spell it out 2 CH One

Society expects us to spell perfectly. Andyet we are all aware that there are some words in the language that we don’tknow how to spell, and have to look them up before we write them. There are noexceptions. Nobody knows how to spell every word in the language. Even thebrilliant spellers who win the prizes in spelling bees get some words wrong.People provide aids to help us achieve that perfection: dictionaries andspelling checkers. But there are problems with both. To look a word up in adictionary, we have to know how to spell it which rather defeats the purpose ofthe exercise. We’ll find it eventually, of course, but it isn’t the mostobvious way to deal with the difficulty. And spelling checkers are useful onlyto a limited extent. They spot spellings that don’t exist; but they won’thighlight a word if it’s misspelled yet does exist. The first two stanzas of anode to a spelling checker, by Mark Eckman and Jerrold H. Zar, illustrate theproblem:

I have a spelling checker,

It came with my PC.

It plane lee marks four my revue

Miss steaks aye can knot sea.

Eye ran this poem threw it,

Your sure reel glad two no.

Its vary polished in its weigh.

My checker tolled me sew .

A spelling checker wouldn’t spot anythingwrong here.