# I used to be able to write. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 25, 2006, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-used-to-be-able-to-write/354106 "2006-04-25T05:00:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-used-to-be-able-to-write/354106/1 "2006-04-25T05:00:08Z")
I used to be able to write. I’ve published both fiction and technical nonfiction. I’ve won awards for writing. Heck, I got my current job in large part because I was reasonably adept at converting Engineerese into written People-Speak, even though that’s not a job requirement of my position. My co-workers still ask me questions daily about grammar, spelling, word use, general writing skills, or for examples of rare uses such as “affect” as a noun or “effect” as a verb. These co-workers are unaware of my shameful, insidious secret: suddenly, I suck at English. (Well, gradually I’ve come to suck at it, but that doesn’t scan as well. (Of course, neither does long parenthetical sections, but that’s the whole point: I’m bad at this!)) I swear by Og and the passing Mods that I know what the preview button does. I use it religiously. But still, either errors are forming in the ether while my work is being transmitted, the hamsters are poor at transcribing, or else I am making third-grade errors in nearly every post. Go ahead. I challenge you to read any of my posts and not find a typo, or two, or three! I dare you! Bletch. I blame Microsoft. Not only is Microsoft a pretty safe target to blame for everything from terrorism to the heartbreak of psoriasis, but they make Microsoft Word. Or bought it, or something. Word underlines my mistakes, like an ever-vigilant English teacher standing over my shoulder ready to strike my fingers with a red wavy ruler if I should misspell “psoriasis.” It stalks my run-on and sentence fragments from its cool green wavy sea. It used to be that I had to catch mistakes myself. I didn’t knowingly stop using this skill, but it apparently atrophied as my spelling neurons realized that the red wavy thing was doing their job for them. The spelling neurons are presently being used to store ancient advertising slogans in case they’re needed for a joke that half the people reading this will be too young to understand anyway. But it’s not just the red wavy line, no. More recent versions of Word (and by “more recent,” I mean produced since the birth of today’s college freshmen) _silently fix my errors while I type_! I type “teh” when I meant “the,” and it instantly vanishes back into the bitstream from whence it came, to be replaced by the “correct” version. I’m typing this in Notepad now or I probably wouldn’t even be able to _type_ “teh.” Mistakes are supposed to be painful, even if we define “painful” to include such relatively benevolant punishments as the red wavy line of death. How am I supposed to learn from a mistake I don’t even know I made? The grammar checker is perhaps worse, because I am, or was, smarter than it was. I could look at Word having a hissy-fit about some construction and say to myself: “I’m right, and Word is wrong. These are exactly the words I want to use to express my meaning.” Somewhere, deep in my brain, the grammar neurons occasionally still manage to fire off a message to my consciousness that this or that construct is just fine, thank-you-very-much. But, to my shame, I ignore them. That green line nags at me, tweaking at my attention like a Darwinianly-disadvantaged snake failing to hide in my prose. Even though I know I am right, even though I know I am replacing good text with worse, even though I’ve promised to stop myself from doing it…I will rewrite to avoid the green squiggle. I’ve not fallen so far as to actually take Word’s often-moronic suggestions, but can that be far off? Former masters of our typo-free domains, join me in declaring our independence from the squigglies! Let us declare ourselves free of “Check Spelling and Grammar while you type” and vow only to spell-check as a final check after we finish the document, and not to grammar-check at all. Unless we want the Fleisch-Kincaid reading-level score, of course. Then we have to grammar check. Let’s not be silly about this. Slowly, slowly, I shall regain my ability to write. My first typo-free SDMB post is scheduled for 2013, don’t miss it! ---
**Author:** ![Podkayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-used-to-be-able-to-write/354106/2 "2006-04-25T15:41:24Z")
I always turn off auto-correct for exactly this reason. If I make a mistake, I want to _see_ the mistake and have to go back and _correct_ the mistake, rather than my brain thinking that typing ‘teh’ is the same as typing ‘the.’ That said, manual spellchecking, intelligently applied, is the single greatest gift to Mankind in the personal computing age. ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-used-to-be-able-to-write/354106/3 "2006-04-25T18:24:34Z")
With all due respect, _Tetris_ was the greatest gift to mankind of the personal computing age. But spellchecking might be in the top ten. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-used-to-be-able-to-write/354106/4 "2006-04-25T18:41:38Z")
Yeah, I always turn off those “features” when I use Word. My only concern is if someone else is going to end up reading whatever I’m writing on their own computer, with those checks turned on. I’d hate for them to open my file and see it filled with green lines (no red, because I can spell 😃 ). ---
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-used-to-be-able-to-write/354106/5 "2006-04-25T18:53:19Z")
Advice: Short posts. Small words. Easy reading. People like. No worries! ---
**Author:** ![lizardling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f4b2a3/32.png) [@lizardling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lizardling)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-used-to-be-able-to-write/354106/6 "2006-04-25T21:15:20Z")
Hee. Yes. I hate autocorrect with the passion of a thousand burning suns. To me, those red and green wavy lines are just straight up distracting and annoying. So I keep all those options off. CTRL-BACKSPACE and CTRL-ARROW are your friends! Occasionally I’ll run a spellcheck to catch any stray typos that might have sneaked in, but… thinking about it, I can’t remember an instance in the past few months that I’ve needed to do that. (hubris and Gaudere’s Law are going to be my downfall eventually, I’m sure. 😃 ) ---
**Author:** ![Dervorin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Dervorin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dervorin)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-used-to-be-able-to-write/354106/7 "2006-04-26T08:06:26Z")
> [@TimeWinder](#): > > Mistakes are supposed to be painful, even if we define “painful” to include such relatively \*\*benevolant \*\*punishments as the red wavy line of death. How am I supposed to learn from a mistake I don’t even know I made? Er… that’s “benevolent”. 😃 But I must say I completely agree with your analysis. Spelling checkers are useful, but trusting them to catch everything is dangerous, as exemplified by the wonderful [Ann Owed to the Spelling Checker.](http://wneo.org/practicum/SpellingChecker.htm) And don’t get me started on Word’s prissy little supposed grammar checker. After uninstalling bloody Office Assistant, that’s the first thing I turn off in Word. My grammar do be plenty fine without computerly assistance, thanking very much. ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-used-to-be-able-to-write/354106/8 "2006-04-26T15:42:52Z")
> [@Dervorin](#): > > Er… that’s “benevolent”. 😃 You’re on my list. And it’s _not_ the good list. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Agonist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/439d5e/32.png) [@Agonist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agonist)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-used-to-be-able-to-write/354106/9 "2006-04-26T16:32:01Z")
> [@Dervorin](#): > > Er… that’s “benevolent”. 😃 > > But I must say I completely agree with your analysis. Spelling checkers are useful, but trusting them to catch everything is dangerous, as exemplified by the wonderful [Ann Owed to the Spelling Checker.](http://wneo.org/practicum/SpellingChecker.htm) And don’t get me started on Word’s prissy little supposed grammar checker. After uninstalling bloody Office Assistant, that’s the first thing I turn off in Word. My grammar do be plenty fine without computerly assistance, thanking very much. I ran your post through Word’s spell and grammar check: > [@Clippy](#): > > My grammar does be plenty fine without computably assistance, thanking very much. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Dervorin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Dervorin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dervorin)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2006, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-used-to-be-able-to-write/354106/10 "2006-04-27T10:34:51Z")
Well, apparently the other option is > [@](#): > > My grammars do be plenty fine without computably assistance, thanking very much. Ah, Word… what would we do without you? 😉