Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

How Spellcheckers Wreak Havoc. Though the algorithms behind spellcheckers are constantly improving, it's unlikely they'll ever be infallible, which is alright with me, because the Cupertino effect is up there with Eric Cartman and funny monkey videos as a time-tested humor-producer. This type of error is called the Cupertino effect because an old version of spell-check (in Word 97) used to offer Cupertino—the name of a northern California city that is home to Apple—as the first suggestion to replace the word cooperation, which in British English is supposed to have a hyphen.