Saturday, October 21, 2006

Spell Checkers and their Pitfalls



Spell checkers, though they are getting more and more sophisticated (checking grammar and so on), will not find all your mistakes. It greatly amused me when I first saw this poem, and you'll see why. There is no substitute for proper spelling!

Ode To Spell Checkers

by Jerrold H Zar

I have a spelling checker.
It came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.

Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it's weigh.
My checker tolled me sew.

A checker is a bless sing.
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when aye rime.

Each frays come posed up on my screen
Eye trussed too be a joule.
The checker pours o'er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.

Bee fore a veiling checker's
Hour spelling mite decline,
And if we're lacks oar have a laps,
We wood bee maid to wine.

Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flare,
Their are know fault's with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a wear.

Now spelling does knot phase me,
it does knot bring a tier.
My pay purrs awl due glad den
With wrapped word's fare as hear.

To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should bee proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaw's are knot aloud.

Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays
Such soft wear four pea seas,
And why eye brake in two averse
Buy righting want too pleas.

In Christ.


 
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10 Comments:

At 10/23/2006 07:52:00 AM , Blogger une_fille_d'Ève said...

Hehe, very amusing. :-)

I got a forward years ago with a very similar poem that started off the same way, but I'm pretty sure it was a bit different.

 
At 10/23/2006 04:26:00 PM , Blogger Susan said...

I think it was the same, actually, Hannah. And yes, very amusing :). I fall prey to homophonic typos more than anything else. *sigh*

 
At 10/23/2006 08:04:00 PM , Blogger Adrian C. Keister said...

In an earlier edition of one of my Calculus books, there's a section entitled "Lies My Computer Told Me." It's only a tool, it can't think for you, and it doesn't know what you mean. They're qutie stupid, actually. Computers can count to one on one finger, and that's it. Of course, they do so blindingly fast, but fundamentally, that's all they do.

Glad you're all enjoying this post.

In Christ.

 
At 10/24/2006 12:10:00 PM , Blogger Susan said...

Have you set your "recent comments" feature to filter out Sister Dear? That's weird that her comments never register. Perhaps it's the accents?

Do you mean calculators, or was the table really "Lies My Computer Told Me"? I thought you'd mentioned it before, but for calculators(?). I'm sure it would be an interesting table. There is a lot of trig and calculus that cannot be done on a calculator on auto-pilot. Like taking the total area under a curve, if it dips below the axis. Or taking the ArcTan. Stuff like that. You have to help the calculator :).

 
At 10/27/2006 09:52:00 AM , Blogger Adrian C. Keister said...

I honestly have no idea why the recent comments hack doesn't report Hannah. Could she possibly test it on your blog and see if yours does it, too? If so, it might well be her sophisticated and suave French screen name getting in the way.

Is there really any difference between calculators and computers? The latter, to me, is a glorified instance of the former. The point is, technology must be used intelligently in order to be useful. You do have to help the calculator. Calculators are stupid: they do exactly what you tell them, not what you want. :-)]

In Christ.

 
At 10/28/2006 11:12:00 AM , Blogger Susan said...

Yes, I'll have to get her to test commenting on my blog. She hasn't had a great deal of free time recently, but maybe when she gets back today. I just tried to log into her Blogger account, but I found I didn't know her username(!). I am an expert at guessing her usernames (and her password is always the same, unless restricted by number of digits), so that's surprising. Ah well. My hacking attempts for today are a failure. *sigh*

Yes, calculators and computers are definitely overlapping sets. Fine, be that way. Perhaps calculators are even a proper subset of computers? I'm not sure about solar powered calculators, or the strict definiton of computer, hence the question mark. But yes, technology is only as useful as the user :). I was just curious which term the book used; I wasn't trying to be adversarial - I would never do that! ;)

 
At 10/28/2006 09:07:00 PM , Blogger Adrian C. Keister said...

The test came out the same way as on my blog: Hannah appears to slip underneath the radar screen of the Recent Comments Hack. Does that mean she's a B-2 stealth blogger? In order to show up, I think she'd need to change her display name. But she probably doesn't want to do that.

You're never adversarial! Argumentative sometimes, perhaps, but that's not the same thing. ;-)]

In Christ.

 
At 10/29/2006 08:34:00 AM , Blogger une_fille_d'Ève said...

Well, I like my "sophisticated and suave French screen name" even if your comment tracker thing doesn't. Ha!

Actually, the funny thing is that if it's the accent on the 'e' that's causing the problems, if I had just capitalized it in the first place like I should any name, the accent wouldn't be necessary (accents on capital letters aren't necessary), and I could have left it off and we wouldn't have had this whole accent discrimination problem.

 
At 10/30/2006 01:02:00 PM , Blogger Susan said...

Accent discrimination :). That's funny, Hannah. You should just change your username to the exclusion of the accent, Dearie :-D.

Well, I'm glad I don't come across as adversarial, Adrian. 'Tis never my intent, except in fun :).

 
At 11/01/2006 11:06:00 AM , Blogger Adrian C. Keister said...

Careful there, Hannah. You're starting to sound like... *lame drum roll* a dreaded postmod! Please excuse the seeming insult. And it's not my comment hack. It's not even Lane's. It's someone else's hack; someone whose Javascript programming skills far outpace my own (nonexistent, so that's not terribly difficult). The only problem with changing your screen name so the 'e' is capital is that I don't think it would show up in capital. I'm sure I capitalized A, C, and K in my name when I typed them in, and look at them now!

Right ho, Susan. Except in fun. :-)]

In Christ.

 

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