Spull Check

It’s official. I hate my computer, not only because its plans for world domination interfere with my homework assignments, but because its Spell Check is so monumentally dumb.

I realise, of course, that it isn’t my computer that’s to blame, but rather my version of Microsoft Office. Admittedly, it is only the 2007 version, and I understand that one year in computing terms is a very, very long time, but is it too much to ask that my computer understands the basics of the English language?

And the worse thing is that, in this line of work, I’m forced to use Microsoft Word a lot, because my only other option is Notepad, and typing in that is like dousing one’s soul in kerosene.

In theory, a computer program that reads through what you’ve written, handily underlines any mistakes, and then corrects them for you, is a typist’s dream. No more reprinting a document fifteen times because the fourteen previous drafts had mind-numbingly obvious errors (which are never, ever visible when you read through it on the screen). Except that, like Communism, the Atkins Diet and Spandex, it falls through in practice.

It’s the green squiggles which get my goat. The computer feels that I, as an A English student, and as a person who has spoken English my entire natural life (and Afrikaans for a minority of my unnatural one), don’t quite understand the nuances of grammar. Its favourite trick is to underline a rough tenth of my writing with green, and when I check it, gives me the mysteriously ambiguous “Fragment (consider revising)”, which, in itself, is not a proper sentence. You’ll have noticed that I write a lot of fragmented lines, which are more phrases than sentences, but we both know it makes for a more relaxed reading style. It also has a tendency to not understand the possessive “its” when I refer to inanimate objects (like above “its Spell Check is so monumentally dumb”).

I like to think that, because of my expanded vocabulary, I don’t suffer the sight of too many red lines, because I actually know how to spell words longer than “cat”, but my computer disagrees with me once again. It hates extended words, for example. So it recognises “elf” and “elves”, but not, strangely, “elven”. So, logically, one can have as many elves as one wants in my computer’s world, but they won’t resemble anything particularly mysterious. While I admit I make up a few words from time to time, they have obvious linguistic ancestries that I don’t need my machine to disagree with. Therefore, it hates my inspired usage of the word “pontification”, meaning “the stuff that results when a person pontificates”, and “isolationalism”, which denotes “the formal position taken by groups that wish to isolate themselves from others.

And, for God’s sake, don’t ever use names and Proper Nouns in your writing. My computer gets on well with people on a first name basis (so long as, of course, they can realistically be expected to come from Alabama. Which means it will accept “Irene” and “Jeremiah”, but don’t try “Thandi” or “Yei-Ning”), but surnames are written off the moment you begin, unless you’re descended from the English (and thus are called “Miller”, “Carter” or even “Thomson”). Realistically, you can add these names to the dictionary, but you’ll have to add each of the derivatives in turn. Thus, you must input “Thandi”, “Thandi’s” and even, if you know a lot of them, “Thandis”.

Alternatively, you can become a hermit, have absolutely no social life or family members, and never suffer from a red squiggle again.   

And then, just when I thought I had it all figured out, my computer came put with…wait for it…BLUE SQUIGGLES! What the hell does a blue squiggle signify? Only after very careful reading did I catch on to the fact that a blue squiggle denotes the incorrect substitution of one homophone for another (“there” for “their”, “know” for “no”), a mistake which I tend to make embarrassingly often.

So I must conclude that Spell Check is an evolutionary dead-end. If it disagrees with people who can actually speak the language, makes up its own words (like “vu”) and persists in covering my screen in the digital equivalent of moss, I can only surmise that, sooner or later, there will be a revolution in which computer users join forces with the Oxford English Dictionary and lay siege to the Microsoft offices.

Dibs on the matches,

Bontage.

PS: The lovely little setting which fools you into thinking that you can get Spell Check to spell like an Englishman instead of a Yank is a lie. There is no spoon.

PPS: AND FOR THE LAST TIME YOU BUG-INFESTED MACHINE WHY ON EARTH DO YOU THINK I’D WANT TO END EVERY MISSIVE WITH A TAWDRY WORD LIKE “BONDAGE”?! IT’S A NICKNAME! 

*Nothing but Blushes*

I suffer from a terrible disease. Actually, it’s not a disease, but probably more of a mental affliction. I doubt it goes by any one title, but I call it Sympathetic Humiliation.

It strikes me often these days (generally when I’m watching TV). Somebody will do something so gut-wrenchingly embarrassing that I will be forced to leave the room or change the channel. I don’t know why I do it. I suspect it’s because my brain immediately enters Sympathetic Humiliation mode (without any help from me) and poses the question: What if that were you in that situation? And then I begin to blush and dither.

My mother suffers the same thing. She has, however, developed a curious immunity to it regarding the television show “Idols”. She can actually sit there for a good hour or so watching people making utter fools out of themselves, on national television, and not bat an eyelid. I, on the other hand, begin to cringe the moment somebody in a costume (they, never, ever, sing well) walks on stage. Then I can either spend the next three excruciating minutes trying to distract myself or I’ll be forced to leave the room, generally on the pretext of getting a drink.

Occasionally, I’ll be subjected to this feeling even in real life (and no, reality television doesn’t count). I’ll be behind someone who trips extravagantly down the stairs in full view of half a million people, and I’ll be the one blushing for days. Please, don’t make me do an oral presentation of any kind, not because I don’t enjoy them, but there is always the chance that I’ll have to watch someone else make a fool of themselves. For the same reason I avoid people who stutter, because I’ll try and finish the sentences for them, which will embarrass them, which in turn will make me turn red.

Of course, it goes without saying that none of this is as bad as making a fool out of yourself. There are several incidents in my past which I’d much rather forget, because they’re the type of thing that wakes me up at three in the morning and hope fervently that everyone has forgotten.

Like the time I tried to make a dramatic exit from an argument and managed to bounce my shin off twenty different, low-slung objects. Or the time I swore on stage in front of, not only the deputy-principal, but also his wife and their small children. Or the time I managed to completely lose the thread of the argument at a debating competition, in front of delegates from thirty different schools.

And don’t get me started on the ravages of puberty, particularly the agony of a breaking voice. To all of you who are male and below the age of fifteen, here’s a tip: For the next four or five years, don’t say anything. No, really, I mean it. Learn sign language, draw up cue cards, master Morse code, do anything that will prevent you from actually opening your mouth. Because, if you do, you’ll find that the content of your sentences comes a poor second to the various octaves you manage to hit in the course of a conversation.

Unfortunately, there is nothing in the world that one can possibly do without the occasional danger of embarrassment (with the possible exception of being a hermit). In the end, you’ve go to take the rough with the smooth, and just put up with the fact that, every now and then, you’re gonna look like an idiot.

Your Fellow in Redness,

Bontage.

PS: Have you noticed that, should you point out to someone that they’re blushing, they blush even more, REGARDLESS of whether or not they were blushing before hand? Try it out on a stranger and see.

The Bureaucracy is Expanding

Allow me to clarify today’s title. I recently heard a quote which is, alas, unattributable to any one source. The quote itself is: “The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy”.

 

In case you don’t fully understand the term, “bureaucracy” is the needless administration that is present at all levels of society, particularly in government affairs.

 

The bureaucracy is the source of all the needless documents that one has to fill out every single time you wish to perform a self-evident task. The bureaucracy is the reason you have to be very, very careful every time you complete a form of some or another type, because if it is not filled out to exact specifications, you’ll have to start all over again. I suspect that it is even the bureaucracy’s fault that there are no working pens in any banks, anywhere.

 

A good example of this is when my sister applied for a place at a new school. Countless forms had to be filled out, and her name (nothing complicated) was repeated roughly fourteen times in the same set of documents. When we received the first official communication from said school, her name was, predictably, misspelled.

 

You may wonder (perhaps even care) why I’ve latched onto the poor faceless drones that (seem) to make our lives go smoothly. You see, I’ve recently had to fill in a form to state that I wish to have a place in Residence here at UCT next year.

 

The form itself looks deceptively simple. Name, age, student number…the usual things. No problem, thought I. Then the questions became more difficult. What course was I studying (I eventually remembered)? What was the course code (exceptionally long, thought I)? Which faculty is in charge of that course (I was tempted to say that my business science course was being administered by the Agriculture Department, but didn’t think that would fly)?

 

Then came the real brain busters. How long did I intend to be at UCT (long enough to use a room for a year)? Was I on Scholarship, or a Bursary (you mean to tell me you don’t know?)? Finally, as is common on all these types of documents, I had to sign a section stating that I had read the terms and conditions, found on page 3.

 

Page 3 was a long page. So long, in fact, that pages 4 and 5 were mere continuations of page 3. I’m currently studying contract law, and I really, really, read these terms. I can’t remember them, of course. Something to do with seizing my assets (including any dependents and spouses) in the event that I should fail to stand on my head in certain circumstances. Or something.

 

My anger derives from the fact that all of this, apart from a tiny section asking me what residence and room I wished to apply for, was already known to the University Administration. I know that they know (so to speak), because I previously had to fill out even longer forms at the beginning of the year! But, for some esoteric reason (interdepartmental warfare, I assume), it seems that the Student Housing Department does its utmost best to remain removed from the rest of the University. In addition to this, I know that someone will spend all of, say, ten seconds, looking at my form, processing the one, tiny relevant section, and then send it to be filed.

Which is, I suspect, the reason that forms were invented in the first place. With the advent of typewriters and computers, people found that they had to give their clerks something to do with their time. So they invented massive, complicated systems which require documents to be submitted, verified by twenty-three various officials (sometimes twice), and then buried in some deep, dank filing cabinet somewhere.

 

But you can’t fight the system, because it is the same bureaucratic system which governs our courts, our factories, and, especially, our government. Anyone who has ever been to Home Affairs will know what I’m talking about.

 

But on the basis that I must hand the form in at a specific location (the East Ocean of the Moon), at a particular time (height of the summer equinox) in a specific manner (ten copies, fifteen different forms of identification), I had better go.

 

Written in triplicate,

 

Bontage.

 

PS: Failure to complete the blue Form 44RT-s9 and then to submit it along with red/green Form XX2 will result in confiscation of all material property. Have a nice day.

Consumer Hell

Picture the scene. You’re in a supermarket. You’ve been pushing a shopping trolley around the Minotaur’s Labyrinth (cunningly disguised as shopping aisles) for ages. Your arms hurt. Your legs are tired. Your offspring has entered Defcon Three and is sulking. You know from experience that Defcon Two (Loud Wails) can’t be far away. But thankfully you’re done, and you desperately slog towards the finish line. Ahead, just past the enormous pyramid of Super Baked Bean tins, you see the Holy Grail of shopping: a Till with No Queue. You sprint down the six kilometres separating you from your goal (mowing down an old lady in the process, but she’d forgive you), screech to a halt as you reach it and…

…the sadistic succubus behind the register (on lease from Hell’s marketing department) puts up a “This Till is Closed” sign. Her thirty colleagues do the same, simultaneously go on a smoke break, and leave the one who drew the short straw to deal with a mile long queue of disgruntled shopping.

If you hadn’t already guessed, I despise shopping for groceries. At times, I would rather go to a maths seminar than do my weekly shopping (π rather than pie, as it were [No, I don’t apologise for that]). Apart from the rising prices (and, as an economics first year, let me tell you it ain’t getting better anytime soon), there is something about the whole process which leaves me irritable.

I’m not talking about shopping with other people. No, I’d much rather shoot myself (in a maths seminar) than go shopping with other people. When I go shopping, I have a list of things I want to get (not always complete) in my head. I then purchase the goods and leave. Occasionally, I’ll make an impulse purchase (and feel guilty about it), but not often. Certain associates of mine, however, like to weigh up each and every alternative, before making a purchase. It probably is the proper way to shop when you’re supporting a family of hungry mouths, but I’m not, so I don’t.

Even when I’m alone, certain things about shops annoy me. A universal complaint is one of the quality of service. You know what I’m talking about. The succubi at the tills are only one example of this phenomenon. Add to that: the people at the bread till who lounge around talking to each other while the masses beg for their grain products, the sixty-three employees who wander up and down the aisles constantly but never have a clue where a specific good is, and, finally, the people who chew gum. I chew gum. My friends chew gum. But none of us chew it with mouths open while serving a customer.

I could carry on (and on, and on…): products without barcodes or prices attached (meaning you have to ask the sixty-three know-nothing employees what the price is), products that are only ever stocked in uselessly tiny or obscenely huge amount (the result being that you can purchase either 10ml or 5l of tomato sauce), or the fact that every single trolley EVER MADE in the history of mankind has a funny wheel that means it goes SKEW!

Here at uni, I believe I’ve got my shopping down to a fine art. I can be in and out of the local supermarket in less than five minutes, spending a maximum of R100 and living off the result for a week.

Of course, that’s still five minutes of shopping. But don’t worry, I’m working on it.

Two for the Price of One,

Bontage.

PS: Does anybody actually use those long, long receipts that they insist on giving you?