MORTON: Let’s face it, Spel-Chekr, you can’t spell!

We’re going to be semi-serious today, because we’re addressing a long-standing problem that affects everyone who relies on their computer program to be the final authority when there may be doubt.

Spel-Checker is wrong — a flat statement I am about to prove.

You get the tipoff just by looking at it. Why, they can’t even spell their own name!

And the others are just as bad, calling themselves “Spellchek,” “Spel-Chkr” or some other monstrosity.

Isn’t that a fine how-do-you-do for a computer program intended to correct mistakes? These are spelling-correction type programs, and they’re just plain wrong!

Disregarding the misspelling of their own names, the thought behind the programs is what needs correcting, since no matter how “hip”or “cool” they think it may be to call this program “Spel-Check” or “Spellchek,” they’ve misled people right from the start.

Just to prove my point, try using either program, then type in the program’s name.

It will tell you it’s wrong!

The program’s own name!

And if you’re not confused by now, you only have to wait until you finish a longer-than-average sentence, using unusual construction.

Just look what the program now is trying to tell you! Ridiculous!

It now will inform you this word should be plural and the other should be past tense instead of present, you’ve dangled a participle or two, and so on, and so on, disregarding the fact that making those changes would defeat the whole point of using them in that particular way.

Don’t get the wrong idea here.

It’s not that some of us know better than Spel-check. Not at all.

It’s that the spelling check program is wrong right from the get-go.

Spel-Checkr has taken on the role of being the authority in this area, and it just can’t get ’er done!

Spel-Checkr should know better, period.

It’s getting so I automatically ignore most of their so-called corrections, because too often they’re wrong, just plain wrong.

Rereading what you’ve just been told is incorrect will prove the point, because, though you may have bruised the rules of grammar or spelling a little, unchanged your statement still means exactly what you intended in the first place — and probably says it in the fewest words, to boot!

So who’s wrong here? Spel-Checkr, that’s who.

Naturally, it doesn’t help that I’m goofy enough to make up my own words now and then, like “ridiculosity” or “frantastic,” but the program seems to like to pick on certain words that possibly aren’t in the dictionary but obviously should be.

Example? Let’s look at the word “ept.”

You won’t find this one in even the big dictionaries, but it should be, and here’s why.

Look for the word “inept,” and you’ll find it right there where it should be, defined as “inexpert” or “maladroit” or “unable.”

But where is the word “ept”?

Nowhere, so the Spel-Chekr tells you it’s wrong.

How can it be wrong, when the opposite is right there in front of our eyes?

Obviously, Spel-Chekr itself is “inept,” inexpert, in that it doesn’t know what it’s talking about, because straight-line logic tells us, if there is a word “inept,” there must be a word “ept.”

Want to try another one?

Type in the word “capitol” and, when your spelling program tells you it’s wrong, trot out the dictionary for another little surprise.

Spelled with an “o,” as in “capitol,” it refers to the center of government or the largest city in a given political area, but spelled with an ‘“a,” the word “capital” is a financial term for a sum of available money.

Still, every day we see Washington, D.C., routinely referred to as “the capital” of our country.

Maybe we need a new dictionary — and if we get one, it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if, when we look up the word “inept,” the first example should be “Spel-Checkr.”

Spel-Checker? Spelcheckr? Spell-Chkr?

Phooey to all of them!

And let ’em look “Phooey!” up in their Funk and Wagnall’s.

Finally, if you really want to drive your spelling program nuts, try using the word “it’s” or “its” in a sentence.

But you’d better hang on; you’re in for a bumpy ride.

Mike Morton writes each week for the Kansan. He can be reached at m24r24fm8445@att.net. Mike’s book, “On The Loose Collection, Volume One,” is on sale in Newton at the Kansan, 121 W. Sixth St.; and Anderson’s Book and Office Supply, 627 N. Main St.