Spelling

I received an email message from a friend recently suggesting the use of Google to find the correct spelling of a word. Indeed, it works well. Search Google for banannas and it will not only find all the Web sites that misspell bananas but will also ask you "Did you mean: bananas". Ok, the punctuation at Google is not so good but it did find the correct spelling for the herbaceous plants in the genus Musa.

There is, however, a bias to Google. Try "Alleghany County" and it will find all things Alleghany County, North Carolina and Alleghany County, Virginia. And it will ask "Did you mean: Allegheny County" as in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Yet, when you type in Allegheny County it will not ask you "Did you mean: Alleghany County".

Just who is Google to decide that Allegheny is the correct spelling and all others are wrong?

As Andrew Jackson, the 7th President and a native Carolinian, famously said "It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word."

I agree, Andy. Who the heck is to say that the Yankee way to spell a word is the only way to spell a word?

I want all y'all to write Google right now and complain about their bias towards all us Appalachian-Americans and our way of spelling words. Tell 'em that we are highly offended and may well start a verbal jihad with 'em if they don't apologize real soon.

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Comments

  1. You never discussed the results of that company picnic with the horrible barbacue. Did you see your friends and were you treated nicely by your peers being a retired individual from their?

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