OPINION

Wacky News

March 5, 2012

By Nabi Dressler
News Editor
The story: Lakewood High School in St. Petersburg, Fl. created fools of themselves when the custodian misspelled “leaping” in the high school sign; ironically, it read, “Laeping to Literacy” for an upcoming night where parents could learn how to help their teens become better readers.

My Take: Hey, this is what they invented that problem-inducing auto-correct for, right? Unfortunately for people with a complete lack of spelling knowledge or a severe case of laziness, no one auto-corrects real-life spelling mistakes. Sorry. One has to cut the janitor some slack, though, because he was having a rough week and fighting sunlight when he put up the letters.

The story: West Hall middle and high schools in Gainesville, Georgia, went on lock down Wednesday due to a text sent by a student. The text was supposed to say “gunna be at west hall today” but, thanks to auto-correct, it actually read “Gunman be at west hall today.”
My Take: The community member who alerted the police did the right thing. Better safe than sorry, right? Oh, auto-correct. With websites devoted to the comical automatic errors made to texts by this sometimes-helpful but usually-annoying cell phone tool, it’s impossible to predict what havoc auto-correct will wreak next. And maybe next time this kid will take the extra two seconds to type out “going to” instead of making up a word.

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