While I write this, the spell-check function in Microsoft Word will indignantly underline President-elect Barack Obama's name until I concede to referring to him as a building for lodging soldiers.
Well, I'm not giving in that easily.
Both the words "Barack" and "Obama" appear above squiggly red lines in Word documents. The question is: ... really?
Obama is probably one of the most-typed names of the year - by media, by legislators, by DogChannel.com, a Web site dedicated to pet lovers and discussing what kind of puppy Obama should bring to the White House.
Isn't it about time for Microsoft to recognize?
Some Internet surfing has led me to discover that I'm not the first person to notice this quirk of editing fate. Obama's official Web site has a blog by Debra Mattson of Oakland, Calif., who wrote last year that when she noticed Microsoft's foible, she contacted the company.
The first suggestion offered for Obama's last name is "Osama," which probably does not need much articulation for why that is just ... wrong. Mattson wrote a letter explaining this to Bill Gates on Oct. 2, 2007, and carbon-copied it to the San Francisco Chronicle and the Oakland Tribune.
Little more than two weeks later, Jimmy wrote her back.
"Jimmy," Response Management Escalation Specialist for the Microsoft Corporation, as the letter was signed, said the issue had been resolved through installing a "hot fix" in both Office 2003 and Office 2007. He noted the fixes might need testing, but the 2007 Office service pack, which is a scheduled automatic update, would definitely take care of the problem.
It's 2008, and of the 20 to 25 different computers on which I've used the newest Microsoft Office, Barack Obama is still subjected to the squiggles. ("Squiggles," by the way, is not squiggled.)
Mattson wrapped up her blog entry describing how she was proud she had made a difference. It was a message indicative of the one adopted by the man she wrote the letter for, she said. "Together, if we believe, this can happen for us all," she wrote.
Sorry Mattson. It looks like Jimmy let us down.
Any time a previously unrecognized word has gained popularity - "Google," "crunk" and "Sudoku," to name a few - wordsmith tools such as Merriam-Webster dictionary have taken heed. (Obama is an official entry).
Yes, a downloadable update is available on the Microsoft Web site for those of us who have the time and patience to make our Word documents politically correct.
The implications of Microsoft not following through with this update on its own, though, are unfriendly. The other 43 presidents are in the club. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is squiggle-free.
Yet my spellchecker still asks me if I'm sure if I don't want to switch "Obama" to "Osama," the name of the man associated with the Sept. 11 attacks.
Yes, squiggle monster, I'm sure.
