CJC.org

While reading a review for 2 Fast 2 Furious, I came across this sentence:

And in the grand tradition of politically correct summer “event” movies, the two actors (one plays an ex-cop, the other an ex-con) are accessorized with an Asian driver, a Latino driver, and so on, as well as the requisite rapper, Ludacris.

And I thought, “Ludacris? That’s not how you spell the word. How do you spell the word?” Then it dawned on me that I had been using Google for light spell checking chores: if you type in a non-existent word into Google, the search engine will helpfully suggest alternative words to use, if the number of hits is low compared to the alternatives. I’m not sure how the metric works, but it’s very nice; I’m not the best speller. Doing this sort of light spell checking is even easier, since I have a Google toolbar installed on the browser.

“Ludacris” and any other hip misspellings defeats this tactic completely. Type in “ludacris” and you get gazillion hits for the rapper, his work and his fans. There’s no suggested alternative, since the found set is sufficiently large. Entertainingly, the first hit is presumably Ludacris’s home page, Word Of Mouf, but I know how to spell “mouth”.

Note that I’m not decrying playful misspellings: English spelling has been stuck in place since the days of Shakespeare, even though the spoken language has changed. And recognized, if not accepted, spelling may change even more quickly than in past centuries after the advent of electronic media and rapidly shifting fashions. I’m just noting that this minor trick with a search engine isn’t going to work anymore.

So, for now on, I’m going to have to go to a proper dictionary to find out how to spell ludicrous and other words.

Posted on Friday, June 6th, 2003 at 8:04 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.