Possibly Helpful, Definitely Annoying

Long ago, before everyone had a computer in their pocket, people used words to convey ideas. Often, these words were written on paper. Occasionally, these words on paper were spelled incorrectly. The only thing to do to make sure that the words you had written on paper were not spelled incorrectly was to ask someone else to make sure. If there were corrections to be made, the words needed to be rewritten on a new piece of paper, or crossed out and the correct word rewritten nearby, or white-out applied and the correct word rewritten on top of the incorrect one.
When I was in high school, this was how assignments were completed. On rare occasions, we were allowed to turn in assignments completed on a computer.
Misspelled words typed on a screen are more easily identified because of the red squiggly thing that underlines them. When you use words to convey an idea on a computer, you don't have to get someone else to make sure none of your words are spelled incorrectly, because the spell checker does that for you.
When an automated spell checker was first introduced, there were no squiggly lines. You had to remember to tell the program to run, just like you had to ask someone to look over your words written on a page. If you forgot, there was no way you would know how many times you'd spelled "definitely" wrong in your English paper. You'd have to wait until Mrs. Lamson handed it back and reminded you that it doesn't have an "a" in it and has only one "l."
I have no experience with the early days of autocorrect software; I stayed away from smart phones for as long as possible for that very reason (among others). Autocorrect doesn't let you forget, but if you skip the bit where you double check that text to your boss, you may be sending him something incomprehensible and weird. From what I understand, autocorrect is supposed to learn your habits and most frequently used words and extrapolate based on those patterns to guess what you mean when you misspell something. Only, I don't misspell things often, and when I do, I mean to. "No, autocorrect," I say, "I didn't mean 'pull lease,' I actually meant it when I typed, 'puh-lease!'" But it's not like autocorrect is listening to me even when I do try to instruct it during these moments of intentional misspelling. I can't say, "Just trust me, autocorrect," and have it leave me alone about how I like to hilariously misspell certain words. I suppose some people definitely have a use for it, but I just find it mildly annoying.
Some days I think I'd like to turn it off, but then I won't be able to tell future generations how much it bothered everyone when they're complaining about their thought-to-text software. "You think that drives you nuts?" I'll be able to say, smacking a dictionary down on the table in front of them. "Let me give you a few links to some 'autocorrect fail' websites!"

Grammar Posse: IT'S Unprofessional

Grammar Posse: riding across the hills and plains, righting grammatical wrongs and wiping the tears of crying children.

It’s hard for me to trust a professional when they don’t know the difference between “its” and “it’s.” To me, it’s a demonstration of how they are going to handle their business, whether it’s an incorrect sign at the bank or a grammatical error in a banner ad on a website. Adding or forgetting that apostrophe says something about a person. It says: “I am too busy/negligent to make sure that my work is proofread before being presented to potential customers.”

A poster for a fundraiser at a high school, I can understand. Usually those are tossed together at the last second by a student who thinks they’re invincible or an unnaturally tired teacher. But in the promo for a video game, or on a t-shirt?

To listen to the rest of the "album," just
click the beefy arm on the Action Cool
News 5 logo.

If you are a business person, it’s probably pretty easy to ask someone who works for or with you to glance over your products and advertisements before they go to the printer. Use a spell check. You’d be hard pressed to find a piece of software without it these days.

Basically, it’s unprofessional to skip the proofreading. You should always make sure everything looks perfect, for the good of your company’s image. Once that mistake or typo goes up, everyone who can read will think you’re stupid.

I guess I have to sing this one more time. “Ohhh, if you want to be possessive, it’s just “I-T-S,” but if it’s supposed to be a contraction, then it’s “I-T-apostrophe-S! Scalawag!”

Reader Baffled in Confusing Headline Scandal

George Takei is an actor, an activist, and for many people on facebook, a daily source of amusement. He posts amusing photos several times per day, having to do with Star Trek, gay marriage, or anything in the world one could possibly poke fun at.

Here are some of my favorites:

Today I was catching up on the stuff in my news feed when I saw this from George Takei:

I was amused, of course. “17 Remain Dead,” what else could they possibly be doing? That’d be a great headline: “17 Rise Again to Do Laundry After Being Killed...” etc. But then I looked a little closer and decided that I have no idea what this article could possibly be about.

“17 Remain Dead in Morgue Shooting Spree.” At first I thought that the 17 were Remaining Dead in the Morgue, but then I stared at it for a while and decided that the only possible thing that could have happened is that they died as a result of a Shooting Spree that took place in the Morgue.


I was determined to read the article to find out what had happened, so I rushed to the source of all information in the world: google. The dispenser of all knowledge informed me that I could find out more about this article in the pages of a book called Cruel and Unusual Idiots: Chronicles of Meanness and Stupidity, by Leland Gregory. I followed the trail. It led me to a quote of the headline in the middle of two other stories that had nothing to do with it. The only further clues it gave were the name of the paper (which you can already clearly see in the picture), and even better: the date it was published.


Go, go, gadget internet. Google ushered me to the website of The News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina. I was excited. Soon I would find out the mystery of the non-zombified victims of the Morgue Shooting Spree. The helpful search function informed me (when I searched “Sept 4 2001”) that I could find articles dating back to 1990. Perfect.


I utilized said search function. Rigorously. I even used the advanced search and put the specific dates in that I was looking for, made sure it knew that I wanted to find a headline, and tried searching different phrases from the title. I didn’t even mind that it was going to charge me $2.95 to read the article once I found it.


I found nothing. “0 Results,” it reported, and “No Articles Were Found.” It was driving me crazy. What could have happened? Why were they so insistent on reporting that the victims Remained Dead? Was there black magic involved? Is that why the Shooting Spree occurred in the Morgue itself?


The only conclusion I can come to, then, is that the paper has tried to engineer a coverup. Perhaps the 17 did not Remain Dead. Perhaps the 17 were the reason for the Shooting Spree: that is, because they did not Remain Dead, there had to be a Shooting Spree, or worse yet, a second Shooting Spree.


Or perhaps they are embarrassed that they allowed a copy editor working on too little sleep to do the headlines that day and that the headline itself passed under the nose of the apparently non-watchful editor. Even if we take out the ridiculous “Remain,” the headline is still confusing: “17 Dead in Morgue Shooting Spree.”


The moral of the story is this: commas are important, kids. Also: mistakes made in the public eye will be remembered (and made fun of) forever. Finally: If the zombie apocalypse does occur, let's hope it's not in North Carolina because the world will be instantly doomed; not only will they report it as "Cemetery Residents Seek Better Accommodation," but they will then remove the article from their website due to the embarrassment caused by the ridiculous headline.

Judge Not

My fourth grade teacher couldn’t spell. It had to be more than a bit embarrassing for her, standing in front of the class writing something on the chalkboard, to have a sassy little ten year old call out, “Uh, you spelled that wrong...” She would sigh and erase it and try again. Usually she’d get it right the second time, but if she didn’t one of us would end up spelling it out for her, and she’d get asked, for the umpteenth time, how she passed the tests to become a teacher. She’d reply, seemingly unabashed, that the tests just asked which of the words in a list was spelled incorrectly, and she was pretty good at telling which words were wrong. My classmates and I would exchange doubtful looks, and whisper among ourselves mutinously about the fact that this was the woman whose job it was to test us on our spelling.

I’m not sure if the basic rules of English grammar were drilled into me by someone or if by reading so much they just became ingrained in me. By “basic rules” I mean the difference between “your” and “you’re” and things of that nature; I couldn’t tell you what a comma splice is or probably recognize one if I did see it.

In high school, my boyfriend and I would grab a copy of the “school paper” the second it came out and correct the grammar in it. (“School paper” is in quotes because it was rarely more than the back and front of one 8”x11” page.) This annoyed the members of Journalism class, especially one of my very good friends. We would apologize to her, following it with “we wouldn’t have to do it if you guys had an editor that cared enough to do it!"

When I was a senior, my friends and I made up the staff for the school paper. I took it upon myself on several occasions to place or remove punctuation, change the wording of sentences, and etc. One day the teacher was off doing something important, so we were being passively observed by a substitute. The teacher’s only instruction had been: “Make sure you get the paper out today."

I still get annoyed when I remember what happened that day. The articles were laid out and ready to go, but they were rife with misspellings and needed proofreading.  My goal was to never have anyone going through my paper with a red pen to correct the mistakes I had missed, so I took it on myself to spend the entire hour fixing every mistake I could find. Five minutes before the bell rang, I turned around and found half the class missing, the other half just hanging out. I said to the sub, who was sitting there reading a magazine, “Okay, the paper’s ready to go." She looked at me, puzzled. “But they printed it out at the beginning of class and have already handed it around.” I can’t remember what I did or said, but I can remember exactly how I felt. And I can remember the look on the sub’s face, as if she was in fear for her life. 

The paper that I had spent the whole class period editing had been handed out to the entire school population before I had even started correcting it, and it had my name next to the title: Editor.

I don’t remember anyone asking me how I got to be the editor of the school paper by allowing it to be published with so many obvious mistakes, but if they did I most certainly replied with “No one said anything to me!!!” The final blow came when the teacher returned and was merely pleased that we’d gotten the paper out on time and was unconcerned with the amount of mistakes within. We didn’t reissue the paper with my fixed version, and despite my squawking, nobody got in trouble.

I just hope that none of the fourth graders got ahold of it.