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...