One of My Pet Peeves

The sloppiness of text messages, Facebook posts, email messages, ... even web pages makes me crazy. Not that I haven't made spelling errors of my own. But I do try to proofread. I have others proofread important documents. I at least try to spell correctly which is more than I can say for many. This article from BBC News looks at the actual cost of spelling errors on web sites.

"Spelling is important to the credibility of a website, [Charles Duncombe] says. When there are underlying concerns about fraud and safety, then getting the basics right is essential."

"[Charles Duncombe] says he measured the revenue per visitor to the tightsplease.co.uk website and found that the revenue was twice as high after an error was corrected"

Funny spelling story I'll tell on myself.
One of my favorite tools is AutoCorrect. It's a feature in Microsoft Office that corrects frequently mis-spelled words. It allows you to input your own spelling challenges or special terms. It is a great time saver. Instead of typing Your Computer Lady 100 times a day, I can type YCL and Office will type out the whole phrase for me. In Word, it will even format the phrase in the right font and color that I like to use for all things YCL.

I was doing a project talking about "scope of work." I input an AutoCorrect entry to turn "sow" into "scope of work."  Days later I was making a birthday card for my favorite brother-in-law. I selected a quote just for him. "There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world." (Robert Louis Stevenson)  In my rush to make the card and get it in to mail I didn't notice that AutoCorrect had sabotaged me. The quote became "...By being happy we scope of work anonymous benefits upon the world."  Wish I could have seen Jim's face when he read that birthday card!

For some really hilarious AutoCorrect stories, visit Damn You AutoCorrect to see screen shots of text message disasters. This site is rated PG-13 for language.