Autocorrect. Spellcheck. Tab stops. Cut and paste. These are a few of the little things in word processing that are a mixed bag of blessings and curses. They may help us if we perpetually misspell โdiseaseโ but sometimes they may cause us to accidentally send a text to our mother to inform her that Dadโs hysterectomy went smoothly. I do most of my writing on my computer, and make regular notes on my iPhone, so I am constantly in a tussle with some smart technological device or other.
This includes the โFind and Replaceโ feature.
I only used this nugget of blessing once or twice in high school. I wasnโt very computer savvy, so most of my editing was accomplished with a printed copy, pencil, and eraser. Even now, I donโt have the feature quite figured out, except that I know itโs a tricky devil.
When I was working on Immortal Bond, my first novel, I spent the first few drafts trying to think of a decent name for the capital city and country of my setting. Until I decided on one, I just had the words โThe Capitalโ as a place holder. Onceย I decided on โCathair,โ I opened up the Find and Replace box and found and replaced. Thisย box has aย deceptively helpful looking button labeled, โReplace Allโ. (Beware the Replace All button people. Beware!) I smiled benevolently at it. How sweet, I thought. Some programmer is saving me time. I clicked. I printed.
Somehow, every time โThe Capitalโ was replaced with โCathairโ there was nowย anย odd spacing issue. A sentence that once might have said: โFather, I canโt wait to get to The Capital!โ, now said: โFather I cant wait to get toCathair !โ I scratched my head, and manually fixed every single one.
Since then Iโve been more cautious.
So the other night when I changed a characterโsย name for the third, and hopefully final, time I was sweating.
This character suspiciously looks and acts very much like a friend of mine. In my first drafts, this character even, veeeeery suspiciously, had the same name. Obviously this would not do, so I changed his name to Don.ย It didn’t work for me at all. So my husband and I have been trying to rename him. Last night I decided to try Nick on for size. When I opened the find and replace box, I groaned. There was over 350.
I whined to my husband, โThis is going to take forever.โ
He shrugged and took the laptop from me. โJust do this.โ The mouse hovered ominously over the โreplace allโ button. I squealedย like a wild boar and slapped his hand away.
โAre you MAD?โ I snapped. โD-O-N is in all kinds of words! Itโll turn all my โdonutsโ to โNickuts.โโ
โOoooh,โ he mouthed and began to play with the box. A few seconds later he smiled at me. โJust do this!โ He clicked a little checkbox that said, โwhole words.โ
I narrowed my eyes. โWhat will that do?โ
โWatch.โ He refreshed the box and the word count dropped by over 150. I turned my skeptical gaze to him.
โYou sure that worked?โ
โOf course.โย His confidence eased my mind. I let him hit the โreplace allโ button then kissed him affectionately.
โYouโre amazing!โ I said, then skipped off to shower while he set it up to print.
Shortly thereafter,ย I was holding the first printed copy of my second novel in my hands. Giddy as toddler with a mini drum set, I sat down to play with my second child. I flipped open to a random page. My face fell.
โTIMOTHY YOU NINNY-FOPPER!โ
Yes I did yell that for real. This is normal for me, for these are the names I call my husband. He did not respond. He was in the basement doing laundry. (See! How can I yell cuss names at a husband who does laundry without me even asking?)
He came up the stairs humming. I waited, patiently scowling at the door, until he stepped inside the bedroom. He saw my face and cocked his head at me.
โYou are a Ninny-fopper,โ I repeated, softer and with additional menace.
โWhy?โ
I motioned to him with one finger. He sat down beside me on the bed. I lifted my laptop onto my lap and opened the find and replace box. I typed the word โNickโtโ into the find section and got a little grey notification that said โ167 foundโ.
Every โdonโtโ in my story was now โNickโtโ.
Timothy proceeded to hug me and say โIโm sorryโ while simultaneously giggling. I changed all my โNickโtโs back to โdonโtโs in my document, but I refuse to print another copy. Save the trees and all that.
ยฉ Rachel Svendsen 2015
Hahaha!! Too funny ๐
LikeLiked by 1 person
So true. The d’efficiences of word processing. This happened to me too while writing a novel. I feel for you – cute anecdotes with your husband.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Reblogged this on Sacred Scars and commented:
I can relate to this story. I’ve used the “Replace All” many a time, sometimes with horrible results like this, sometimes with beautiful results.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks so much. ๐
LikeLike
Hahaha loved this, how awful! Thanks for the tip, I am in the process of changing names in my novel, I best start reading from scratch! Horror!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hahaha. Yes! Be careful of the modern day shortcut. They are the tricky ones. ๐
LikeLike
Lol. You two have such a cute relationship.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks Bro. ๐
LikeLike
Haha! Funny story!
I’ve been through the same thing. That’s why I never use Replace All anymore. What I’ll do is just use Find and inspect each highlighted word to make sure I want to change it before changing it. No matter how many words I have to manually inspect and change, I Nick’t do it any other way. ๐
LikeLiked by 1 person
HAHAHA! Love this comment. ๐ You made me smile big.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hahahaha, I completely understand! I once wrote an essay for my environmental science class and MS Word autocorrected “salinization” to “stalinization”! What?! Thank God I double-checked my essay before submission ๐ Liked the post! ๐
LikeLiked by 1 person
hahaha ๐
LikeLiked by 1 person