Stylish with Substance

When Language comes into play(ed with) on the World Wide Web... is the functionality of code lost in translation?

Stupidity wins another battle in our society, unfortunately. I just found the word, "crêpes" in a ReCaptcha box. Yes, it displayed the character "ê". Sensing it wouldn't even accept the correct visual - and correct spelling - nevermind only accept it and not "crepes" completely instead - I hit refresh.

Are you fabbing kidding me???!

Educational Tip: This accent is called "Circumflex" in English translation; "Circonflexe" in French. It is also used in other languages. In this case, it is placed above an "E" (or more precisely for "crêpes", a lowercase "e"), although on PCs it is typed or "pasted" complete with the corresponding letter.

It seems one just can't win! Either be incorrect doubly and pass, or put in extra effort (most wouldn't) and be marked as a spammer??? I really don't expect ReCaptcha to think people would know/type the alt code or copy from their character maps (Windows). I don't want that type of security enforced. In fact, I depise most CAPTCHAs, because I usually cannot read them! ReCaptcha is better, for at least they use words that are often real (I did recently see what looked like a name though, ironically a name similar in spelling to a celebrity related to the article on the page, hmmm) and they have a decent refresh method (some others force a loss of comment).

*Update: I now realize this depends upon the scripting and not some lazy ethic. Sure, the site owners and ReCaptcha company may never want to force people to open up their Character Map or learn alt codes, and yet the code may force most to get this wrong - even those like I who would assume what they're asking, yet didn't refresh, like I.*

I also contacted the company, informing them of the "innapropriate word". I do have hope that this is a company eager to fix such a troubling issue. I will post a follow-up to this entry if they respond in an interesting manner. *No response at all yet.*

Footer-Note: Firefox's spell check informed me, "crêpes" is incorrect - granted, spell check is for a user's currently-selected primary language, alone.