Sharp-eyed readers are already wondering – what the heck? Doesn’t she know she goofed RIGHT IN THE HEADLINE?
Yes. I do know that. I did write “angle,” and spell check accepted it. Why not? It’s a perfectly good word, and it’s spelled correctly. So why wouldn’t it pass muster?
Therein lies the dilemma for many writers: they rely on a wonderful technological tool and then wonder what happened. How could they have gone so wrong? Spell check said everything was OK.
Let’s face it – we are lazy at times, and depending on spell check to do what we need seems so simple. And easy. But sometimes so costly.
We humans need to remain in control. We need to read and reread and reread everything we’ve written. Our eyes are the ones that need to catch the spell check “goofs” (before our readers do). It’s our reputation that’s on the line, not spell check’s.
Here are a few that I have seen recently in blogs – one even in a headline. (The goof was the first one of each of the pairs shown below.)
mangers – managers
loose – lose
it’s – its
compliment – complement
discrete – discreet
advice – advise
digress – degrees
productive – proactive
main stream – mainstream
sweet – suite
stationary – stationery
And yes, the list could go on forever. We are all guilty of this; I use LinkedIn’s editing button with almost every article I post.
So let’s respect the job that spell check does – but let’s be even smarter than that. Let’s be sure that what we’ve written is what we THINK we’ve written.
By the way — if there’s a goof you’ve made that you’d like to share, please do! Let’s all learn from each other.
