We can sound smarter...really.

A large portion of my job is typing what people say into a little box to kind of give an idea of what happened in a car accident (if you’re reading this and you don’t know me, I work for a large insurance company as a claims adjuster). One day my old manager walks by and asks me why I type everything in Word and then transfer it over to our narrative box.

“I like to make sure that everything I type is spelled correctly.” He thought it was a good idea. I still do.

When I read what people write and their words are misspelled, I really do get the impression that:

1. These people don’t really care about what they’re trying to communicate, or
2. They’re not as educated as I would have hoped or imagined, or
3. They are as educated as I imagined.

Of course, spell check doesn’t catch everything. As I was reading through the Blogosaurus Rex I noticed that I typed “but” instead of “buy.” I am by no means what one might call a perfectionist, but grammar and spelling are areas that I can be pretty snooty about. You might imagine how embarrassed I was by this grammatical gaffe…or not.

In any case, I mention this for a few reasons as will be numbered below.

1. We live in an era of ubiquitous, liberated, and public discourse by means of inexpensive publication, and yet so many of us write as if we were illiterate. I’m refuse to complain much upon the point, but consider this a shepherding hand pushing you towards the usage of your own spell-check. If all else fails, remember (for those of you who are putting your junk out on the blogosphere) that there is a button with “abc” over a check mark – this is a spell check provided by blogger.

2. I have been utterly dismayed by the fact that a few of the last books I’ve read that are put out by Christian publishers have been filled with misspellings, inaccurate and improper quotations, and poor grammar. WWJD? He would use better grammar, or at least a better editor.

3. It’s hard to take anyone seriously who doesn’t take the time to take themselves seriously.

I’m not really all that angry about it. The real fact is that I have a writers block and I don’t know what to talk about this Sunday. I do, but I don’t. What a horrible predicament.