Dispel the Myth of Misspelling

A recent radio report regarding the development of AI suggested that, to disguise the source of an article having been written using AI, people should deliberately misspell some words. What is the world coming to?

As my school’s eighth grade spelling champ a lifetime ago, the thought of deliberately misspelling a word conjures up the memory of my standing on stage and seeing the look in the judge’s eye when I failed to spell a word correctly. I was banished to the audience seats and forced to watch as the four remaining contestants wrapped up the state competition with the winner rewarded with a trip to the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.

In working with hundreds of suppliers, I visit many websites. Whenever I come across a site with several misspellings, I’m left to wonder about the quality control in the production of products I order. I know there is likely no connection between whoever edits the website content and the others in the product manufacturing facility. But if something put out to the whole world to see isn’t reviewed by management, I can’t help but wonder what happens in the rooms hidden from view.

I worked with someone once who had charge of the website for the retailer for whom we worked. He would misspell words occasionally. When told about it, he would argue it was good for SEO. Search Engine Optimization. My bullshit meter would start buzzing.

Maybe it’s true. Maybe so many people misspell that they take comfort in seeing others do it. There is someone sitting in the White House Oval Office that routinely misspells words and his defenders make a case for it being a sound strategy.

As for me, I will never use AI to write any of the content on this website. I will attempt never to misspell anything. And if there are typos, it will be due to fat fingers on the keyboard, not an intention to game the algorithm.