APPLES FOR HIPPOS

Am I a traditionalist of some sort, for believing software and phones and laptops should not have auto-correct? I hope not, but to be honest, I have absolutely NO idea... but probably.

Even so, I do know I'm not alone. It just seems that everything we do in our modern, uber-connected, ultra-fast environment, has to be accomplished at breakneck speed.

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We have fast food, fast cars, high speed gadgets, fast-track qualifications and a multitude of other things we have artificially accelerated to provide us with more "me time".

Auto-correct just allows us to do "fast writing" and potentially ignore the more important errors we often make.

But... I have a much bigger bug to swat...

Text messaging really has done its utmost to destroy the written word. No longer do our youth place any importance on the ability to actually spell a word. After all, why would you want to bother learning how to spell "received" with all it's complex "i" and "e" rules, when you more frequently type "rcvd"...? ... What happened to the vowels? In most cases, those typing the text really don't care.

"See you later" is suddenly "cu l8r"... "Before" is "b4"... I mean, it's like a game of battleships for the orthographically challenged!

(Oh, sorry. For all you under 30s out there, "orthography" is the study of spelling. Yes! Seriously! People actually study spelling... or, they used to, anyway!)

Now then, where was I... texting... so...

A little while back I was doing some edits for a young author. Nothing taxing, just a bit of a skim-through after the third lot of changes had been made.

He had sent the document in Word format, attached to an e-mail with a message and his usual sign-off

Apples for Hippos,

Chris.

It's just one of those phrases that I've become used to and it often makes me smile for no reason... and I figured it was something he typed as some form of obscure endearment... either that or some personal insult and I was too thick to see it.

In fact, it was only very recently that I actually realised what "Apples for Hippos" really meant, and the realisation was prompted from a totally unrelated source.

In one of my many roles, I work with an Under 16s regional rugby team, and within this role, I converse almost constantly with a variety of others on a variety of topics.

On a recent e-mail sent by one of my volunteer colleagues on his phone, he had placed a little post script, and although this was something I had seen a number of times on his messages and replies, a few weeks ago the familiarity of it hit me.

I immediately e-mailed my young author and asked if 'Apples for Hippos' was related to this phrase... and it was!

(Okay... I've got you thinking now, haven't I)

I'm sure a few of the astute ones amongst you might have worked it out by now, but this was his reply (copied and pasted).

Bry,

You're kidding me, right? Never mind. It's a quick story.

Sending a text on a very old Nokia a couple of years ago. Made a total pigs arse of the message, so at the end I put an apologetic PS.

Unfortunately managed to hit the wrong buttons again and ended up sending a crap message full of gobbledygook.

Reply came back a few minutes later in the form of a phone call. The first words from my mate were, "What's with the APPLES FOR HIPPOS comment?"

I quickly re-read the rubbish I had sent and realised that I had signed off "P.S. Apls fr hypos" instead of "P.S. Apols for typos".

It stuck. I've used it intentionally ever since.

I have to admit I was very amused and surprised I had not seen it before. Nevertheless, for me, there's just no substitute for proper spelling.