I operate a spell checker the way most people sing a Pearl Jam song- by blindly stabbing
at each word. Half the time my spell checker has no clue what I’m even trying to type- I might
as well be playing pictionary with the thing. I have never, for example, spelled
“separate” correctly enough for the word to even appear in the list of
suggestions- my computer usually responds with “scepter” and other random guesses.
In fact, my spell checker can’t even ballpark essential terms, like the current month,
due to my inaccuracies. I once told a search firm I couldn’t begin work
“until the start of spring” after struggling with
“February” like it was a ten-in-one remote: ”
Feburar.. Febwarie? ..Febu- screw it, I’ll just wait six weeks“.
I’m 30 years old
and managing my career like Punxsutawney Phil because an animated paper clip can’t sense
that I spell “February” with an extra
‘R‘. Some one owes me a refund.

The worst effect of bad spelling- when you send coworkers and friends a completely
nonsensical email after the computer suggested an off-topic word that happens to
share a similar spelling. Do you realize how many times I’ve accidentally quit my
job because I can’t remember where the ‘e‘
in “quiet” goes? Why can’t my computer –which
remembers directions to every Pizza Hut on the planet– recall that I botch
“quiet” every time and start suggesting some thing else?
Why- because my computer –despite knowing all recorded facts– does not ‘get me’. In four years of
partnership, we have built zero synergy- half the time we can’t even locate
a decent synonym after he’s rejected all my attempts on a word. Last year,
a client of mine read that his website had “a pretty damn good
chance of working” after we bungled “guarantee” for hours. I
once proposed a quarterly review on “hump day” after my spell checker and I
struggled with “Wednesday” like we were installing a furnace.
I’ve been in school since the Reagan administration and I have to use nicknames and
abbreviations in order to discuss certain weekdays. I may –single-handedly– explain
the trade gap with China.

I’d love to blame school for my terrible spelling, but, in truth, they tried
every thing short of acupuncture. In grade school, I was sent to ‘special classes’
for spelling where my teacher –baffled by a total lack of progress– began
experimenting with obscure, sensory techniques. An article suggested, in her
words, that movements completed with under-used muscles tend to be memorized with
no effort, so, for an entire year, I had to
write my spelling assignments on sand paper with my left ring finger.
She called the approach “tactile learning” and I stuck with it because –having
just seen “Karate Kid”– I was convinced, when I confronted her after weeks of
no improvement, she would reveal that I was actually learning a deadly karate move
the whole time. There are two lessons that you always learn the hard way: your “secret move” is
not functional karate, and ‘twelfth‘ has
an ‘F‘ in it.

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