Sunday, July 20, 2008

double letters

I’ve noticed on my new computer that the keyboard doesn’t like to type double letters. I suppose it could be my fingers hitting more softly on that second strike. But I think it’s actually the keyboard saying “are you sure you want two O’s in this word?” This results, for instance, in good often appearing as god – a particularly odd transliteration of my intention. It’s, perhaps, the beginning of artificial intelligence. It often corrects my spelling (I know this isn’t the keyboard, but the machine’s thinking is all of a piece), which I like (since I was born without a spelling gene). But the spellcheck is limited and it often, as we all know, wants words it doesn’t know to become words it does know. I’ve often thought we should simply adopt the spellings it suggests to us so we can avoid the continual argument that such a thing is a word (I refer you to my complaint about the spelling of Obama in the June 6 spellcheck post). The double letter thing feels even more AI-ish as it seems to be making a judgment not just about spelling, which can be mechanically hooked to a dictionary, but about typing skill. Is my keyboard calling my typing dexterity into question?

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