英語文化隨身帶

Is your spelling accurate? That’s the question being

asked by a British charity[慈善機構] this week.

Mencap注 claim that a new generation of people

cannot spell， as they rely on their computer’s auto-correct function far too much.

In a survey， the charity found that 65% of people could not spell the word “necessary” without making a mistake. Three quarters of respondents[答復者] also believed they were very good at spelling.

According to the charity， computers often provide imperfect results and lead to grammatical errors. They highlighted the word “manifest[表明，證明]，” which is sometimes verified by computer’s spell-check， and then replaced by the word “manipulate[操縱].” The spelling may be exact，

but the computer is trying to guess the correct meaning of the sentence. Imprecise spelling can also lead to disadvantage in the workplace. Misspelt words on a CV[簡歷] can reflect badly on a person’s attitude and character.

The charity is now holding a “Spellathon” championship in which competitors are asked to carefully spell words out loud. The hope is that if people recite the spelling of words from memory， it will encourage others to check their own spelling.

Critics have warned that simply blaming technology for bad spelling is unfair and does not

address[提出] the real educational reasons for the decline in spelling standards. So how meticulous are you with your spelling? Can you spell words such as “definitely” or “accidentally” with ease?

你的拼寫準確嗎？英國一個慈善機構在本周提出了這個問題。

“門卡普”機構說新一代人無法拼寫，因為他們過度依賴電腦的自動查錯功能。

在一項調查中，該慈善機構發現65%的人無法準確拼出“necessary”（必需的）一詞。四分之三的回復者還認為自己的拼寫水平不錯。

該慈善機構認為，電腦經常給出不準確的結果，從而導致語法錯誤。他們特別舉了

“manifest”（證明）這個例子：這個詞有時會被電腦的拼寫檢查檢出，然后以“manipulate”（操縱）代替。拼寫也許正確，然而電腦要猜的是句子的正確意思。不準確的拼寫還會導致職場劣勢。例如簡歷上拼錯的單詞反映了一個人的態度不好，性格也有問題。

該機構正在舉行一項名為“拼寫馬拉松”的錦標賽，要求參賽者認真地將單詞大聲拼讀出。他們希望，如果人們能夠通過記憶背出單詞的拼法，將鼓勵其他人檢查自己的拼寫。

評論家告誡我們，把糟糕的拼寫全部歸罪于科技并不公平，也無法找出真正的教育理由以防止拼寫標準的不斷下滑。你對自己的拼寫有信心嗎？你能輕而易舉地拼出“definitely”（明確地）或“accidentally”（意外地）等詞嗎？