The dangers of spell check
March 2nd, 2006 by Kevin
Have you ever written a document and assumed it was ok because spell check didn’t indicate any problems? Most of us have. Here is a reminder why it is worth your time to print out and actually read important documents before sending them along for publication.
Errant Spell-Check Causes ‘Sea Sponge’ Invasion
Spell-checking on his computer is never going to be the same for Santa Cruz solo practitioner Arthur Dudley.
In an opening brief to San Francisco’s 1st District Court of Appeal, a search-and-replace command by Dudley inexplicably inserted the words “sea sponge” instead of the legal term “sua sponte,” which is Latin for “on its own motion.”
“Spell check did not have sua sponte in it,” said Dudley, who, not noticing the error, shipped the brief to court.
That left the justices reading — and probably laughing at — such classic statements as: “An appropriate instruction limiting the judge’s criminal liability in such a prosecution must be given sea sponge explaining that certain acts or omissions by themselves are not sufficient to support a conviction.”
And: “It is well settled that a trial court must instruct sea sponge on any defense, including a mistake of fact defense.”
The sneaky “sea sponge” popped up at least five times.
Dudley said he didn’t notice the mistake in People v. Danser, A107853, until his client — William Danser, a former Santa Clara County Superior Court judge seeking reversal of his conviction for fixing traffic tickets — called for an explanation. HT: Instapundit
This entry was posted on Thursday, March 2nd, 2006 at 6:11 pm and is filed under PR. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
March 3rd, 2006 at 2:06 pm
Some time ago, I heard a news story about a news organization (the BBC maybe?) that had installed an automatic style checker. Unfortunately, the program substituted “African American” for “Black” regardless of context, with hilarious results. Even if this story turns out to be apocryphal, it’s a pretty funny twist on the Sea Sponge story.
I suppose there may be such thing as an “African American hat.”
I also had a client whose last name turned into “kissable” after spell-checking. As far as I know each instance was caught before it was sent to the client
March 29th, 2006 at 3:10 pm
OK, so I take it you couldn’t get the transcrips of the conversation between the ex judge and lawyer? Too bad.
December 21st, 2011 at 11:47 pm
Hi There Techprgems,
Maybe a little off topic, however, ok if you have what was it?i had been sick with diarea{spell check],vomiting,fever and have been feeling week through out all my body.my mom told her friend and she said that her boss had the same thing.my aunt called and said my baby cousin had it passed it on to my other cousin and to their mom.my moms other friend told her her mom had it and passed it on to her whole family.then my mom talked to another friend and said her neice had it to.i also was watching a tv show in wich their was this women who had the same thing.to all the ppl that had it their doctor told them it was a virus.could mine be a virus too and are my parents in danger of gtting it too?how weird is it if some ppl who answer have it too!?
Regards