Phil Jacobsen: noone knows what its lyke to be the misspeller behind blew eyes

June 17, 2006

noone knows what its lyke to be the misspeller behind blew eyes

Midwinter in Antarctica is as big as Christmas (please don't burn your Beatles Albums over this statement--I just mean we really celebrate the Winter's Solstice with an extra day off, a big dinner and formal attire).

For this Midwinter I am putting together a newspaper for our community. What originally was planned to be a two page newsletter for McMurdo, has turned into a 26 page Newspaper called The Shadow

It has taken up a lot of my time with little available to update my blog. That being the case, here is a blast from the past, a story written the last occasion I was down here over the Winter.

noone knows what its like to be the misspeller behind blew eyes

There is a name for people who stay the winter in Antarctica, we call ourselves "Winter Overs." I don't know if "winter overs" is supposed to be one word or two. Maybe it's spelled "winterovers." Come to think of it, maybe we're just called "Winter Over." As in, "The reason my skin is whiter than snow and you're able to see my blue blood veins running through my body is because I'm over winter." In other words, I suppose, Winter Over is preferable to "Freak Show."

As for the moniker "Winter Over" being capitalized or in all lowercase, this is anybody's Guess.

Many, several or quite some years ago a group of smart people studied the effects of wintering over in Antarctica. They found conclusive, undeniable proof that after staying six to nine months in the cold and dark and isolation of Antarctica, the average person will lose 12-18% percent of their short-term memory.

Or, maybe, it was only 9% of the short-term memory and they gained 12-18 pounds, for some reason I don't remember. But, what I do know with 82-88% accuracy is Antarctica is inhabited by a bunch of people who don't remember how to spell. I wanted to call these people "Misspellers," but MS Word said, "Misspellers" isn't a word.

Word to Bill Gates.

Words that use to come easily, words that used to roll off the tongue, now get stuck, jumbled and connected on my computer keyboard. With spell check most of the problems are quickly taken care of, but it's frustrating to type and to have common words get the dreaded red underline of MS Word.

"What do you mean?" I look on in disbelief at my computer screen, "Since when did "truckdriver" become two words? Why isn't "misspeller" a word? And when did it become improper to use two negatives in one sentence? This is not something I'll never be happy with.

The other night I was hanging out with my social group and conversation turned to spelling, lack of spelling and words we no longer know how to spell. It was a relief to hear other people were having the same issues. We all admitted to using a dictionary for words like, "onomatopoeia," "paleontology," or "blue," but the common words that we should know these were the ones that drove us the battiest.

"For instance," I said, "No one knows how much wine I've had to drink tonight, how do you spell 'no one?' Is 'noone' one word like 'anyone,' 'someone' or 'anybody' or is 'no one' two words, like 'truck driver,' 'spell check' or 'Inter Net'?"

The first person who took a crack at trying to spell no one, suffice it to say was wrong, because there is no silent "K" in Know One. Joe was certain that "no one" was two words, but someone else was adamant it was one. Neither one of them ranked their surety at over 75%.

One of my friends recently had a letter printed in his hometown "letters to the editor" column, so I figured this published author would certainly know how to spell such a simple word, "No one," he said, "Is two words."

"Are you certain," I asked.

"No," he said. "But, I'm at least 80% sure."

I canvassed the Coffee House, interrupting conversations and imposing this line of questioning on other people's conversations.

"No one," I'd say, "Is it one word or two."

Get this, everyone had an opinion, but no one was able to commit 100% to the spelling of such a simple word.

Finally I found a Scrabble player and she stood by her answer one hundred percent, "No one is two words," she said. "Otherwise it would be pronounced 'nooney' or 'none.' That's why I'm a hundred percent certain. However, since this is my second winter in Antarctica, I know there are a lot of times when I'm 100% certain and it turns out I'm 100% wrong. The wires get crossed here. I've seen it happen, maybe it's happening now. But, I am 100% certain 'no one' is two words."

By this time a dictionary was found on the shelf next to the least played game in Antarctica, Boggle, and we, a group of people who are well read, educated and in the dark, looked up the word 'no one' in the dictionary.

"It's two words," the person who we most trusted most with knowing how to work the intricacies of a dictionary, said.

"Okay," then I asked "'A lot,' one word or two."

"I'm 100% certain," this same dictionary holder said, "alot is one word."

Posted by phil at June 17, 2006 02:08 AM

Comments

I don't know you, but I just wanted to let you know that I love your blog. It is probably the most fascinating blog I read. Really!! Almost makes me want to go to Antarctica....but I'd really just rather read about it.

Posted by: Brooke on June 17, 2006 04:19 AM

No one is two words, only because noone looks like it would pronounced noon. Nobody and anyone is one word, because there's no problem pronouncing those. Your 26 page newspaper is gonna be great, I'm sure!

Posted by: Miss Cellania on June 17, 2006 11:34 AM

Dude. I totally beat you at shuffleboard last night. Who's the boob now?!? Oh and the paper rocked even though one of the word search items was "Benwearspanties." I almost called you at midnight last night when I found out about that, but I thought that it might not be worth waking you up if it was the other Ben that you were talking about. I'm sure that it was as I don't wear panties.

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