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(U) Write Right: Spell-check: The Double-Edged Sword
FROM:
of the Reporting Board (S12A)
Run Date: 09/13/2004
(U) This is the first of a new monthly column, "Write Right." It will
provide tips for writing better reports.
(U) If you want to provide hours of entertainment for your
colleagues, just run spell-check on your composition (be it a
product report, memo, agency-all announcement -- anything with
a broad audience) and then send it out without a final
proofreading. NSANet's bandwidth use will spike as your writing is
clipped and forwarded around the world with comments like "I
should think they would be 'Sorry for the incontinence'!" (That
one's a classic, and still occurs from time to time.) Product reports
that describe provincial governments building a bride, ministers
making sure their constituents get the massage, alerts to failed
assignation attempts, vacancy announcements that call for
personnel with duel skill sets...who doesn't have folders full of
these goofs?
SERIES:
(U) Write Right '04
1. Write Right : Spellcheck: The DoubleEdged Sword
2. Write Right : Don't
Change 'Happy' to
'Glad'
3. Write Right : Is That
Adjective or Adverb
Really Necessary?
(U) But seriously, folks, unintended humor isn't the only
consequence of overreliance on your spell-checker. We have in our
files an executive weekly highlights in which all the POC lines
contain common nouns, because someone kept hitting the spellchecker's "Correct" button withÂout looking. We also have product
reports that give the opposite impression of what was intended,
because "now" was substituted for "not," and "viz." for "vice." As
Mark Twain said, the difference between the right word and the
almost right word is the difference between lightning and lightning
bug.
(U) Granted, once you've rewritten a piece several times, it's
harder and harder to proofread it, and when your eye catches no
misspelled words (because you've used that handy tool), it's easy
to relax and hit Send . Make a deal with your co-workers; you'll
cast a final eye over their writing if they'll do the same for you.
Avoid inclusion in the NSA bloopers e-mail alias!
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid_comms)."
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DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108