By James Conlon
Question:
What do Arnold Schoenberg, Edouard Manet, Francois Rene Chateaubriand and Titus Andronicus have in common?
Answer:
My spell-check doesn’t recognize their names.
About eighteen months ago, bending under a barrage of criticism and pressure to start tweeting, I began. Entering the world of social media was not my thing. Remarks like “Get with it, Dad!” were the last straw.
I called my friend and colleague Esa-Pekka Salonen, who was already a tweeter, to ask how it worked. His presence on Twitter lent the whole thing some respectability. He was very helpful and, feeling slightly more comfortable and marginally less embarrassed, I proceeded.
A short time ago I saw one of his tweets, which are highly imaginative and invariably humorous. He recounted that he had entered the word “Sudafed” in some text he was writing, and his spell-check corrected it to “Dudamel” (because, I suppose, the auto-correct on Esa-Pekka’s device had “learned” the word Dudamel and was helpfully “assuming” his true intent…).
I am constantly astonished at what my spell-check doesn’t recognize. It was certainly not created with classical music or musicians in mind. I started to collect examples, like artifacts. After reading Esa-Pekka’s tweet, I decided to share some of my findings. I offer:
AN ABC OF AUTO-CORRECTION (only the tip of an iceberg):
The composer is on the left (you knew that) and the suggested alternative on the right.
ADES HADES
BERLIOZ BELIZE
BRITTEN BRITTANY (AS IN FRANCE)
BRUCKNER TRUCKER
COPLAND SCOTLAND
DVORAK DORKS
FAURE FARCE
GERSHWIN GEARSHIFT
HINDEMITH HINDERMOST/INDEMNITY
IBERT LIBERTY
JANACEK JAMAICA
KORNGOLD CORNFIELD
LUTOSLAWSKI GLUTTONS/LOUTS
MILHAUD MILKMAID
ORFF DOFF/RUFF
PROKOFIEV PORKPIE/PUFF
RACHMANINOFF RANCHMAN/DRACHMA
SALONEN SALOON
SCHOENBERG SCHEMER/SCORNER/SCHOONER
TAKAMITSU STALAGMITES/THALAMUS
ULLMANN MULLIGAN/SULLIVAN
VARESE OVARIES
WEILL DWELL/SWELL
XANAKIS ANTACIDS/HANKIES
YSAYE SAUTE/SPAYED
ZWILICH ZILCH/ZIPLOC
I guess classic music hasn’t quite made it yet. But neither have Matisse , Manet, Van Gogh, Pissaro, Toulouse-Lautrec.
I need a Sudafed!
JAMES CONLON COLON/COLONY/COLOGNE