unsent letters

[calimac]

1. Dear Menlo music festival lecturer, the phrase "it is what it is" is really annoying, and it's particularly egregious of you to say, "This recording is from the 1920s, so the sound quality is what it is."

2. Dear USA Today, when you're running an article about the achievements and legacy of someone who just died in a plane crash, don't title the jump, "Sen. Stevens' impact."

3. Dear Mercury News, who's Hugh? "Hugh ice island breaks off Greenland glacier" read the headline in some copies of this morning's paper. He disappeared from the later editions, so we may never know.

4. Dear packers and movers who schlepped* my mother's stuff last week, why did you leave a moving box full of crushed soda cans and water bottles that she'd never seen before in her new storage locker? At least it wasn't something decomposable.

*"schlepped" is in the spell-checker. Oy. ("Oy" is not in the spell-checker.)

Comments

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

The strangest spell checker fluke I've run into involved the word voilà, which turned up in a book I had to copy edit lately. When I did the preliminary spell check, Word (a) didn't recognize it and (b) suggested that the correct spelling was viola.

Oy.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I sometimes say "viola" for "voilà" as a joke. I'm crushed to find myself pre-empted.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

I see it used seriously all the time by the uninformed, like "diety" or "athiest." But I hadn't realized that people who trusted spell check would actually be encouraged in the error. On the other hand, "trusts spell check" is practically a working definition of "semiliterate."

[chorale.livejournal.com]

You neglected to mention poor Vernor Vinge, who's book, Rainbows End had "viola" for "voilà" repeatedly throughout.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Yes, and we want to watch out for clangs ourselves, do we not?

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Alas, poor Hugh.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Well, "Senator Stevens' Impact Crater" was too long, ya see...

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

100 yards long, according to the news reports.

[chorale.livejournal.com]

Don't newspapers have actual editors anymore? Sheesh!

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

You gave me two good belly laughs. Thank you; I feel better.