You hear the term “archenemies” and you think of some big rivalry between good and evil, maybe Batman vs. Joker or Sherlock Holmes vs. Professor Moriarity.
But now I also want you to think: Meghan Lange vs. spell-check.
This may seem melodramatic, but let me just tell you how this supposedly helpful tool has come to ruin my life. I never thought I would have an archenemy. A rival? Sure. An opponent? Of course. But an archenemy? Come on, we’re not living in a movie or a comic book.
But no, I was wrong. Spell-check will now and forever, always be the bane of my existence.
Just last week, I was texting a friend and it changed the word “sec” into “sex.”
I ask you, WTF! What if that had been to someone less understanding?
Now you can say: “Meg it only changed one letter. It’s an honest mistake. Quit whining.”
I’ll grant you that this column is one giant rant and is all about complaining, but then again, you don’t have to read it.
I digress, this is not the first time I’ve been grammatically screwed over by spell check, and I highly doubt it will be the last. I’m just simply done with spell-check. It’s just a pain in the butt and never actually helpful.
Even when you want to use spell-check, it doesn’t know what you’re trying to say. Now, I’m not the best speller. You can ask any of my kindergarten through eighth grade teachers to confirm. (Yes, eighth grade. Thank you Archdiocese of Chicago for requiring all eighth graders in the Catholic school system to have vocabulary tests.) I never won any awards or even got many 100 on my spelling tests.
So, when I’m writing a paper or even a text now, I sometimes need a little help from this all-knowing, light-up screen currently sitting on my lap called a Macbook when I’m trying to type out a word from my extensive college vocabulary. But more often than not, it has no idea what I’m saying.
Again you interject, “Maybe that’s because you spelled it so wrong that the algorithm can’t recognize it.”
To that, I say, “Its job is to recognize it.” How come when I know what I’m trying to say, spell check doesn't understand and wants to change it, but when I don’t know the correct way to spell or say something, it doesn't either?
And don’t even get me started on the names. My name is spelled Meghan Lange, not Megan or Megyn or Maygan. It’s not that hard.
In the grand scheme of things, my name is pretty simple to spell. Yet, every time I type out my name, it says I’m wrong.
Excuse me, sir, I think I know how to spell my own name, I’ve been perfecting this spelling for 22 years now.
I can’t even imagine the trouble and frustration people with more than two syllables in their names have to deal with.
In conclusion, spell-check has it out for me, and it can go screw itself. (And I meant sec!)
