Jun

4

Check Your Spelling.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

June 4, 2008 |

Spell checkers, or maybe spellcheckers, are funny things. Depending on what you’re using, you might get corrected if you misspell something. For instance I misspell “misspell” all the time–that second “s” just don’t look right to me–so my spellchecker picks it up and automatically corrects it. Language is flexible, though. Maybe I want to say a lot of rigamarole is needed even though I know “rigmarole” is correct. That extra “a” in the middle there gives it a funny bounce, so as long as I’m understood, what’s the prob? Saying it wrong on purpose can be fun.

And when I read about high school students who had their names misspelled in their yearbook, I was reminded why some people deliberately turn their spellcheckers off. One student, Max Zupanovic, became “Max Supernova”. Now that doesn’t sound so bad; in fact it sounds like kind of a cool superhero name. If you want to find out your superhero name, though, you can always use a superhero name generator. Would you want that in your yearbook, though? Those kinds of mistakes can haunt somebody for a long time. I knew a guy who went through four years of college with the nickname “Chainsaw”. And maybe school officials thought it was a good thing to include notes to the students warning them of the errors, but really they were just alerting students to go looking for funny names.

And sometimes perfectly cromulent words get attacked and mauled by spellcheckers. Try running Lewis Carrol’s poem Jabberwocky through a spellchecker. The result might be something like this:

‘Twas brimming and the stilly totes
Did gyrate and gamble in the wage,
All misty were the boroughs,
And the mom rates outgeneral.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jujube bird and shun
The furious bandstand!”

He took his vortex sword in hand,
Long time the Manxmen foe he sought–
So rested he by the tumble tree,
And stood a while in thought.

And as in offish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock with eyes of flame
Came whiffing through the bulgy wood
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One,two! And through and through
The vortex blade went snicker snack!
He left it dead and with its head
He went gallumphing back.

“And hats thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms my bearish boy!
Oh fractious day! Callow! Chalet!”
He chortled in his joy.

‘Twas brimming and the stilly totes
Did gyrate and gamble in the wage,
All misty were the boroughs,
And the mom rates outgeneral.


Comments

1 Comment so far

  1. Ginger M on June 4, 2008 1:54 am

    Fun post! I do mispronounce and misspell a lot of words on purpose: probably becomes prolly, sometimes drawing becomes drawring(sounds cuter, no?) and flavour for favour:

    Me: “Can you do me a flavour?”
    Someone else:”Huh? Oh, yeah, what?”
    Me: “Chocolate!”
    Someone else: *rolls eye*

Name (required)

Email (required)

Website

Speak your mind

<< Post Navigation >>

« « Still Native. | Artistic Inflation. » »