Jul 1, 2008
Some people just won’t let symbols and words mean what symbols and words mean.
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2 examples of companies letting their rigid style guides overrule common sense:
1. Autocorrecting + to and.
And, worse:
2. Autocorrecting gay to homosexual.
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Rigid style guides… and laziness. So, no one proofreads anymore ?!
Reminds me when Michael wrote a short story about himself on the Office. Find and replace doesn’t work on misspelled words and Michael’s witless sidekick was revealed as “Dwigt.”
I once heard about a funny (depending on your sense of humor, of course) story where Dick Van Dyke’s name was autocorrected (twice) into something . . . . completely different.
Some years back, my nephew was required for a social studies assignment to interview a family member who had lived during the turbulent 60′s. Since we were separated by about 250 miles, He e-mailed me the questions for his interview, and I answered in a paper about life through the 6o’s.
While preparing the paper it was hillarious how many typical statements and sayings of the time were not recognized by auto -correct….Fidel Castro was corrected to fiddle castor. I wasn’t sure if it was a defective auto-correct feature….or a poor attempt by MS to rewrite an unpleasant historical memory!
Jamsco,
How horrible. I never would have thought poorly of Dick van Dyke’s name until now.
I guess names are the hardest to get. My sister was using voice activated software to email me once and Frida Kahlo (the self-absorbed Mexican artist) came out “free the cow.” It’s quite funny depending on how you feel about the artist. It took my sister the longest time to fix this mistake.
“Free the Cow” will now be the name of my new blog.