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:
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.
Tags: spell checker