Quote:
Originally Posted by Worldwalker
I recently mistyped "erroneous" as "errononeous". My spell-checker's first choice, was correct, but its second was "nonferrous", followed by"peritoneums" and "heterogeneous". Don't ask me how it came up with any of those, because I couldn't tell you. Given the behavior of spell-checkers, which often have the correct replacement several options down in the list, it's quite possible for them to put in all sorts of weird stuff if you tell them to auto-correct a document.
Never, ever underestimate the power of the spell-checker. And remember, also, that different spell-checkers use different rules, so just because yours doesn't change some given typo to "people" doesn't mean that some other spell-checker doesn't.
Also, I believe the publisher said the typo was silly, not the people who got all worked up about it.
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Although it's possible, my informal testing suggests it would take a rather unnatural deformity to convince a typical spell-check that the writer intended "people" instead of "pepper".
Rather than assuming it was some joke played by someone in the chain, which seems unlikely to me as it could be more effectively implemented elsewhere, I suspect that the original writer mistyped while having a conversation or while listening to something. I have myself done this numerous times, possibly even with pepper/people.
In my humble opinion, the press have been jumping on this a little too aggressively, hoping to spark some outrage.