Here is a record of a real email exchange between Professor Hans and a student:
Student: Someone left a stethescope in the van coming back from the hospital - maybe
you could send a message to the class about that?
Prof: OK, I just did. But for my benefit, what is a "stethescope"?
Student: A stethescope is used by doctors to listen to ones heart and lung sounds!
Prof: Oh, that would be a stethoscope, I know about that. But you said you found a
stethescope - and I still don't know what that would be!
Student: Haha, I see my spelling error! Sorry!
Prof: Ok, all clear. But just to be picky it should be "one's" instead of "ones".
Student: OK, thanks! If we had to go through all our mails and texts with a spellchecker
we would have little time for study!
Prof: (to himself): "Spellcheckers - alright, those are for typos. But how about knowing
some English, Hair Doctor?"
(Of course, it is a standing yoke that docters do not wright and spel good. If KMC had
continewd to eccist, we mite have stahted an englisch cuarse!)
Speaking of spell checkers, there's was a story last week of a school that went on lockdown because a girl tested her friend a message saying "gunna be waiting in the west hallway", and spellchecker changed it to "gunman be waiting in the west hallway". The moral of the story is beware of spellchecker when trying to invoke the "because poor literacy is kewl" effect.
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