One Day
This is weird. My word processing software is now suggesting words to me as I type. In some cases, it’s pretty helpful, because I no longer have to think about spelling. Although, I have a friend who monitors my posts, who might suggest I never think about spelling, because over the years I’ve gotten lots of messages from him with errors he’s found. I like that because I grew up with editors looking over my shoulder. When I wrote for the Houston Chronicle we had the copy desk, who polished our prose on the way to print.
So, if anyone else finds an error please feel free to reach out. And right there, it did it. After I typed the words “please feel” it suggested the word “free”. Maybe one day I’ll be able to sit down, tell the processor here’s where I’d like to go and presto, words will appear. Then I can polish them and move them around. Given my quirky mind, however, I’m guessing it’s more likely I should use this new tool to tell me when I’m drifting into the mundane and over-used lexicon, because one way software learns is to catalog what everyone is doing. And there’s nothing like an over-used phrase to dull things down.
Oh, well. It’s the 21st century and I’ve always been a fan of computers and they’re not going anywhere. In fact, they’ve become ubiquitous. You bump into them everywhere you turn. Computers turn on my lights and start my stereo, which is why some people are so uneasy about the future. All that code has to be written by someone and hardly any of us know who that someone is. It’s just code in a machine doing things, and we have no idea how to double check it or know what it’s going to do when. And as I type these words, it occurs to me that maybe they’re being reported back and analyzed. Wow. That’s a special sort of paranoia. Probably too soon, but maybe one day. Stay tuned.
John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale