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Microsoft Word Good Grammar Check and Spelling The following article was written as an essay for my English class. Since I am lazy and resourceful (but mostly just lazy), I have decided to give you a glimpse of the gems I bestow upon my English professor. Upon returning my paper he told me that this was hands down, the best paper he had ever read and that he just might as well retire and let me take over his job (not really, but I could tell he was thinking it). We were supposed to write about how Americans are dependant on technology. Our papers could not be general, they had to be very specific. Submitted for your review is some random paper I wrote in a half hour about some shit no one cares about in the first place. It’s no secret that Americans are among the worst spellers in the entire English speaking world. Actually, not only is it not a secret, it is also a documented fact. According to the results of a Gallup Poll published on spelling.com, Americans scored the lowest of any other English speaking country on a standard ten word spelling quiz. The poll found that Australians, Canadians, and Britons are all better spellers than us. In fact, Australians who did not go beyond grade school were better spellers, on average, than American adults. Why is this? Is it simply because our public school systems are in shambles or because Americans are stupid? No sir that is not the entire story. Much like the calculator has aided in a national mathematics deficiency, the red line-green line model for spelling and grammar check, made famous by Microsoft Word, just might be aiding in the decline of written English in America. Some people might be asking how the hell spell check makes people bad spellers? Wouldn’t it stand to reason that a spell check feature would make people more aware of spelling errors by prompting them to correct mistakes? Well yes, that sounds reasonable, but how well does it really work? In just the few paragraphs that I have written, I have received nearly half a dozen red and green lines underscoring my errors. Doesn’t that tool make for a better essay? Doesn’t it ensure that my essay is in the best possible condition for grading? Well of course it does, but at what cost? The fatal flaw of the red line-green line model is also its point of genius. The single greatest feature of the spelling and grammar check is that users can expect instant spelling and grammar checks in as close to real time as possible. Expect is the key word here. If there is one thing that technology has mixed well with, it is human expectation (or is it the other way around?). This expectation is what sets in motion a massive chain reaction, ultimately leading to a complete and utter dependence. Why learn to spell a word when all I need to do is get close enough for spell check to figure it out for me? If I don’t know how to spell penitentiary (which I don’t, I received yet another red line) all I need to do is simply type a word that closely resembles it. The “words” penitentary, pententiry, and pentitentar all come close enough to be recognized by Microsoft Word as penitentiary. What are my motivations for learning it correctly? Sure it would be helpful in a hand written in-class essay, but I would just change the word to jail or prison to avoid a possibly misspelled word in my paper. What is more dangerous than the little red lines are those instances where Word is so sure that it knows what I am trying to spell that it changes it automatically. Most of the time I do not even know I have misspelled a word, rather, I see a quick motion out of my peripheral vision indicating that a word has been changed. I often wonder how I misspelled the word when I am certain I got it right. Wouldn’t it stand to reason that a person could go through their entire life thinking they knew the correct spelling of a word only to realize later that they had been misspelling it the whole time? Maybe, but if it is, Microsoft Word and its contemporaries are making that possible. I use Microsoft Front Page to edit my website and I rely heavily on the built in spell check feature. Since my website is primarily text based, I write all my articles in Word and then copy them into Front Page providing a double check of the spelling but still, the most common criticism I get is regarding my spelling. I make it a point to read each article several times before posting but there never fails to be an error. Although the red line feature allows me to see the most important and blatantly misspelled words, it does nothing to notify me of the correctly spelled, grammatically incorrect words. In one of my most popular articles, a simple error such as this gave my critics the proper ammunition they needed to discredit me. The article was called “The Idiots Guide to Books For Dummies” and made fun of the more ridiculous book titles. After being viewed by over fifteen thousand people (and multiple editing attempts) I finally found the error that they were talking about. It was simply that it read “In the tradition of the great literary genius that has come before me to write these exception works….” (and the fact that I forgot to add the letter s to the end of the page name) something that any decent grammar minded person would have been able to spot (what does that say about me?). That brings us to the green line. The green line feature, which is grammar check, has had many critics since its introduction in 1997. In its simplest form it is a useful tool for correcting minor mistakes in grammar and punctuation. One of the most ironic pieces of evidence is the message that is displayed when the spelling and grammar checks are complete. It states that “The spelling and grammar check is complete”. Although bundled together, these are obviously two different tests. Some people argue that the message should read "The spelling and grammar checks are complete." Perhaps one of the biggest critics of the Microsoft Word grammar check is Sandeep Krishnamurthy, an Associate Professor at the University of Washington. In one of his more shining examples Mr. Krishnamurthy uses the following sentence to make his point: “Microsoft the company should big improve Word grammar check.” Just as Mr. Krishnamurthy predicted, Word has found absolutely nothing wrong with that sentence although for some reason Krishnamurthy is in the spell check database. On his website (http://faculty.washington.edu/sandeep/check/) Mr. Krishnamurthy offers what would be any English teachers’ nightmare. In an excerpt from one of his documents he writes: "Marketing are bad for brand big and small. You Know What I am Saying? It is no wondering that advertisings are bad for company in America, Chicago and Germany. ... McDonald's and Coca Cola are good brand. ... Gates do good marketing job in Microsoft." I must admit that my version of word is better than his for it did state that “Marketing are bad….” is incorrect and should be changed to is bad, but the rest is judged to be grammatically correct. Anyone with half a brain can attest to the fact that language is one of the most complex processes for any processor to, well, process. It is a great testament to our abilities that we are even capable of such a feat. The processing power needed to understand and interpret the intrinsically complex rules of language is something that not even our most powerful computers are capable of doing to the point of perfection that we have attained. So I guess the question is, why include a feature that is so bad? Of course Microsoft does make the claim that the grammar and spell check features are meant to be a guide and a tool and were never meant to replace a human proof reader. That may be so, but it has done little to deter people from relying on the them. So what’s my point? I suppose I should get to it sooner or later. The point I am trying to make is that dependence on the red line-green line feature of Microsoft Word can potentially have devastating results. What will happen in the next twenty years as a new generation goes to college? This new generation will have used Microsoft Word their entire life and most definitely will grow dependant on the spelling and grammar check feature. As it stands now we are already the worst at spelling. The main problem is that there are programs out there that are far better than Word. Corel WordPerfect Office 12 catches many of the errors in Krishnamurthy's test documents that aren't detected by the Microsoft Word, even set at the highest sensitivity to errors. But most kids do not use these other programs because Word has become the standard. The bottom line is that the red line-green line issue is just another example of technology doing the thinking for us. Most people will take a short cut if offered one. The real time spelling and grammar check offer such a shortcut. Why learn stuff that the machine will do for me? The more advanced technology gets, the more our dependence on it grows. If I was living in the age of the typewriter, this paper would have taken me days to write because my spelling and grammar are so bad. Back then people had to get it right the first time or else spend hours retyping their papers. It was in their best interest to pay attention in English class and learn the proper rules of grammar and spelling. That just isn’t the case today. Could it be possible that dependence on red line-green line could equate to a massive future dependence on bread line-bean line? Only time will tell. -= Bagoda =- |