The invention of the keyboard was a boon to communication. It was also a boon to miscommunication.
I was reminded of this last night in a chat room, when someone typed in a little family anecdote involving his moth-in-law. Did this mean he had unusually intimate relationships with insects? In-laws are acquired by marriage. Who do you have to marry to acquire a moth-in-law? But of course he meant “mother-in-law,” and his fingers garbled the message.
Recently I was trying to find out how to buy a bearded lizard online. I’ve always loved reptile pets, and these little guys have become very popular. The “beard” is a threat display that pet lizards very rarely use.
For some reason, my fingers kept typing in “beaded lizard.” This is a very serious mistake. The Mexican beaded lizard is closely related to the Gila monster, only it’s a little bigger and a little more poisonous. What a difference a simple letter “r” makes.
Then there are “the Untied States of America”–a cryptic comment on our country’s future?–and flyers for “marital arts” schools in the neighborhood, and that ever-popular song that says, “These are a few of my favorite thighs.” And I’ve always been fond of “priates” and “Indains,” and “ture or flase” questions, and “simularity,” whatever that means.
The things we type should keep us humble.
I couldn’t help but think how our Creator, in his total abiiity to do things correctly insisted on total accuracy in His Word; even warning not to change even “a dot or a tittle” in order to keep it accurate. And then there are those passages in Scripture that speak on a subject in such a way that very important ideas that turn on ONE word or LETTER make a subject clear to the reader. Truth is honored. These are some of the reasons I prefer the Bible to any other book-especially, some of those written today!
And please note this writer’s ability to to write accurately alwaysw!!!!
Yes, I did noitce that.
My first thought was of Joe Collidge – the moth-in-law had to be his relative 🙂
That was my thought also! 🙂
In one of my Renaissance Drama classes, a student wrote on her exam, “When Antonio serves the Duke a dish of his slaughtered son at the end of the banquet, the audience is glad to see the Duke get his just desserts.”
I couldn’t tell whether that was a misspelling or a deliberate attempt at a pun, or both, so I chose to congratulate the student on her sense of humor, especially the way she’d played on the spellings of “deserts” and “desserts” for the pun. Actually, it was funny either way, misspelled or not. And guess what? — I originally typed “misspelled OF not,” which happens often at the keyboard.
I am thankful for Spellcheck, otherwise people would find out what a terrible typist I am. And why do you think writers pay top money for someone to edit their work?