Why I don’t use spell-checkers

When I was fifteen, my foster mother, who was a photographer for the Ottawa Citizen, introduced me one day to everybody at the Canadian Press offices as “Suzy Scrotum.” It wasn’t really that far off…just switch a couple of letters and replace one more, and you’ve got Scrotum. Nevertheless, being fifteen and shy, I was mortified. Too mortified to speak, too mortified to correct her, even though it happened about twenty times in a row.

“Joe,” she’d say brightly, “I’d like you to meet my foster daughter, Suzy Scrotum.”

And Joe’s eyes would jump, startled, to meet my mortified eyes, and then he’d compose himself and say something polite like “Nice to meet you Suzy.”

Then we’d move to the next person. “Julie,” she’d say, “I’d like you to meet my foster daughter, Suzy Scrotum.”

Over and over and over again.

It wasn’t until we got outside that I told her my name wasn’t Scrotum.

“Oh, I’m sorry Suzy,” she said, “Well, at least Scrotum doesn’t mean anything!”

I stared at her. And then that cell fired and she suddenly comprehended, and she apologized profusely.

Years later, my workplace migrated from WordPerfect to Microsoft Word. The very first letter I wrote in Word, I got that paper clip guy saying “It looks like you’re writing a letter.” Right. I turned him off. I finished writing my letter and signed it and saved it. But then the spell-checker leapt into action. It scanned my letter and balked at my name. “Are you sure you don’t mean Scrotum?” it suggested helpfully.

Even though I had a better sense of humour than I had at 15, and was not so easily mortified, I turned the spell-checker off forever. But of course I knew that anybody else who ever typed my name in Word would get that same question: “Are you sure you don’t mean Scrotum?”

Recently I checked to see if Word still does that, and I’m pleased to report it does not. It suggests a few alternative words, but none of them mean anything. Thank you Microsoft.