A public apology

I have been having a lively discussion about (amongst other things) the correct way to spell the word 'computer' - and the age of the word itself - with Elegance Maison, for a day or two now.

She tells me that she is a trained barrister, but you know what liars barristers are, so I am not sure I believe her (allegedly), but I am going to play it safe by publicly apologising, even though my COMPUTER tells me I am spelling the word 'apologising' wrong by putting a red line beneath it, presumably because I am not spelling it with a 'Z', like this American-born machine would do, had it not been instructed to speak English by me when I first set it up.

Our lively discussion has seen some very colourful (yes - I meant to say colourful - is that wrong too?) language from Elegance, albeit with a few well-placed asterisk's, and although I have heard barristers use the 'c' word before, I have never heard a female one use it, even in Australia. So she could be a man as well, but that is only conjecture.

Anyway, this is what the etymological website says:

'The use of computer to refer to a person who does mathematical calculations dates to at least 1646. The verb form to compute dates from about the same time, with the first recorded usage in 1631.'

When I was a schoolboy (a little after 1631), we were taken to a government installation somewhere near Woking - I cannot tell you precisely where, not because I am sworn to secrecy, but because it was about 50 years ago, and I can't remember - to be shown (not 'shewn' which my computer will not allow me to correctly say in English) one of the world's most powerful computers in the world.

Our little group were issued with white overalls and foot-covers before being ushered into a vast, white, sterile, air-conditioned room which was illuminated with fluorescent strip lighting and had row upon row of enormous white metal cabinets on both sides, each one fitted with a huge reel-to-reel magnetic tape spool which constantly flicked and turned forwards and backwards behind clear Perspex access covers as it collectively sifted the information which had been programmed into it's analogue brain by about 50 boffins who wandered about like consultants in a psychiatric hospital. Being an English kid in post-war Britain, I was more impressed by the air-conditioning than than anything else. We had a gas-fired fridge at the time.

I would guess that this machine had about half the power of a 1980s Amstrad word-processor, and it post-dated Bletchley Park's giant mechanical type-writer by about 18 years.

These days, of course, I could conduct World War Three from the comfort of my compact but adorable city apartment on this iMac, and - if I had the passwords - adjust the fuel to air mixture of a formula one Ferrari on a lap-top, 3000 miles away from where it screams around the track at 180 miles per hour.

Those Christmas cards that play tunes to you when you open them, have more computing power than the first manned spacecraft did in the 1960s.

Now that the Cold War is over and the Warm one is hotting up, we can all use them to go shopping online instead. Much more fun. Anyway, I am very sorry and I will never spell 'computer' with an 'o' again.