Editorial
Use Technology, Forget How To Spell, Survey Says

According too a story in a daily noose source, a survey buy a cable television network indicates that Moor then 25 percent of adults poled end more tan 20 percent f children said they didn't think they kneaded to bee able two spell. Spell check has eliminated the need to no how to reed a dictionary, or even a map, the respondents claim. Sum 44 percent f adults and 52 percent of children also say cellphones have dun away with he need tow memorize numbers.

Did you catch the errors in the first paragraph? Here's how it should have been written in accordance with grammar and spelling conventions:

According to a story in a daily news source, a survey by a cable television network indicates that more than 25 percent of adults polled and more than 20 percent of children said they didn't think they needed to be able to spell. Spell check has eliminated the need to know how to read a dictionary, or even a map, the respondents claim. Some 44 percent of adults and 52 percent of children also say cellphones have done away with the need to memorize numbers.

The spelling and grammar checking functions (which should have caught some of the mistakes from context) of a popular and widely used word processing program didn't catch a single one. Based on this and a good part of the e-mailed correspondence that makes its way into our offices, we think we're justified in calling the results of the aforementioned survey inaccurate, to say the least. Spell check doesn't catch every spelling error, especially when some errors are not really errors at all. None of the "erroneous" words are really incorrectly spelled. A good many are homonyms- words with similar or the same pronunciation, but with different meanings. It's evident, however, that someone who doesn't think reading a dictionary is a necessary skill would be able to use the proper word in the proper context only by luck.

Nor are homonyms the only trap for the unwary and unknowing. A parent was horrified to learn that a child had been accepted at a college where young men and women matriculated together. A candidate for office in a small town in a southern state lost an election because his opponent accused him of being an extrovert, among other things. Both incidents demonstrate that an inability or unwillingness to learn the actual meaning of a word can have serious and far-reaching consequences. So, too, can leaving the spelling of a document to a word processing program alone. A job applicant may have had his or her résumé correctly spelled and attractively formatted by a commercial preparation service, but if the applicant's own effort, the cover letter that accompanies the résumé, is riddled with spelling and grammar errors, the chance of an interview, still less a job, is slim. The ability to spell and use proper grammar, among other things, indicates that a person who has acquired these skills has also developed habits of correctness and precision- two qualities that make anyone an asset to any employer, whatever the job may be and whatever skills are called for.

It may very well be true, as the president of a cable network that appeals especially to children and adolescents said, that technology "has brought the need for new skills, while seemingly lessening the need for others", and that technology now holds a central role in people's lives, whatever their age. Knowing how to read and spell, however, should never become obsolete, whatever one's other pursuits. Anyone who, for example, writes "burro" for "burrow" and thinks the two are interchangeable truly demonstrates an inability to tell an ass from a hole in the ground. This is not a distinction to which we, individually or collectively, should aspire.