Obama/Osama Is Spellcheck's Fault!

Remember the news that Upstate New York's Rensselaer County mailed a few hundred absentee ballots with the name "Osama" instead of "Obama?"

It was spellcheck's fault! Or, as the Albany Times Union's headline puts it: "Blame the computer for the Obama-Osama goof, officials say."

A report released to the Legislature about the mistake said: ""This error may have been due to a spell-check function on the operating system of the computers utilized by the Board of Elections."

Here's a reasonable question: why rely on a spellcheck program to verify names? How many last names would the most up-to-date software recognize?

While my last name is recognized, most likely due to Casey Stengel, RNY's editor "Larry Norden" would become "Larry Noreen" if spellcheck had its way.

What would your name become?