Palin isn't in MS Word's dictionary (and neither was Obama)

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

I'm not sure how these folks' spell-checkers work, but mine is not updated 
daily from Microsoft Central--it is stored in my computer. So if I want to add 
"Palin," I can. But I would be very unhappy if Microsoft cookied their way into 
my computer to "update" my spellchecker!

By the way, my MS spellchecker did not come with "Hickenlooper" in it, 
either, and he is mayor of a much more populous city than all of Alaska--and Bourke 
C. Hickenlooper was one of the two senators from Iowa throughout my boyhood. 

In a message dated 10/2/08 4:03:16 PM, gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM writes:


> -----
> PALIN ISN'T IN THE WORD DICTIONARY
> ...
> 
> Earlier in the year we started getting messages accusing Microsoft of
> a right-wing bias. The reason? When you typed 'Obama' into Microsoft
> Word (and Hotmail) was marked as an incorrect spelling - worse the
> suggested 'correct' spelling was 'Osama'. This has beenfixed though it
> took Microsoft a surprisingly long time to sort it out.
> 
> Now it's coming from the other end of the political spectrum. A few
> Office Watchers have been writing along these lines:
> 
> "Microsoft Word doesn't know how to spell 'Palin' as in the name of
> the next Vice-President of the USA. To add insult the corrections are
> either 'Pain' or 'Plain'. Why hasn't Microsoft fixed this? Do they
> want to add to the slurs against this fine woman?" - Jeremy J from
> Michigan
> 
> Jeremy is right that 'Palin' isn't recognized in Word 2007 but at the
> risk of getting into a political battle - there is no way that
> Microsoft is engaging in any bias or attempted slur. Let's all take a
> deep breath folks. There's neither conspiracy nor political bias here,
> it's just Microsoft Word working as it should.
> 
> If MS Word detects a word not in its dictionaries, it will flag it
> with the now-familiar red squiggly line. If you ask for suggested
> spellings the program will look for dictionary words that have similar
> spellings - in the case of 'Palin' the suggestions are: Plain, Paling,
> Pain, Palling and "Pal in" in Word 2007.
> 
> ...
> 
> Other US state governor names like Rell (R-Connecticut), Crist (R-
> Florida), Minner (D-Delaware) and Beshear (D-Kentucky) don't make the
> Word 2007 dictionary. Governor Palin wasn't omitted deliberately -
> clearly being a US Governor isn't sufficient, of itself, to join the
> exalted ranks of MS Word dictionary listing <g>.
> 
> -----
> From the e-mail version of Office Watch. Full version supposedly at 
> http://news.office-watch.com/t/?a=691&z=12
>   (Google cache at http://tinyurl.com/3fruc2)
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> 
> 




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