Spell Checker – a Blessing or a Curse?

I wonder whether the spell checker function is a blessing or a curse. Spell checker corrects my writing in ways that I don’t necessarily appreciate. There would be no harm done, of course, if I took the time to carefully review my message before hitting the “send” button. But my eyes fly over the words “seeing” what I meant to write, not what I actually did write. I think this author hit it on the money when she wrote the Ode to the Spell Checker:

 

I wonder whether turning on the spell checker function is a blessing or a curse. www.walled-in-berlin.com

I wonder whether turning on the spell checker function is a blessing or a curse. www.walled-in-berlin.com

 

ODE TO THE SPELL CHECKER

Eye halve a spelling checker.

It came with my pea sea.

It plainly marks four my revue

Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word

And weight four it two say

Weather eye am wrong oar write

It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid

It nose bee fore two long

And eye can put the error rite

Its rare lea ever wrong.

Eye ran this poem threw it

I am shore yore please two no

Its letter perfect awl the whey

My checker toiled me sew.

— Author unknown

 

For a sneak peek at the first 20+ pages of my memoir, Walled-In: A West Berlin Girl’s Journey to Freedom, click “Download a free excerpt” on my home page and feel free to follow my blog about anything German: historic and current events, people, places and food.

Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.

 

 

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