Saturday, April 24, 2010

Spell Checkers: Evil in Disguise

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I am not possibly sure about whether others have experienced or experience the same, but I am having a problem with spelling. Mind you, I am not devolving, but while writing on paper I find a few words elusive. I am unsure as to whether I wrote them right, which online is instantly signaled by spell checkers, both on MS Word and enabled on blog posts and comment boxes. Convenient if in a hurry, but it might make your brain a lazy slacker. I know my brain has.

While Machiavellian, Renaissance & Milwaukee might be tough ones to nail sometimes [I am typing super fast, so I usually eat a letter or two], I suggest you learn from my fail and not rely entirely on the spell checker and write by hand often. I also admit that for me spelling is something that may creep on me at any time, because I am not a native speaker. Not enough usage of all the vocabulary I know [I possess eloquence, when required] can cause for some serious bloopers.

Similar sounding words [It's a lot more logical to say "Does this look good on my waist" and not use the word 'waste'] are always silent killers of your dignity, when you least expect. Also the exposure to both US & UK spelling has muddled things a bit with me. Not that I am complaining much. I studied the UK spelling and then converted to the American manner. I think I studied the differences and remembered them for awhile. Right now, however, I am stretched between the two countries and content written according to both sets of rules and the color or colour debate starts right up again.

Peculiar what a few observations can bring you to contemplate about.

Subliminal message: Beware of the Spell Checker. :P

6 comments:

Tessa said...

Oh I know the evils of the spell check. Canadian spelling is closer to British, but spell check likes to force American spellings on you. It doesn't help that I work for a German company LOL, now everything is all mixed up.

I turn spell check off while I am writing a first draft and leave that for the editing phase.

Todd Newton said...

My least favorite thing about spell check isn't something wrong with spell check itself. It does its job well enough, but I write Fantasy. Every new project needs its own custom dictionary in Word sooner or later; the repeatedly "misspelled" names of characters actually broke it 200 pages in to my current WIP. No joke, it said "You have too many misspellings, so the correct-as-you-go feature is now disabling itself." Talk about Evil, it's lazier than I am.

Harry Markov said...

@ T.S: Boy, that sounds like evil. I am not sure what Canadian can offer as deviations from the UK/US spelling rules and what about Australian. You are in a conundrum about what to follow as a guide.

Since you work for a German company, what spelling do you use?

@ TD: That is easy, man. Right click and say Add to Dictionary. When you do that the word will no longer be an error.

Tessa said...

Well the official language we write our products in is American English, but when it comes to company correspondence, then it switches to European standards like 100.000 instead of 100,000 (american/canadian).

In the end I'm just mostly confused :) My current WIP is a complete mess of spellings. I bet I have some colours (canadian) mixed in with the colors (american) LOL

Todd Newton said...

I do add to dictionary, that's why every project has it own custom dictionary.

Harry Markov said...

@ TS: Psychedelic spelling! I like where this id going, though I am not sure exactly how well you will be when you try to unify it.

@TD: I feel your pain man. It's the same with me. And after each re-installation of windows I have to add the words again...