Guys or Guise?

The grammarians out there are easily frustrated by this. Is anyone even able to answer the question, if asked: “is it guys or guise?” Gosh, I hope that most people out there can tell the difference.

The problem is that they are most certainly, two completely different words.

I am not the best with grammar, but spelling is usually pretty spot on (unless I am tired – or using voice to text.)

Homophones have, in my opinion, become a huge issue because of Siri and (more generically) voice-to-text.  Colloquialisms certainly don’t get fair representation either. They usually make matters much, much worse.

Automation is not necessarily helping us, is it?

Of course, I can also throw into the conversation that fact that auto-correct routinely “fixes” my already accurate spelling and phrasing. It is so frustrating in fact that it sometimes causes me to change the vocabulary for a word that cannot be spelled more ways than one.

Kids with dyslexia do that all the time, too.

It is wrong, but it is what must be done.

Wouldn’t you think that most people out there know the difference between guys or guise?  I don’t know if Siri can be held responsible, but I have definitely seen someone incorrectly use raise and raze – which are also not even close to meaning the same thing. That was pre-Siri and most certainly the fault of 1) a person and 2) Microsoft Word compounded by a failure (human error once again) to use grammar check. I am guessing that no one thought of homophones when programming a voice recognition software; can it even be done? I challenge it to be solved. Otherwise, we better hire more emoji translators, because that is where we might be headed.

~ Dawn aka Hat Girl

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