Cody Boisclair writes:
After reading the "Mike Hoecake vs. Barrack Boatman" post on Language Log from a few days ago, I decided to run the presidential candidates' names through Mac OS X's built-in spell checker and then Google for the results, just for the fun of it.
In the Democratic corner, we have Barrack Abeam. All the rest of the Dem candidates are either recognized by OS X, or in the case of Kucinich, not close enough to any dictionary words to produce a replacement.
The Republican side, however, is far more interesting, with candidates such as Mitt Romany, Rudy Gillian, and Mike Hackable.
And last, but definitely not least, John Moccasin.
Alas, that last one turns up too many *legitimate* Google hits and not enough Cupertinos...
But "Senator John Moccasin" does get one hit. And there are Cupertino-rich lists like this one, which includes Bark Baa and Dennis Puccini as well as Mike Huckabuck, John Moccasin, Mitt Romany and (my favorite) Tom Accrued:
You can support Ron Paul, a smaller government and promote self-responsibility, or you can wallow in huge tax increases by voting for the members of the Status Quo. That list includes Joe Bidden, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Al Gore, Mike Gravel, Dennis Puccini, Bark Baa, Bill Richardson, Sam Blowback, Jim Gilmore, Newt Ginger, Rudy Gillian, Chuck Hegel, Mike Huckaback, Duncan Hunter, John Moccasin, George Attack, Mitt Romany, Tom Accrued and Tommy Thompson.
Searching for {john moccasin mitt romany} also turns up a column by Steve Bouser, "Overly Helpful Spellcheck Strikes Again", The Pilot, 11/27/2007, which documents the preferences of the "the Spellcheck program in [his] newsroom computer system, NewsEditPro".
Nationally, it's a hot political year for both parties. On the Republican side, to hear Spellcheck tell it, Rude Giuliani is trying to maintain his lead against challengers like Mitt Romany, John Moccasin, Joe Bidet and Rot Paul. Dunce Hunter has dropped out. It's a wide-open field since Vice President Dick Cheyenne -- who, oddly hails from Wyoming -- is not in the running.
In the Democratic primary race, Spellcheck-immune John Edwards is joined by Barracks Abeam, Dents Kucinich and Chris Dodo in challenging front-runner Hillary Clifton. (Don't ask me why Spellcheck has heard of the name Clifton but not Clinton.)
NewsEditPro seems to have left traces of its curious preferences here and there on the web, such as Dr. Rot Paul in this letter to the editor at the Moultrie Observer:
There is only one candidate who I can trust to enforce our constitution. That is Dr. Rot Paul. His voting record will show him to be a true patriot. He makes no promises of welfare or health care. No promises of amnesty or free welfare to the illegal aliens. The only thing he has promised is to enforce the constitution.
Or Sen. Chris Dodo in this CNN transcript:
SEN. CHRIS DODO, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We're not getting the full story, hence the reason why there should be an investigation.
Considering the propensity of spellcheckers to revise the names of the current crop of candidates, it's surprising that there aren't more campaign cupertinos on the web.
[Update from Cody:
I just realized that I forgot to spell-check Chris Dodd, who comes out of Apple's spelling checker as "Chris Odd".
]
Posted by Mark Liberman at January 12, 2008 07:52 AM