Spell Check and the Rise of Partial Illiteracy

As usual, I received my CNN Political Ticker e-mail this morning. While reading through it, something caught my eye that bothered me. In fact, it stuck in my eye as if it were a grain of sand. This something has led me to decide that I think that I have found one of the many things wrong with America, and Americans in general.

What I found was this: “Fred Thompson set a mark for obstinateness during his eight years in the Senate”.

Yes, you read that correctly. The author of that sentence actually used the word “obstinateness”. I say word when referring to that… that… affront to the English language. See, “obstinateness” is NOT A WORD! Try it out for yourself and see. Just open Microsoft Word and type the following sentence: Obstinateness is not a word. Then perform a spell check. If you’d rather, you can just go to Google and type “define: obstinateness”. I guarantee that your search results will come back with nothing. It will come back with nothing because the word DOES NOT EXIST!

The reason that I say that this is a problem with America is that this was written in an American newspaper called the Washington Times. I say that it is indicative of a problem for Americans because someone other than I has read this article and did not notice that this “word” was used in place of the correct word, which was most likely “obstinacy”. It is also interesting to note that the person who wrote the article is the national political reporter for this newspaper. I would imagine that a position such as this would require some sort of college level education. Worse than that is the fact that the editor of the newspaper actually missed this atrocity. I know that position requires a college degree of some sort.

What bothers me worse than the fact that newspapers misspell words on a frequent basis is when schools do it. I see it fairly regularly because of my daughter being in middle school. The school sends some sort of paper home (usually asking for money) and I read it and find both spelling and grammatical errors. I am no expert on grammar or spelling, but I am not a school, nor am I trying to educate a couple of thousand children in the ways of spelling and grammar. When I notice these errors coming from a school, it makes me want to be a teacher because, surely, I can do a better job than these people. It’s sickening to me, and it just goes to prove my theory about the dumbing down of America. The teachers cannot spell and are expected to teach other people who cannot spell how to do it. It is almost literally a case of “the blind leading the blind”. Again, these are college educated people.

I know. I sound like a nit picky crank. I honestly do not care if I sound that way. I, personally, am tired of witnessing the utter destruction of the English language in print. I am not necessarily a grammar cop, but spelling isn’t all that difficult. In this day and age of fancy things like spell-check, I see no reason for newspapers to have misspellings in their articles. For that matter, we’ve had English language dictionaries since 1656. Then again, the words “phat” (adjective), “Google” (verb) and “himbo” (noun) are now a part of the dictionary as well, so I suppose I should not be so picky. Wait. SCREW THAT! Why are these a part of any dictionary? Is it simply because people use these in normal language? That’s pretty ignorant, if you ask me. It’s one thing to use a word in normal conversation, but to add it to the dictionary gives it legitimacy and makes it appear acceptable to use the word in a capacity other than general spoken conversation. Take this hypothetical conversational exchange, for instance:

Me: “Good morning, sir. I would like to submit my resume’ for your consideration. I think that you will find it most satisfying to your needs. Thank you for your time.”

Prospective Employer: “Good morning to you, as well. Thank you for submitting your resume’ and I look forward to speaking with you again soon regarding any potential employment situations. Thank you again and have a nice day!”

Now, let’s break that down into the “New English”.

Me: “Yo, dude. I got a phat resume’ for you to look at. Thanks, homie.”

Prospective Employer: “Get the hell out of my office!”



Y’know what I’m sayin’, dog?