I was simply trying to teach somebody few basic computer wordprocessing skills, how the grammar and spell checker in Microsoft Word is used in constructing a basic and comprehensible sentence, how it behaves when it encounters a wrongly-spelled word or an erroneous sentence.
I was not really thinking of anything in particular but out came the first letters I typed, an ‘f’ and an ‘e’, and I finished it off with ‘er’, thus creating a word which is a misspelling of ‘fear’. The software immediately recognized the error in spelling and showed a red line below the word. Then to demonstrate how the grammar checker works, I continued making a sentence and this is what I wrote, “Feer are what you don’t need.” Again, the software knew the error and showed a green line below ‘are’.
Yup, software applications are designed to be more intuitive and user-friendly nowadays, just like running easy back ground back ground check software for pre-employment screening. Anyway, after making the necessary corrections, I was able to teach my student how both the spelling and grammar can be checked and corrected with the software.
But that was not the only thing that’s on my mind. Aside from orienting somebody with MS Word, there was something else that struck me. I was wondering how in the world I chose ‘fear’ to prove my point, considering there are so many words to choose from the English dictionary. Was it a subconscious effort or simply a random one? At least the sentence completed had a subtle way of telling me something.
But my mind immediately came up with more questions. Am I in fear these days? Are the things I’m presently concerned about responsible for bringing up some apprehension within? If another person was to be given the word ‘fear’ and complete it in a sentence, how will he go about it? How about you?