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A.O.B.
Self-checks for spelling that smells
Published: 17 January 2012
Computer spell check is indispensable but can be irritating – if, for example, you write in English rather than American, and Microsoft’s American English spell check would prefer you to write ‘honor’ rather than ‘honour’ and so on.
But any spell check is better than none, given some of the spelling that human beings produce unchecked.
Wandering around my local garden centre (not center) in England and looking for a New Year bargain, I unearthed an inglorious example of misspelling, or ‘howler’ as Brits call it.
Among the tired looking pot plants (‘50% off’) which had not found a home as a Christmas present for an elderly aunt, a stall advertised as the ‘Best of British’ an array of scented candles, alas with no reductions on offer. Except in the standard of spelling.
The candles were produced in the name of the Royal Botanic Gardens (‘Kew Gardens’) one of Britain’s and indeed the world’s foremost scientific institutions. Kew, established in 1759, holds one in eight of all known plant species.
A printed description informed the potential customer that Kew’s scented candles ‘encorporated sumptious’ natural fragrances. First my inbuilt, then my computer spellchecker picked up this pair of howlers. Now whether this cock-eyed (no problem with Microsoft there) spelling originated from a garden centre (not center) employee who lacked a dictionary or from Kew’s graphic design department, I know not.
What I do know is that even with the apparently failsafe mechanism of the spellchecker it always pays to proof read carefully – and then check again – anything you have written or designed. Especially if that material is to be printed and put on public display.
Peter Hill is a Partner of The Governance Partnership