Right now, if you ask Google how to "define misspelled" (you know, as one does when they have doubts about whether they have spelled the commonly misspelled word "misspelled" with the appropriate numbers of es, ls, and ses), you'll get this:

If you're a pedantic bastard like me, you may have noticed that the past tense is given as "misspelled" (as expected) but the past tense verb used in the example sentence is actually "misspelt," which is not among the variants listed for verb tenses. Did Google make a mistake? Obviously, further research was needed.

Although "spelt" has been listed as an alternative form of "spelled" since Noah Webster's very first 1806 A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language*, the word "misspelt" does not appear among the several hundred thousand words in my beloved 1977 Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary Unabridged, Second Edition. Nor does it appear now on the Merriam-Webster website. Therefore we can be pretty sure that "misspelt" isn't an English word, at least not in America.

Fortunately for everyone, Google does give its sources, and their dictionary is provided by Oxford Languages, which is an arm of the Oxford University Press which publishes the Oxford English Dictionary, the most highly esteemed dictionary of English English. Sure enough, those Brits have no Puritanical American qualms about unconventional spelling:

So what lesson, if any, can be drawn from this exercise? Is Google surreptitiously trying to force American to learn a foreign language? Are the British playing the long game to get Americans back for the War of 1812? All I know for sure is that it's harder than I thought to misspell "misspell."

* Technically, America's first dictionary spelled them "fpelled" and "fpelt" where the old-school long s was printed using the f letterform on the era's moveable type printing press. It's worth noting that Webster was considered an eccentric in his day for even attempting to standardize spelling. Even Shakespeare could have cared less about which letters went in which words. Per Love's Labor's Lost, act V, scene 1, lines 45-46 in the 1623 edition of the First Folio: "Yes, yes, he teaches boyes the Horne-booke: What is Ab speld backward with the horn on his head?"

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A friend of the blog recently had a birthday and told me they were now "old." That didn't seem right to me. Yeah, that person is older than I am, but "old" is always something in the future, a long way off. Mentally, we're always benchmarked to high school or college or whatever time when life was really hopping for us. No one really ever gets "old," do they?

To answer that question, I decided I'd do what everyone else does these days: I'd ask AI. Specifically, I asked Microsoft's Copilot.

PROMPT:

When does a person become old?

RESPONSE:

The concept of "becoming old" varies widely depending on culture, perspective, and personal experience. Biologically, aging is a gradual process, and people may feel "old" at different stages depending on their physical health, lifestyle, or societal milestones.

In some societies, old age is associated with retirement—commonly around 65 years old—or when one begins to feel the effects of aging in their daily life. Emotionally or mentally, though, "feeling old" can be tied to experiences, maturity, or even one's outlook on life. Some say you're only as old as you feel!

What are your thoughts on aging? Do you think it’s more about physical changes or a state of mind?

I know I shouldn't say such things about our new AI overlords, but that's some bullshit vague answer right there. If I wanted to know what I thought, I wouldn't have asked it.

Obviously we're building the future on discarded fortune cookies and horoscopes. Which I think answers my original question: "old" knows better.

Happy Birthday, smarty, whoever you are.

Interesting footnote: While I was typing this up, the Music Choice '80s channel on my television started playing Rod Stewart's "Forever Young." Coincidence? Or is the AI trying to tell me something? You be the judge! (If you choose the latter, know that the prior song was "It's Raining Men" by The Weather Girls. Work that into your cosmology.)

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Never read the comments. Unless...

Yes, Atlanta was one of the "Several markets." Yes, I saw the commercial live. And no, I did not go to the website. I'm starting to feel like I missed out.

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Google has added an "AI Overview" to the top of its search results, and I don't like it. It's not that I don't like having a quick response for queries likes "define calumnies" or "weather radar newnan ga," it's that I don't trust the AI's fact checking abilities yet. And I especially don't like any response that starts "According to a Facebook post,...".

In my high school history classes, when I wasn't being told that I would fail Georgia's statewide standardized tests if I didn't say that the South fought the Civil War over "States Rights," I was taught to consult primary sources for accurate answers. (In hindsight, I'm sure this was the teacher's way of telling me the whole "States Rights" thing was bullshit, but we didn't have easy access to actual historical transcripts of the South Carolina Declaration of Secession in the days before the Internet.)

I've played around with Chat GPT enough to know that it is less reliable than a Wikipedia page. So when I already have to Google at least 6 different variations of "lg washer inlet valve" to find the correct replacement part number, I'm not inclined to believe whatever word salad response the AI scrapes from untrustworthy websites in response to even my casual queries asking for things like "children's television hosts atlanta 1950s 60s" or "who wrote transformers tv episodes."

I know that I'm in the minority here. I don't like explainer YouTube or TikTok videos, either. I happen to enjoy research. I grew up with libraries and printed periodicals, and I can read pretty quickly. Just give me a list of links, Google, and let me do the hard work of finding the right answers. I'd much rather have open questions than wrong answers.

If I have to get my mother to fact check all of Google's responses, I might as well start my own website called Ask My Mom. I don't want to have to do that if I can avoid it. Mom's smart, but there are definitely some queries I'd just never ask her, if you know what I mean. (I'm looking at you, "dua lipa acm awards dress.")

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A random thought while doing the dishes: Why is unwise a word but unsmart isn't?

Unsmart does not appear in the dictionary on my desk, my trusty Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary Unabridged (which I still deep into the 21st century because I don't want to grow up, I'll always be a 20th-century kid). Unwise is also nowhere to be seen in either The American Heritage Dictionary, 2nd College Edition we keep upstairs or my copy of The Official Scrabble® Players Dictionary, Second Edition. If it's not in the Scrabble® Dictionary, it's not a real word.

However, the Internet has never cared about reality. Merriam-Webster online recognizes "unsmart" as meaning exactly what you would think it means (i.e. "not smart"), but their example for how to use the word comes from the October 18, 2022 issue of Elle magazine:

Tweets swimming reports from Barton Springs pool; carries an unsmart phone so as not to be distracted by the internet; has lived in France; and read Anna Karenina in 16 hours.

So in this case unsmart means essentially landline. That's nothing like unwise (in word or deed).

Elsewhere, the online Oxford English Dictionary also has an entry for unsmart, going so far as to quote itself when it says "OED's earliest evidence for unsmart is from before 1500, in the writing of Robert Henryson, poet." Curiously, that citation is absent from the Online Etymology Dictionary, but I looked up The Complete Works of Henryson at the University of Rochester's Robbins Library and did find this in the "Prologue" of his 1480s work Fables, lines 22-25:

For as we se, ane bow that ay is bent
Worthis unsmart and dullis on the string
Sa dois the mynd that ay is diligent
In ernistfull thochtis and in studying.

As you can see, that is not English. (Henryson wrote like what he was: a Scotsman.) It's Middle English, where smart had nothing to do with intelligence but a "stinging, sharp pain." In other words, in this case unsmart is akin to relax. I wouldn't say that's unwise either.

So call someone dumb, but don't call them unsmart lest you sound stupid.

Next time: Why is uncharismatic a word but unfortitudinous isn't? Actually, wait. No, this one makes sense. Never mind.

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The headline at Atlanta's Fox 5 was "Over 850 pounds of crystal meth found in Norcross storage unit." My first thought on reading the article was, "wow, that's a lot of drugs." My second thought was, "how do you dispose of that much meth?" The article didn't say, which if you ask me is a real indictment of the modern clickbait era of journalism.

Left to my own devices, I did what I usually do when I have a question: I googled it.^†

That was a mistake.

I only write this so that when I am arrested and the DA introduces into evidence my Google search history and social media feeds full of helpful instructions about what I should do with my stash when the cops inevitably come kicking in my door, I can say that it was all because I read a poorly reported news story.

(To save you the same trouble, let me report that the answer appears to be "mix it with bleach." I'm guessing a lot of bleach. I have not yet worked up the courage to google how to dispose of that.)

^† In addition to "how to dispose of crystal meth," these are some other actual Google searches I made in the last 2 weeks: "who likes licorice," "why am I paying 24% taxes," "life is not all sex and sun lamps," and "green lantern condoms." What can I say? I'm a curious guy.

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It seems that every news outlet today is reporting that Flamingo (a time management app) reported that the most common Sick Day in America (according to their data) is August 24.

First of all, congratulations to Flamingo for getting their product's name in everyone's mouth. I see what you did there. I didn't previously know what a "paid time off" app was, and I do now. Good job, guys. Someone was working hard on August 24th.

Secondly, I believe it. (Judging from the amount of coverage this "news" got, so do most other people.) Late August is too blisteringly hot, humid, and uncomfortable to work outside, and school just got back in, introducing everyone to strains of disease that had been developing in secluded households over the summer. It's a perfect storm!

Personally, I'm still doing work today, even though I don't want to. Frankly, I'm a bit depressed, which may be a result of working too hard and getting too little sleep for the past few days/weeks. I could probably use a day off.

If only there was an app that could help me schedule something....

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We had another thunderstorm rumble through an hour ago, which means my Internet+cable is out. Again. It hadn't cut out since the big power outage last month, so I guess it was overdue. The dream remains two consecutive months of uninterrupted service.

This week has been nothing but problems: the AC went out, my poison ivy has turned to full-body hives, now this.... I'm looking for a bright side here, but all I've got are more rain clouds.

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Back in February, an image was posted to Facebook along with the news that high winds had blown the head off the Superman statue in downtown Metropolis, Illinois.

In fact, the Photoshopped image and accompanying story had originally been the April Fools' Day prank for SupermanHomepage.com... in 2017.

But that didn't stop a lot of people thinking it was true. The Metropolis Super Museum had to publicly refute the claim being repeated by "news" sites far and wide. What hope do we have against Deep Fake AIs when people can't even spot amateur use of Photoshop's clone tool?

In any event, we can all rest safe knowing that the statue will still be standing complete when the annual Superman Celebration kicks off this weekend. Better than ever, actually. The big guy just got a new coat of (lighter blue) paint in time for a rededication ceremony at 9AM on Friday.

Take that, high winds!

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It's a fact of life in the smartphone age that advertisers have gotten so good at anticipating your future purchases, they'll send you ads for diapers before you even realize you're pregnant.

So I probably shouldn't be too quick to dismiss this ad I got earlier today:

So I guess I love baseball, cheerleaders, constipated hookers... and the Bible?

That makes me a true American! Thanks, Etsy!

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