Sometimes Spellcheck Doesn't Help

What follows is a supposedly true story.

Spellcheck is a wonderful thing. I don't use it often enough, truth to tell. I'm sure you could go through my previous posts and find several spelling errors, if you were so inclined.

There are times when Spellcheck won't save you, however. If you type in the wrong word, and have spelled it correctly, Spellcheck won't point out your mistake. For example, if you're typing, "He tried to teach the students", but were thinking about the laundry you're going to do later, you could type, "He tried to bleach the students" by accident and Spellcheck will look at it and tell you there's no problem with the sentence since everything is spelled properly.

Likewise, if you transpose a couple of letters, Spellcheck will offer up the nearest equivalents to what it thinks you're trying to type. If you just assume that what's being offered is right and don't look at it too closely, you might just replace your word with something totally inappropiate. In both cases, after using Spellcheck, you do really need to go back and proofread what you've written with your own eyes.

One church secretary did, indeed, make one of the mistakes mentioned above as she was typing up the programs and the words to the hymns for an upcoming Sunday service. Who knows what she was thinking that may have distracted her (oh, who am I kidding? I think we ALL know what she must have been daydreaming about!).

Consequently, instead of the word, "speaking", puzzled parishoners that Sunday found themselves singing, "Teach us, O Lord, the art of spanking."

It probably didn't help that the next verse began with the words, "You release us from our bondage."

I think we all know what came next for the church secretary......