Ways in which Microsoft Word Makes Me Laugh: A Much Shorter Series

Halfway through editing a section on a strange adaptation of one of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales, I come across a squiggly green line under the phrase “the bare breast”.

This seems odd, so I check.

Word wants me to change this to “the bear breast”.

I do realise that it’s simply trying to be helpful on the subject of confusable pairs, but in this case, I’m definitely not talking about half-naked animals.

To prove it, here’s the picture for the story in question.

Not really the sort of thing you expect to find on the cover of an 1866 journal called Fiction for Family Reading, but not ursine nudity, either.

I also suspect that when the noun is “breast”, the adjective is rarely if ever “bear”, excluding any interesting recipes for unusual game that I’ve overlooked.

Or unless, apparently, you’re thinking of getting gummy bear breast implants