I was in the middle of writing my latest article when I ran into a problem, spelling. I was never a very good speller. My brain was too full of baseball and football statistics, so it did not have enough room for simple things like the proper spelling of the word capital…or did I mean capitol? I’m deathly afraid of trying to spell the correct two, or is it too, or to…who the hell knows. I went to a Catholic grade school and our nuns would have the class stand up and they would start pumping words at us to spell. I was always the first one down. For a 7th grader, “ecumenical” was a tough word for me, and it still is. Thanks for spellcheck. Being the first one out of the bee gave me an advantage. I was able to sit and rest my legs for that sandlot baseball game after school. The guys I played with and who could spell would be exhausted by the end of the bee.
As a result of my poor spelling, my dictionary and I became very close. Even though I didn’t spell well, I still had to write papers, and spelling in those ancient times did count. Over the years, and after doing a lot more writing than I ever expected to do, I started to get very “fair” at spelling. If I said I became very good, that would have been a major exaggeration. I became self conscious of my spelling ability. Turning anything into an instructor or an editor with miss-spellings was very embarrassing. In the good old days there was no spell check and you weren’t allowed to use dictionaries for tests. I was great at BSing a written exam but I couldn’t BS the spelling part.
Then came along spellcheck. I know I praised it just a paragraph or so ago, but today, I think spell check is turning our young people’s minds into oatmeal. With this algorithm of the devil, nobody has to try any more. You can just spill out whatever dribble you want on the paper and then all you have to do is run it through spell check. Why in the world would any young person try to remember how to spell a word if you have a program doing it for you. Just run it through spell check. It started happening to me. Even though my spelling abilities at best were challenging, at least I was able to get most words. Now with spell check, my brain retains nothing and I’m dependent on the word processing program I’m composing my articles in to make up for my general lack of all things spelling. I have problems with words that just a few years ago wouldn’t have been a problem. Now when I try to use these words, I just stare at the blank page and my mind goes blank. An example is the word weather. I know that is spelled right but I’m pretty sure there is another word with the same pronunciation but spelled differently. I’m sure being as old as I am may have something to do with it and all I have to say to that is…get off my lawn.
This leads to another problem I have with today’s spelling assistance programs, auto-correct. Who the hell invented this nightmare? It usually pops up whenever I’m trying to text or post something to FaceBook, Twitter, or other platforms online. For some reason, the device in my hand thinks it knows better and decides, based on the first three letters I just typed in, what word should be used. Do you know how many times I have sent out texts with offensive language or altered content that has been changed drastically because of Auto-correct…or at least that’s what I’m going to say if the Justice Department wants to examine my lap-top.
I know we live in a brave new world with Artificial Intelligence that can write columns on their own, computer generated voices that sound like real ones and cars that can run into pedestrians all on their own without any assistance from a driver. Our brains are becoming obsolete. That may explain some of the people we have elected into office over the last few years.
I am going to keep exercising my mind and try to spell words without the use of spellcheck. Instead I will ask Alexa for the proper spelling. Alexa, how do you spell illiterate…did I spell that correctly?
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