Sunday, November 14, 2010

Armageddon


Why is it Armageddon? Because my browsers’ spellchecks don’t come with spilt, spoilt, pled, and snuck. But they do come with spilled, spoiled, pleaded, and sneaked.

Okay, maybe it’s not Armageddon per se, but it’s bothersome. To, you know, anal-retentive word nerds. I guess it’s just one of my tics. I prefer that someone pled to a charge. And that he or she snuck around the house. As for spilt, spoilt and dreamt, I could live without them. I’ve heard in American English, they aren’t popular at all, but British English still uses them.

I asked some tweeps living across the pond about pled/pleaded and got a mix of replies. A few said pleaded, some pled. There was no consensus. But it does seem to be a regional thing. In my local paper, all I read in the police reports is “s/he pleaded to…” Friends in other locations say they never see it!

I am appreciative of grammar shifts. I am. I used one in my novel, where it’s two hundred years in the future and people tend to drop the word “I” from the beginning of their sentences. But Firefox telling me pled isn’t a word makes me want to jam a fork in my eye. Probably not the most mature reaction, but there it is.

5 comments:

  1. That's really interesting -- I've definitely seen both "pled" and "pleaded" here, and variations of "dreamt" and "spoilt."

    Also, a society were people drop the word "I" from the beginning of their sentence? So awesome.

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  2. Learn to ignore the spell check - as it is always quite bothersome what it doesn't contain and cannot correct correctly.

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  3. The spell check just told me that "squirrelly" isn't right. I could have sworn... Oh well.

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  4. Emy-Thanks :) I thought it was awesome, too.

    Jhon-If only spellchecker was the real problem. Reading "pleaded" in the newspaper is what drives me insane. Wait. No, I'm already insane.

    Liz-Squirrelly isn't there? That's just not right. How will we describe people who act nervous and edgy?

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  5. It's amazing what isn't in spellcheck.

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Please validate me.