>>From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
>>>Carl Remick wrote:
>>
>>>[Good piece, afirming we are a long way now from Reagan's "Morning
>>>in America." BTW, whatever happened to editing? NB, first graf
>>>below, the egregious "high watermark of western moral virtue,"
>>>which should be "high-water mark" so the reference is to a flood
>>>level, not stationery.]
>>
>>Bears the non-water mark of a spell checker.
>>
>>Doug
>
>I take that as a reference to the easily avoidable "afirming." I
>was dismayed but not surprised to see that right after hitting the
>send button. This isn't the first time I've made a typo while
>making some persnickety grammatical point. I'm sure Dr. F would
>have much to say about this odd behavior :)
No, I was referring to your original complaint. It's possible that the original was "high water mark," and the spellchecker helpfully suggested that "water mark" should be one word, and the editor unthinkingly accepted it. The WSJ banned the use of spellcheckers a few months ago because of the risk of producing idiocies like that.
Doug