In memory of the man who put red and green squiggles under words

Overall tone and reaction to the memorial

• Many commenters appreciated the tribute and the reflection on how a seemingly small UI choice (red/green squiggles) became globally standard.
• Several remarked on how invisible, individual decisions shape interfaces billions now take for granted.
• Some meta-observations: people felt others were missing the memorial’s emotional point by focusing narrowly on spellcheck complaints.

Merits and drawbacks of squiggles as a UI pattern

• Widely acknowledged as intuitive and now iconic for “this word is wrong.”
• Critics noted they pull attention backward, interrupting writing flow; some wished for explicit “modes” (write now, then review) instead of real-time nagging.
• Comparisons were made to syntactic/semantic warnings in IDEs, and even a desire for “yellow squiggles” for logical inconsistencies; one person mentioned implementing an LLM-based contradiction highlighter.

Autocorrect, AI, and desired UX

• Several want a one-key “fix recent red-squiggle word using context” action, especially on desktops.
• Mobile-style autocorrect was cited as a partial model, though many find it inaccurate, intrusive, or especially bad with proper nouns, bilingual writing, and “inappropriate” content.
• Some turn off autocorrect/spellcheck entirely; others struggle to find global off-switches.

Multilingual and customization issues

• Heavy frustration from users writing in multiple languages: automatic language guessing often fails, turning squiggles into noise.
• Workarounds include hotkey styles to set proofing language, disabling checks for specific text, or loading multiple dictionaries so any matching language suppresses errors.
• Some tools (e.g., certain office and design suites, Outlook) were called out as especially bad or rigid here.

Quality and evolution of Microsoft spellcheck

• Nostalgia for earlier Word versions; several complain that current spellcheck is buggy or overzealous, sometimes flagging common words or aggressively switching languages/keyboards.
• Others point out Word has long had options to disable “check as you type,” though not everyone knows where to find them.

History, prior art, and attribution

• Debate over whether earlier tools (on Amiga, Atari ST, DOS) had real-time spellchecking and/or squiggly underlines; some memories were corrected after people checked old software.
• One commenter claimed early adoption of squiggles in generic text widgets (e.g., for email clients), distinguishing this from word-processor-only use.
• Separate subthread examined alleged Wikipedia “citogenesis”; closer reading showed that, in this case, the blog and Wikipedia citations were not actually circular, just interlinked.

Credits and recognition in software

• Commenters lamented how software rarely credits individual contributors, unlike movies or some games.
• There were calls for “credits screens” in applications and stories of hidden Easter-egg credit lists.
• Reflection that what one becomes known for in software is often unpredictable and not necessarily what they valued most in their career.