To Spell Check or Not To Spell Check
by 
Ken Bushnell

     As the pace of the information age heats up there is 
a low level debate going on as to whether or not we 
should invest time spell checking and generally proofing 
our material before we show it to others. The two 
factions have viable arguments. On the one hand, we 
invest time developing ideas, projects, programs, and 
what have you, with the feeling it's important to get the 
information out quickly rather than polish it and dote 
over it. On the other hand we have the purists, who may 
be right in that anything worth reading has been fully 
prepared and well crafted by its creators. Even though 
the non purists are fond of using the modifier 
`retentive' to describe the purist's intentions, a 
glaring example was set forth almost two hundred years 
ago when Lewis and Clark returned from their expedition 
of discovery looking for the northwest passage. History 
has recorded Clark, who was responsible for keeping the 
log books, to be a `notoriously' bad speller. Actually 
the events that occurred may be familiar to all of us and 
might have gone something like this:

Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and the Corps of 
Discovery are in St. Louis making last minute 
preparations for their trip before starting up the 
Missouri River. They're inspecting the keelboats, or at 
least Lewis is. Clark is tying a fly (fishing). Lewis 
reaches into a duffel bag. "What's this?" He inquires of 
Clark holding up a heavy looking book.

"A dictionary," Clark responds.

Lewis is adamant. "I thought we agreed we wouldn't bring 
anything extra."

"That's right." Clark was a bit of an antagonist.

"Well then, what's," he lifts it up and down a couple of 
times estimating the weight, "a four pound book doing in 
this duffel bag?"

"I couldn't find a three pounder?" Clark turns away as he 
says it, adding a note of sarcasm.

"I realize I asked you to be my co-captain on this 
venture, but you know the President appointed me, so I 
have to remind you of my orders: no extras, only the 
essentials." Lewis starts to throw the dictionary in the 
water.

"Wait a minute." Clark stands up and grabs it. They're 
both holding onto it. "That's a two dollar book." Lewis 
relinquishes his grasp.

"Two dollars. Two dollars. Lewis starts to turn red. "You 
spent two dollars on a book just before you were going on 
a journey, and a dangerous one at that."

"I didn't buy it. You did. Or I mean the Corps did. I put 
it on the expense account."

Lewis is now ready to explode. Fuming mad he advances and 
grabs the book from Clark's hand. "You, you..." He could 
barely get the words out. "You are going to return this."

"Why?" Clark, always the cool headed one, was egging him 
on.

"Look Will. Up to now we've been pretty good friends. But 
I get the feeling you've been dogging me all the way. 
First there was that fiasco with the folding boat. [Lewis 
had invented a folding canoe giving instructions to have 
it manufactured under Clark's guidance] I told you what I 
wanted, but no, you had to get in there with the black 
smith and make a few changes. Did I care? Did I complain? 
No! But we got our boat, and only two months late because 
of your `expertise'." He added as much mockery as he 
could to the last word. "And what about the beads? I told 
you blue beads. [the Indians preferred trading blue beads 
because they had no natural dye for that color. ] Lots of 
them. But did you listen. No, you got a good deal on red. 
Okay, okay, but if you keep giving me trouble, friendship 
or no friendship, I'm going to have to exercise my 
authority. Is that clear?"

"Authority. What authority?" Clark was getting wound up. 
"Ever since we started this mission you've been acting 
like you're King George, or something. You give me a 
list, and not a very good list, to go to Hubbell and get 
supplies. It says beads, I got you some beads. It didn't 
say anything about blue beads."

"Okay. So I didn't write it down. Do I have to write 
everything down? I told you blue beads because that's 
what Jefferson said the natives would like. Do you 
remember?" Lewis was trying to mend the rift.

Clark knew the tone. "Yea. I guess. Blue beads, sure. But 
I forgot, in the heat of moment, and there was a good 
deal on red beads, from China. I just thought, what the 
heck; Red, blue, white, what's the difference?"

"It doesn't matter now, but this dictionary, I'm going to 
send it back and you can have it when we get there."

"No way. No way Meri. We need that book. You don't want 
us to look like idiots who can't spell do you? Your 
name's going to be on this thing too. Jefferson asked you 
to keep a record of everything. I can draw maps so you 
put me in charge of the log books and I want to take this 
dictionary. You don't think I'm going to ask you 
everytime I think something's spelled wrong, do you? What 
about Colter? [A fellow discoverer] Do you think he can 
spell? I don't even know if he can read? Look. I don't 
know about you, but I have to look things up. I'm not 
much of a reader. Besides you know I never went to any of 
those fancy schools."

"York's a pretty good speller, isn't he?" Lewis was 
trying another tact.

"My man servant? [Clark was talking about a family slave, 
who he'd grown up with and now was joining him on the 
expedition.] Oh, yea sure. But I try not to let him know 
he's better than me, that way. I got to keep discipline 
and all, you know."

"Look Will. How's this? You don't want to portage this 
thing around the next set of falls we encounter, or carry 
it up some big mountain do you? That's when you're going 
to be glad that we aren't carrying extra weight. So how 
about if I send it back with Hopkins and when we get back 
you can go over the journals and check the spelling then, 
in the comfort of your own home?"

"Well, I guess. That makes sense. But I thought we were 
going to hire natives to help us carry stuff around the 
falls." Clark was hesitant.

"I'll help you check the spelling when we get back." 
Lewis threw in the deal maker.

"Okay. You're right. We can do this thing together." 
Clark gets up, puts his arm around Lewis, pulls him in 
for a hug and grinds a knuckle into his ribs, kiddingly. 
"Pals?"

"Oh all right, Pals," Lewis responds.

Clark reaches into the same duffel bag and pulls out 
another book. "Here! It was a two volume set."

All's well that ends well except we know the road to bean 
town is paved with good intentions. When Clark got back, 
Jefferson, who was maybe the most prolific reader of his 
time, was anxious to read about the journey, so he asked 
for the journals directly. He wanted to read every word.

We can only imagine what happened when Clark reported to 
the President. "Here are the journals," Clark enters the 
presidents office. He is hurried because he's a little 
late and is juggling a stack of books or in this case 
journals.

"Marvelous. Marvelous. Did you have a nice trip?" 
Jefferson waited for his response. "Just kidding. Just 
kidding. Captain Lewis sent message back from Wood River 
when you guys landed."

"Yes sir. I just wanted to point out we lost some of the 
journals coming down the Missouri. Also I haven't had a 
chance to go over them and check the spelling and all. It 
was no party, you know, trying to write things down in 
the mud, rain, with mosquitos, wild animals, and Indians 
attacking. There were times when I was lucky to get 
anything down on paper at all."

"I understand." Jefferson starts paging through the 
journals. "I thought you were going to tell me the dog 
ate them." Again the President waits for his response.

"As soon as I can I will try to reconstruct the ones we 
lost."

"Yes, yes. That'll be good. And don't forget the speech 
you and Meriwether are going to give next week when the 
House gets together. Oh, and that Indian affairs 
position, I need an answer by next week as well." 
Jefferson keeps heaping the work on. "You don't mind if I 
have my scribe make copies of some of these passages do 
you? There are some people I'd like to show them to."

"No, no. Copies? Please." Clark is thinking about 
something else. "Oh the speech. I forgot about the 
speech. Thanks for reminding me. I better start writing 
it. I've also got to take care of some things for the 
farm. Can you give me a couple of more days on that 
appointment? I don't know where I'm going to find the 
time."

And so we leave Clark trying to find time as his schedule 
gets busier and busier with his knew found celebrity. He 
never did get the time to correct his original journals. 
History books later went on to recall Clark to be a 
`notoriously' bad speller. The question is: would you 
rather have had a perfectly manicured document or a 
detailed record of one of the greatest sagas of the 
American West? We now have unique insight. In this modern 
information age we know you can get too busy. So why 
bother to spell check? History is just going to repeat 
itself.


The End

copyright 2000 Ken Bushnell

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