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The Spell Checker Poem
The Facts Behind "Candidate for a Pullet Surprise"

Nordquist, Richard
http://www.thoughtco.com/spell-checker-poem-by-mark-eckman-1692348

Publisher:  Thought Co.
Date Written:  06/04/2017
Year Published:  2017  
Resource Type:  Article

"The Spell Checker Poem." originally was composed in 1991, its first official appearance was in The Journal of Irreproducible Results in 1994. Since then, it has made its way around the Internet under various titles, including "Spell Checker Blues," "Owed to a Spelling Checker," and "Spellbound." Almost always the poem is attributed to Anonymous or, more playfully, "Sauce unknown."

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

Early in March 2007, Mark Eckman was kind enough to provide us with additional information about his role in creating the spell-checker poem. Back in 1991, when Mr. Eckman was working for AT&T, "e-mail was becoming a rage," he writes, "but it was also changing rapidly":

". . . Somehow the software discussion became two camps of thought. On one side was the marketing staff saying we should have a spelling checker in the software since most users of e-mail were not skilled typists.

On the polar opposite was the group that believed you should not be writing e-mails if you can't spell.

"After about two weeks of this give and take, I sent off the first two verses. My intent was to see if people would return to thinking rather than arguing, and after the ditty appeared in AT&T Today [a daily e-mail of news updates], the discussion came to a grinding halt.

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