The Spellcheck Generation

My spelling is horendous. I often argue that spellcheck removed all willingness needed to learn the correct spelling of each word. It appears new internet enhancements are doing everything possible to ensure I will not be alone.

Seth Godin, I was wrong.

Trekking to Patterson, NJ tonight. Went to Yahoo maps, typed in the address and boom, "That address doesn't exist. Here are directions from the nearest town."

So I went back to my source. Checked it twice. Copied and pasted. Did a second Google search to be sure the address was right.

Turns out that Paterson only has one "t".

I share this with you because it's a great example of how dependent we are on the search engines to fix our mistakes for us. Should Yahoo Maps have "known" that Paterson is often spelled with two "t"s? Of course.

The danger zone is when only some of the obvious mistakes are caught. We're being trained to be sloppy, and expecting that will always work. Watch a kid search on Google--they don't even try to get the spelling right. Why bother?