Apparently spellcheck howlers have a name

Apparently spellcheck howlers have a name - you know those times when you type something and the spellchecker comes up with an alternative suggestion and you just accept it without thinking? well, apparently it's called the Cupertino effect, because that's what sometimes comes up when people misspell the word "cooperation". And thus some linguistic beauties are born, such as the "South Asian Association for Regional Cupertino".

Reading about this brought back fond memories from my days as a typist in an accountants' office in London, where one of the guys I typed for had a business contact with the unusual surname "Nuttgeons" - whenever I typed a letter to him, the spellchecker would suggest the closest alternative: nightgowns. And so this person was forever embedded in my mind as Mr Nightgowns. (By the way, my browser's spellcheck put a wavy red line under the name Nuttgeons and suggested Nuttiness instead... Some of these Cupertinos can be dangerous!)

Whilst still working in that office, I had even greater fun when we got new software which included not just a spellchecker but a grammar checker. One of the optional features of the grammar checker was to check for gender-specific terminology. The firm I worked for had a branch in the Isle of Man, and when I used the grammar checker on a document that included references to that branch, the computer suggested I might want to change it to Isle of Person...

something old and something new

Something new I learned today: the story about lemmings jumping off cliffs as a mass suicide is a myth.

A friend pointed me to this link, where you too can read about how the mass suicide scene in the so-called documentary film was faked.

Sadly the fact that human beings are capable of such cruel and deceptive behaviour is rather old news :(

Slightly over the top, in my view!

There are Christians in some countries who go to prison for their faith. There are places where people are tortured and in some cases even killed just because they have chosen to become Christians. And in England a nurse has filed a claim for unfair dismissal because she was not allowed to wear a crucifix on a chain at work.

I'm sorry but I fail to feel the slightest bit of solidarity with this woman. As the tribunal chairman pointed out when he refused her claim, wearing a cross is not a requirement of the Christian faith. She was not, as far as I understand from this newspaper article, required to hide her faith - the hospital had even suggested she might pin her crucifix to her uniform! Their reason for asking her to remove it from the chain was because of a health & safety concern that patients might pull on it - ok, I think that's health & safety concerns going over the top, but to suggest that this is a case of religious discrimination is way off the mark. And to say, "This is a very bad day for Christianity" - sorry, but it seems to me that a sense of proportion is rather lacking there.