Friday, November 30, 2007

How I hope this is a joke

Posted on the bulletin board of a Norwegian institution of higher learning (thanks for the tip, Pigeon):

I need a englich teatchher!

I need a english teatesher, my engleish is wery good, bot neads perfektion! youst to tiop everything off, i am now seartching for ein english (lærear) teacher to lern me the perfekt englich. can you add perfektion to my englich, send AN mail to me(meg) ASAP

...and then a student email addy.

Awesome, unless it's an actual ad placed by a student in a Norwegian institution of higher learning, in which case it's freakin' sad. Even if it's an extreme case of dyslexia, this doesn't fly. To paraphrase a famous line from "Pulp Fiction" - Spellchecker motherf*cker: Do you use it?

Not that using a spellchecker guarantees anything, though. In the wonderful book "How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper" by Robert A. Day, there's a poem which is quite pertinent to this topic:

I have a spelling checker,
It came with my PC;
It plainly marks four my revue
Mistakes I cannot sea.
I've run this poem threw it,
I'm sure your pleased too no,
Its letter perfect in its weigh,
My checker tolled me sew.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

What's wrong with this poem.
Perfect as far as I'm concerned !

BTW cite your references W.

Wilhelm said...

That wasn't a citation?

Cathy said...

No, this is not a joke, he really needs an English teacher :P

Wilhelm said...

Tru, tru.............but the only person who might be able to help him or her "top it off" towards perfection is a main character in The New Testament. Either him or his alleged father.