ocword...

there are few things in life that really grate me the wrong way.  spelling is one of them.  misspelled words jump out at me.  i don't go seeking them out, but it is as if they are highlighted, spotlighted, and underlined beckoning me to hone in on them.  and i do.  my eyes go straight to the misspelled word.  sometimes i physically fix them, cross out and rewrite.  other times i mentally fix them.  in some shape or form i always correct the misspelled word.

this brings me to auto correct and texting.  in theory auto correct should make us all better spellers.  i know when i am typing in a word my super smart phone is anticipating my words and filling in the blanks.  sometimes i love that my phone knows what i am trying to say because for some reason my clumsy fingers are hitting all the wrong keys and i am typing in gibberish.  other times my phone is being super dumb and anticipating someone elses words.  i wish it would stop that.

so why on earth are horrible spellers overriding their auto correct and purposely misspelling words?  i honestly don't understand.  not only do i not understand it drives me absolutely crazy.  i don't even want to read the text, it drives me that crazy.  i have a friend who is an atrocious speller.  i am very tempted to change their contact name to worst speller ever.  two problems with this; 1. it's too long and doesn't fit at the top of my screen, which just takes away all the fun of the nickname  2.  if this person ever saw it i would feel horrible.

worst speller ever is always complaining that it takes so long to send a text because they have to correct the auto correct. what??  i would love to share a sample text, but that just isn't fair, although the word above is pulled from a text from worst speller ever.  i so badly want to tell worst speller ever that they should just let it go.  my guess is that auto correct is spelling the words correctly and they are going back and changing the words. 

i have one other small issue with spelling and texting...omitting letters, which usually means you are leaving out vowels.  vowels are really important especially for a spelling nazi like me, i don't get it.  i was told once that leaving out certain letters is faster, but explain to me how spelling have without the e saves you time?  to me this is a super silly omission, you've saved less than a nanosecond spelling it incorrectly.

now i do understand that spelling isn't everyones forte.  math is not my forte, but i use a calculator because it is a tool to help me look like i can add.  i suppose what bugs the most about poor spelling is when you are using an electronic device there are so many tools to make sure your words are spelled correctly, so why not use them? 

i'm sure there are plenty of things about the way i choose to write; no caps, very little punctuation, made up words, slang words, and a whole host of other grammatical errors that drive readers bananas so i'm stepping off my soap box...