Spell Bound

Some days it's just to, I mean too, too, much.

The first time my kindergarten class recited the alphabet I got myself into a panic, not remembering (or knowing?) the "em-a-nem-a-pee" sequence. Not too likely to make that mistake again.

Typos learned to jump from page to pupils. Over twelve years of parochial school, including three years of Latin, I became a human spellcheck.  Couple decades after that I subscribed to Business Week for two years. This was during the run-up to the Enron mess, when real journalists were asking the right questions and getting the actual story, each one bookended by top-level denials. Great writing, and a delightful read! All the information was right there, written expertly by folks who brought the unfolding drama to me week after week. Yeah, they're generating electricity in California, moving it out of state, and then re-selling it to California at a hugely inflated price. But they say they're not doing it. Nothing stranger than the truth!

It took 2-3 hours every week to digest the entire magazine, and when the term was up I reclaimed that time for another pursuit. Yet out of all those words, there were only about a couple dozen typos. A real admirable job.

 Too much. Too, too much.