Monday, 11/8

Hey, spell check. You trying to tell me something?

First of all, I had a very nice three-day weekend, thanks for asking. Friday I shot a TV show and then spent the afternoon baking Christmas cookies at my parents, so they could freeze them and take them down to Florida with them. Then between a very mild weekend and a few other things I spent most of the rest of the time playing outside.

Add 20 degrees to the very mild weekend and it would have been a PERFECT three day weekend.

But now, back to spell check. Whenever I type—be it emails, scripts, or even these blogs—I type very quickly, just letting the words flow out of (what passes for) my brain. But because I type very quickly and because I only use four to six fingers while typing (much to Loraine's eternal consternation) I often make mistakes. I'll hit the wrong key, I'll hit the right key twice, and I'll (on occasion) leave out entire words.

Well, I really don't have to tell YOU that, do I? After all, you read these every day and quite often see the results of my typing style.

Anyway, while quickly typing something over the weekend I managed to spell my last name wrong. That's not uncommon; like I said, I often do that (in fact, while typing this sentence I spelled “often” “foten”). When I tried to type “Koski” it came out “Koksi”. I was typing it on a machine that I haven't used that much, which means that the spell-check dictionary on that particular machine didn't know there's an actual name spelled “Koski”. So when I right-clicked on “Koksi” to correct my mistake what word did that computer's spell-check decide should be its replacement?

How about “sicko”? Yup...even though I don't use that machine much it apparently knows a thing or two, doesn't it?

8-)

I mean, I guess I can see the logic behind it. “Koksi” does have four of the five letters of “sicko”, if only in a different order, and maybe the computer just thought I wanted to play a game of Word Jumble. Needless to say, I added “Koski” into the dictionary of that particular machine, so the next time I make a mistake typing—which we all know I will do--”sicko” will NOT be a suggestion if my fingers mis-spell my last name.

Even if “sicko” might be one of the most appropriate choices the computer could make.

(jim@wmqt.com)