From 'collage' to 'Amercia' to Scripps, spelling grabs the national spotlight
Snigdha Nandipati, 14, celebrates winning the 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee with her grandfather, Mallikarjanrao Chalavadi. Her winning word was "guetapens."
"Sorry for my spelling I didn't go to collage!"
That sentence trended on Twitter throughout the week as the country watched children compete at the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Some Twitter users were trying to be ironic -- others admitted they thought college was spelled that way.
Mike Bengtson, an environmental issues major at Salisbury University, believes that technology nearly wipes out the need to know proper spelling.
"We all have autocorrect or spellcheck," Bengtson said. "Very few documents are hand written anymore."
Neither of those tools helped the developers of GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney's iPhone app after the recent launch included an error that created a Web frenzy. The now infamous “Amercia” typo continues to provide entertainment for social media sites, bloggers and talk shows.
Stephen Colbert performed a unique version of America the Beautiful on The Colbert Report and joked that Romney's gaffe improved his odds of clenching the presidency of “Amercia” if America doesn't work out.
Tech tools to prevent spelling errors are not infallible. Yet nearly everyone -- from political candidates to college students -- trust them to correct errors.
David Berger, a history major at Rutgers University in Newark, is disappointed that students are so dependent on spelling aids that they don't care about knowing the correct form themselves.
“Spelling and grammar are a lost art,” Berger said. “Smart phones exist and people still fail.”
Samantha Vogelsang, an advertising major at the University of Alabama, said she rarely uses spellcheck but that it is sometimes necessary to keep up with the demands of school.
“We're in college now, we're being judged on a whole new level,” she said. “Theories, footnotes, shades of meaning, nuances, spelling! Where does it end?”
Vogelsang said there shouldn't be any shame on students that depend on tools to improve their academic performance.
“Relying on autocorrect isn't bad -- it's how you learn through mistakes,” Vogelsang said. “You don't teach a 5-year-old SAT words.”
Lisa Maria Garza is a Summer 2012 Paste BN Collegiate Correspondent. Learn more about her here.
This story originally appeared on the Paste BN College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.