Blog 3657 – 11.08.2025

Quick Fixes Seldom Are

One of my favorite quotes comes from long time CBS journalist Eric Sevareid and goes: “Most of our problems are caused by our solutions.” Today’s picture quote expresses that same thought in a much more humorous way.

The inventor of Auto Correct, the folks who came up with the Editor function in texting, and all those algorithms that were supposed to be such a boon to Social Media, instead have created far more errors and problems than they ever fixed or solved, proving that quick fixes seldom are.

As a undeniably prolific if not perfect writer I try very hard to find all the errors spelling, grammar, and punctuation in my blogs before I post them each morning, I read them over and over and yet still find mistakes sometimes days later. I try to correct those as well when I find them.

It is remarkable than even in short texts it is so often the case that there are spelling and grammar errors that make it seem obvious that we did not type what we thought we did. On top of that disconnect the editor trying to help with spelling often changes a word here or there to make our communications even more garbled and sometimes making us shutter or laugh at the end results.

Perfection, even Christian Perfection or holiness, is at best a noble but unreachable goal. One of the most interesting writers that I ever read was a Nazarene evangelist and preacher who preached and wrote in the first half of the last century. Uncle Buddy Robinson had a true gift for communication. He wrote from the heart, but he was far more concerned with getting the message across than getting the spelling, grammar or punctuation right. For many years he wrote articles for the Nazarene publication Herald of Holiness. The editors of the magazine criticized his lack of proper punctuation so often that Uncle Buddy typed up several pages of periods, commas, colons, semi-colons and sent them in with his article with a note, “Just put them wherever you want them.”

I will continue trying to become a better writer and yet I confess that to me that is far more about getting the message right than the spelling, grammar, or punctuation.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David James White