Monday, August 9, 2010

Genetics, Honey and Hermie

MONDAY, MAY 24, 2010


Genetics, Honey and Hermie

I just told the spellchecker that Hermie is the correct spelling of something that I know how to spell and intended. I did not misspell hermit, which was first on WinDoze’s list of possible corrections I might consider of the four total selections it offered up when I told it I wanted the red underline to disappear. I understand how this misimpression possibly might have happened since E and T are pretty close together on the Qwerty. I am not confused about the rest.

If you mistakenly hit the change button and accept one of the offerings: well, you have… since I am trying not to use those words, just insert another analogy. Or use the one in the forefront of your mind that I was going to type before I was so rudely interrupted.

Spellchecker is not as smart as you might think. Although I sometimes think of Spellchecker as an old woman with warts on her nose and several moles, wearing a red bandanna (either on her head or around her neck as a scarf), sitting in a darkened room in front of a Crystal Ball; Probably not. What I mean here is spellchecker gets stupider and stoopider every time I accept one of its selections.

If AutoCorrect is then left On, I will additionally have no choice in the future. Unless I win the disagreement. It is disconcerting to know that every time I mistakenly type Hermie, AutoCorrect will them immediately insert what I had accepted as left and since it is AutoCorrectingly making the change... hopefully you get the point OR then you TOO are going to have to quarrel with your spellchecker if you ever really need to type Hermie. The options of Hermes, Hermès, hermeneutics, Herman, Hermione or hermit may never be available to us again. As far as the stuupider part (which would have automatically changed to stupider), it lurks under the spelling and grammar tab and is labeled: “Change spelling as you type”. This is the true MicroSoft acceptable definition of AutoCorrect.


EXCUSE ME! Just a minute and let me go up to Tools, Options, Edit tab and uncheck (No, I really did not mean to type upchuck although I am getting ready to) the “When selecting, automatically select the entire word”. For like the billionth time already.

To make my point: Some of THEM or LEFT (or right or correct as I prolly meant to type) and those other really dreadful errors that could cost you your degree or job, will never be found even if you run the convenient and totally unreliable Spelling AND Grammar checker. Right now I am trying to figure out how one spells the sticking out the tongue noise of a motorcycle being revved up. A raspberry, IIRC. If anyone knows what this is, please post it as a comment so I can add it to my spellchecker. Dorothy gets an automatic exemption here.


God forbid if you have typed Hermie if you really wanted to type Herm.

The implications for those with ADD are huge. I.e. or E.g. - Herm did not even show up as a possibility since it was not one of the WinDoze accepted recommendations if I had typed Hermie, but had meant to type Herm. For research purposes only, when I did type Herm, spellchecker did think that possibly it was NOT what I intended to type but hadn't typed correctly since Herm obviously is an accepted spelling or variation of Herm. Thankfully, I did not intend to type Herman. Artificial intelligence, ha.


I did, in a previous post, speak of the possibility of ‘Positive Rants’‽

So, to avoid what my computer might think should be substituted for what I really did want to type; I added Hermie to the spellchecker with DakotaDawg. For me it is all about being able to do something the way I want to rather than the way someone else, including my laptop. MicroSoft or WinDoze thinks I should be doing it. Avoiding those red and green underlines that seem to be affecting how fast and what I think has been a life goal. Arguing with everyone and everything is not, despite how it might appear.

Back on point or off to another one: if I had mistakenly accepted hermit I would be in a world of hurt. Worse is the spellchecker is dumbed down (NO NOT dumped down, the p key is a long way away from the b key). The real tragedy is that now if I force my computer to accept that I want Hermie by adding it to my personal dictionary it stay there. It will not underline it in red but when I run the Spelling and Grammar checker in the future it will forget the four other possible correct things it thinks I might have been attempting to type, it will offer only offer up two.

Explaining how I arrived at this is difficult, so I will just say my spellchecker has more stoopidly made another incorrect assumption forcing me to either ignore all of the Red Underlines or just go and open NotePad and type in it. Or, accept that it is grammatically incorrect to put a capital in the middle of a word. Phew. Waiting patiently for the CC&S red code marking because possibly that is not clear. Don’t get too hung up on it. I am certainly not. CC&S was all over my freshman English creative writing submittals. It stood for Combine, Condense and Subordinate, not Fragmented.

Bingo: Hermie was my dad. We also called him Herm, not as frequently as mom. We did find out that with extensive training Rosie started calling Herman Hermie instead of the perfectly acceptable Herm more frequently. Hermie started calling Roseanna Rose more often instead of Rose or Rose Ann. Mom must have had a heck of a time with the driver’s license folks well before she ever got married and changed her surname. Rosie liked Rose more than Roseanna and likely before she learned to drive. We just called her mom, mommy or Rosie after we hit our teen years. Rose only when very serious and we were in our twenties.


I am pretty sure dad had ADD because he frequently called Rosie honey.

Being only moderately confused about genetics; for the moment I am not going to try to deal with it. Instead, I am going to cut and paste what precedes in its entirety by a Control A into NotePad and work there.

Initially, I had intended to start a sentence with a capital A but since my pRotable has decided that I am sick of typing words in WinDoze Word with all of this hostility, it has prolly gotten at least one thing correct this morning. I have left and will again Control A and be back to edit all of the red and green underlines before posting. (Order of words, consider revising) Maybe not.

ADD is now like breathing. Everybody that is a student in HighSchool has it. I was informed by almost reliable teacher that no one in her high school that has been tested for it showed negative. It is like a social disease and I suspect it is transmitted not by sex or genetics. We are going to have to stimulate the economy and fund some grants to see if it is spread by computers and the nefarious Tweet, MySpace or FaceBook. I must have only a mild case since I refuse to do the first and appear cured of the second. The third I do not do so much but occasionally I will check what I spent far too long setting up to monitor. Control S.

I am going to go see a doctor for this yet uncured disease of Blogging. If I and a few others are not cured of this the Chinese will soon be building a car manufacturing plant on just a small piece of America that they already own. They will be foreclosing on the others soon. Curing Greece, Italy and Spain may be more difficult.

Where was I sidetracked? Green lines disappeared when I figured out without an intervention that I meant to type a QuestionMark. OK, I made the mistake of coming back into Word. Control A. Control Insert. I thought I was done so I apologize.

Does even Gawd know what colour the line would have been if I had used an interbang‽ Although Word knows what it is; MicroSoft’s SpellChecker does not appear to know how it is spelled. And no; I did not want a question mark or even an interbang after the last sentence.

As I sit here pondering why; ‘Although’ is underlined in green and thank gawd it disappeared with that last reedit, I am certain of at least one thing: Google is smarter than MicroSoft. If you were paying close attention you must have realized there were six computer generated suggestions above instead of only the four MicroSoft proffered, even though none of them were correct either. There is going to be a test later.

“Now that is funnay, I don’t care who you are.” So you know, MY creative writing priest would have forgiven the possible misspelling of funnay if it had been underlined in the submittal because in his code that meant it had been intended. Is there an option in word like that and what tab is it under (insert interbang here to avoid confusion and the green mile of underline)‽


I better go Google.


Dare I go back and run Spelling and GrammarChecker once again‽

Ignore the extra spaces between the words and the quotation marks because Spell and GrammarChecker will not remove the spaces because it thinks you really intended the quotation marks to be in another place and will not remove the spaces.


I will not Google to find a cure. I will not Google to find a cure. I will not Google to find a cure.


Control A. Control V. Left Click correct Favorite. Left click ‘Sign In’ then Left Click correct Favorite again (only after that did the miracle of cookies work). Left click ‘New Post’. Left Click in the correct text box. Right click the correct text box. Control Insert or just right click there and just left click ‘Paste’. Highlight first line of text and right click. Left click or let’s just hit Control X. Place cursor over title text box. Left click there, and then, right click ‘Paste’. Go down and then left click the Publish Post Button. Left click the View Post text link or the smaller View Blog text above and right of the tabs.


I am now published. Editors and readers around the world can now begin banging their heads.

For some real fun if you have absolutely nothing else to do cut and paste this post into WinDoze Word and change the color or background of your paper or the text so you can see it on the screen. You can Control A or just Left Click Tools and then right click Spelling and Grammar. Forget that, just hit F7 if you are not on an iPad and need to get the correct keyboard up in front of you. If you are on an iPad, call Lee or Rita or DD.


You are now cured of ADD. This cure may last fewer than 24 hours so begin the process again.

Based on advice from your doctor you must not read your own blog. It is far too convoluted and this might cause another full round of clicking and shortcuts that will begin the endless cycle of arguing with your editor once again. AND, you will be reinfected.


In the mean time I am hopeful that in the future I do not inadvertently type DakotaDawg when I meant to type North Dakota, South Dakota or even Sioux or Sue.


Jo put that hammer away I am going to see if I have enough money left on the gift cards to buy Dragon Naturally Speaking at Beast Buy and just let the artificially intelligent software make the call. This typing is too tedious. Neanderthals never had this problem or the other one IIRC.

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