They're Not Gonna Take It

When I first started teaching, I was really excited about the potential of my students’ generation. These young adults showed a propensity to stand up for what they believed in. They weren’t afraid to declare their willingness to object to the status quo. This generation, I thought to myself, is the one that is going to make change happen.

I got the sense of my students’ rebelliousness, not from what they said nor from what they wore, but rather from what they wrote. Nary would I come across an essay in which a student hadn’t written the word defiantly over and over again. Dissent was obviously brewing deep inside of these young men and women.

I soon discovered that it wasn’t actually dissent that was brewing; it was poor spelling skills. You see, my students would misspell definitely as definately, and then Auto Correct would change it to defiantly.

After I realized that their “defiance” was a matter of spelling rather than principle, I began my own little campaign: the If You Are Going to Learn to Spell One Word Correctly, Make It Be Definitely campaign.

However, thanks to Microsoft Word 2010, I can finally put that campaign to rest. Microsoft Word 2010’s Auto Correct changes definately to definitely.

My next campaign: Stop the iPhone’s Auto Correct feature from changing hell to he’ll. Sometimes I do actually intend to reference Satan’s lair. If you’ve ever had to grade a stack of research papers, you’d understand why.