February 16, 2004

The return of low-tech spelling. Gawker has the Dow Jones memo outlawing the use of computer spell checking devices.
We have had too many incidents where the use of the spell-check program within our editorial production system (news station) led to our publication of errors on Dow Jones Newswires. Most typically, this has involved the inadvertent changing, based on a spell-check suggestion, of a proper name of a person or company into a non-related word.
How one longs to know the specific errors that went out over the wire! Gawker has a funny guess over there, but it's cruder than the taste level I'm enforcing for myself here. I'll just say I've often found the suggested changes in legal materials pretty funny. The computer seems so intent on calling Scalia "Scalier." It wants to call me "Alehouse."

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