Image credit to sharlapatrick.com

Don’t get me wrong, I love the spell checker.

I used to pride myself on my spelling. I rarely had to look a word up to double-check it. But that was back when I used to be able to write. Which reminds me, am I the only one who has trouble writing anymore since the advent of the word processor? When I find myself needing to write a personal note long hand, it’s like I’m back in second grade.

I seem to stumble over the simplest of phrases and my spelling acumen has fallen precipitously. Hey, at least I can still write in cursive. Eat your heart out millennials! By the way, I got precipitously right the first time!

But back to the spell checker. As I said, I love it. Every type of application using a word processor has a spell checker with it. In today’s age of hurry up communications, I now type letters to my friends and family. Not to mention the typing required in blogging, using Facebook and Twitter and texting.  I tend to misspell, leave out letters, reverse letters, etc.

But there’s just one problem with it. Spell checker doesn’t stay culturally in tune. It still won’t recognize the words blog or blogging (yes, the red underline just showed up as I typed these two words). Mediakix.com estimates that there are about 440 million blogs in the world. Wouldn’t you think spell checkers might want to update their spelling vocabulary by now? The irony of all this is that the spell checker in use as I type this is in WordPress. My God, if WordPress won’t even recognize the word blog, why go on?

And one other thing, spell checker can actually red my mind. Did you see what I did there? I typed red instead of the word read. Spell checker didn’t underline it because red is also a real word. But when I go to publish this pot (again intentional mispelling) WordPress will ask me if I meant to say “read’ and “post” before publishing. How do it know?

But blog or blogging will not make the cut.

Well, that’s my rant about spell checker. I guess if you come right down to it, people might be able to read my blog without any spell checking whatsoever. As evidence, I give you this:

” It deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae.

Hope you enjoyed reading for a spell.