course, on the other hand, we are judged by our ability to spell and that's just the way it is, isn't it?
I think one thing needs to get thrown out of the window: either our reliance on spell checkers or our disproportional attitude to spelling. For me, I'm in favour of throwing out the latter, but I suspect I may be in a minority.

Spellcheck when I was in a school was a dictionary! (and no, I'm not THAT old!) I always have spellcheck on for emails, etc., but I also have a dictionary on my desk, handy, so when I write posts on facebook, linkedin or like this, I can verify any words I'm not sure about. There's something about looking up a word in a dictionary that helps in retaining the correct spelling for the next time. I also find that it can inspire one to use a synonym and helps in developping a varied vocabulary. It does take more time, but I believe you're doing yourself (and others reading) a favour!

yvComment v.1.20.0