Spell-check ruins my work. It fixes all my slang and dialect

Hear the lament of Ntozake Shange, poet of fire and song, who declared: “Spell-check ruins my work. It fixes all my slang and dialect into standard English. So I’m caught in a tangle of technology that feels very foreign to me.” These words, though bound to the age of machines, rise like an eternal cry for the freedom of the soul’s voice. She speaks for all who have ever wrestled against the chains of convention, who have sung in the tongue of their people only to find their melodies forced into the narrow pipe of rigid correctness.

The heart of her cry lies in the clash between authentic expression and standardization. For Shange, the slang and dialect she wielded were not mistakes but weapons of beauty, rooted in identity, history, and struggle. Yet the machine, blind to culture, sought to erase them, pressing every living phrase into the cold mold of uniform speech. What she felt as foreign was not simply technology itself, but the silent violence of erasure—the way it threatened to strip her voice of its uniqueness and bind it to a language that did not carry her soul.

The ancients, too, knew this struggle. Recall the Greeks who sought to impose their tongue upon conquered lands, believing their language to be the vessel of all wisdom. Yet in defiance, local poets and storytellers preserved their dialects, their rhythms, their songs, and in doing so, they preserved their identity. Consider also the Irish, whose Gaelic tongue was nearly erased by colonial power, yet who clung to it in poems and ballads until it surged again with pride. Shange’s protest is part of this same lineage: the defense of one’s living language against the iron hands of enforced conformity.

For language is not merely a tool; it is blood, memory, and rhythm. To write in dialect is to carry the voices of ancestors, to let their cadences breathe in the present. To write in slang is to capture the raw vitality of the street, the living pulse of now. When the machine—whether colonial ruler or spell-check program—demands that such living speech be “corrected,” it is not correction but reduction. It is like demanding that all rivers flow in straight lines, or that every tree grow in uniform height. Beauty dies when diversity is crushed.

Yet Shange’s words are not only lament but warning. She reminds us that in this age of technology, we must remain vigilant. Tools can serve us, but they can also shape us, bending our voices until they no longer sound like our own. The danger is subtle: for what seems like convenience may become conformity; what seems like efficiency may become erasure. Just as the printing press once threatened to replace oral traditions, so too does spell-check threaten to polish away the rough edges that make a voice authentic.

The lesson, then, is clear: guard your voice. Do not let it be smoothed into silence by the pressure of foreign standards. If you write with slang, let it remain. If you sing with dialect, let it stand. Technology is a servant, not a master, and it must be bent to your will, not the other way around. For it is your difference, not your sameness, that carries power.

So, O children of the future, take this counsel: use the tools of your age, but do not let them use you. When your words are underlined in red, ask whether the correction serves truth or merely convention. When you feel the pull to conform, remember that greatness often springs from defiance. Above all, let your language carry your spirit, even if it is jagged, unconventional, or misunderstood.

For in the end, Shange teaches that to protect your voice is to protect your soul. A polished silence is no substitute for a raw, living song. And though the world may press for uniformity, your truth is best spoken in the language that is truly your own.