Missus Em is miffed

There is already a file by the name 'xyz' and are you sure you want to replace it, my computer asks me every once in a while. Yeah, yeah, I grumble, I know I want to. It used to be worse, until a kind friend taught me how to change settings and reduce the annoyance of the mouse pointer always landing on 'no' as if making my mind up for me. That made my hackles rise, every time.

Windows is what I am used to, and Word is what I compose these deathless posts with, but there are some annoyances that rankle.

"Come on, I know what I am saying," I mutter as Word's spelling and grammar check suggests that I might want to consider 'lesson' where I typed 'lessen'. It also suggests, on occasion, that I ought to replace 'their' with 'there's' or that a sentence is too long and worse.

When I once wrote, 'Chat enables us to converse, and our personalities are revealed, common interests are found that much sooner', spell-check suggested changing it to 'Chat enables our personalities and us to converse'. Honest.

As an Indian, I use a lot of words, italicised or otherwise, that aren't found in Word's vocabulary. Fair enough. But its suggestions for Hathi, for instance, are heath, hatch, hat, hate, hats and heaths but not hath, which I ought to replace with hat, hatch hate, hats or hash, I am told. It even suggests that I change 'that aren't' to 'those aren't' or 'that isn't'.

If you doubt it, here is a spell-checked version of Jabberwocky, some words surviving only because there were no suggestions on offer:

'Twas brisling, and the stilly toes
Did gyre and gamble in the wade;
All missy were the borogoves,
And the mom rates outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwocky, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jujube bird, and shun
The furious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the Manxmen foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought

And as in offish thought he stood,
The Jabberwocky, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffing through the bulgy wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And hats thou slain the Jabberwocky?
Come to my arms, my bearish boy!
O frabjous day! Callow! Chalet!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brisling, and the stilly toes
Did gyre and gamble in the wade;
All missy were the borogoves,
And the mom rates outgrabe.

This is so routine that usually I click the "Ignore' button and go on, but on some days everything nettles. Yesterday was one such.

There were exactly two open counters in the bank and one manned by a rookie, since most personnel seemed to have taken a day off to recover from celebrating Holi and/or to fret about Madhyamik exams of their progeny. Word doesn't like the word Madhyamik, it tells me. Too bad, it can like it or lump it.

The real reason why I am annoyed, irritated, nettled, peeved, riled and more is something else. The Monday Blues. In spades, too. I come home after the bank irritation, library blues where no book enticed and think that there is always salvation. There are always crosswords, right? Wrong.

The first Monday of the month and the Genius puzzle, eagerly awaited: it is Araucaria, and a delicious twist of transliteration into Italian, where W is U, X is S, Y is I, J is G or GI and K is CH or C. Lovely, I say, rubbing my hands in glee.

This is the Genius puzzle, after all, so I print it out, rather than hubristically trying to solve it online with the interactive version. As I read the clues and the solutions leap up, I giggle happily, as this is Araucaria and at his best.

But. I like crossword grids the way they are. The symmetry and the blank squares are what make them charming.

Now this miracle of a crossword, this cup of forgetfulness I was looking forward to partake of and get over my day's irritations with, this month's Genius puzzle turns out to be, for the first time, a barred grid. I violently dislike barred grid crosswords.

Bah!