Little African-American cocktail dress
A fellow recovering journalist has reminded me of a spell checker problem that once afflicted a newspaper we worked at. Some multicultural zealot among the editing caste had programmed the computer system’s spell checker to change every use of the word “black” to the more politically-correct “African American.”
Which, naturally enough, immediately resulted in a screwup. The phrase “little black cocktail dress” in a fashion article was changed to “little African-American cocktail dress.” Fortunately, it was caught and fixed before it got into print. Still makes me chuckle.
Posted: July 8th, 2011 under Library, Science/Engineering, Scribbles.
Tags: black vs african american, spell checker
Comments
Comment from Dick Stanley
Time July 8, 2011 at 2:29 PM
Beats me. I didn’t have the authority to mess with one of those programs.
Other papers I worked at had “genius” editors who, periodically, would announce that using such-and-such a word was henceforth banned. Because they didn’t like it. “Kids” as a synonym for “children” is one I remember. Kids, you see, are goats. Or something.
But those guys were smart enough not to mess with the spell checker to eliminate the usages.
Pingback from Little African-American cocktail dress «ScrollPost.com
Time July 9, 2011 at 8:21 AM
[...] of political correctness could screw up more that just an innocent text, but… anyway, tee hee. Source: Europe & OECD BlogsPublished: 9 July 2011Site: simplyjews.blogspot.comSource by Date: [...]
Pingback from dustbury.com » Nor does “dress of color” work
Time July 12, 2011 at 9:08 PM
[...] Yet another reason why you can’t trust spearchuckers spellcheckers: Some multicultural zealot among the editing caste had programmed the computer system’s spell checker to change every use of the word “black” to the more politically-correct “African American.” [...]
Comment from McGehee
Time July 13, 2011 at 7:16 AM
This sure gives political correctness an African-American eye.
Pingback from WHAT DO YOU GET WHEN YOU COMBINE SPELLCHECK & MULTI-CULTURALISM? « NATION OF COWARDS
Time July 18, 2011 at 12:44 PM
[...] about this hot steamin’ cup of awesome… Some multicultural zealot among the editing caste had programmed the computer system’s [...]
Comment from jdallen
Time July 8, 2011 at 12:27 PM
How can you fix it if it keeps changing it automatically?
Just kidding.
You can get in to some embarrassing situations like that. I once wrote an operating procedure at Dow. At some point, I got tired of messing with it and put in the phrase, “Do it because I said so. You don’t need a reason.” I left it in there, just to see what would happen. That phrase made it through three supervisor reviews.
Scary.
jd