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04 Apr 02 - 02:21 AM (#682554) Subject: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Mark Cohen You see, I should be typing up my chart notes but it's late and I can always use a good laugh. Anyway, I just typed the word "cryotherapy" (freezing a wart with liquid nitrogen) and the Microsoft word spell-checker promptly redlined it. When I clicked on the word, it's suggested correction was "cry therapy"! So now my word processor is a psychologist, with a sense of humor, no less! OK, I'll get back to work... Aloha, Mark PS, to make this musical, while I type I'm listening to a wonderful CD by Duck Baker and Jamie Findlay called Out of the Past. Fantastic acoustic jazz guitar duets! For some reason, Duck Baker was in concert here in little old Hilo last month, and it was a heavenly experience. And not just because he performed in a church! |
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04 Apr 02 - 07:33 AM (#682692) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Sandra in Sydney Spellcheck knows best - in January I sent out a notice re our next concert - one singer had worked as a jackaroo, who is a young lad starting out in a cattle station (ranch if you speak American) - spellcheck pulled a swify & the readers were told he was a jackass. A friend who works in PR once sent out a notice that gave the artist's surname as Dill instead of Doyle. Fortunately both artists were cool about the slip. (ps. a dill is a dope or fool in case it's just local slang) A colleague with a warped sense of humour (one of my type of folks)let spellcheck have its way once when typing up the minutes of a meeting & all attendees had names as suggested by the infallible system. |
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04 Apr 02 - 11:37 AM (#682845) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Uncle_DaveO Spell checkers have their place, but I would DREAM of allowing a spell checker to make changes on its own! Or using one that couldn't be kept from doing so. Dave Oesterreich |
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04 Apr 02 - 12:15 PM (#682871) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: GUEST,maryrrf I once sent a business letter went out to a Mr. Mike Maniac, courtesy of the spell checker and me who didn't give it a final proofread (his name was Mike Manach). Fortunately he had a sense of humor. |
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04 Apr 02 - 02:30 PM (#682993) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Mr Red Sandra in Sydney I bought a motor caravan from a guy who called it Dilly - affectionate bumbling idiot in his dielect - Kidderminster Worcestershire so I guess dill is fairly widespread if changeable. Just a thought but do they still have Sat sessions in the Three Weeds over in Rozelle? Went there once on Anzac w/e and it was the only folk show in town. |
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04 Apr 02 - 03:05 PM (#683019) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Hilary Speaking of Kidderminster, There is an estate agent firm (?realtor) called .... ' Doolittle & Dally '
Honest. Hilary |
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04 Apr 02 - 05:08 PM (#683140) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Liz the Squeak Run the whole of 'Gaudete' through the checker.... I especially like 'bandicoot domino'.... LTS |
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04 Apr 02 - 06:23 PM (#683209) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Mrs.Duck Dill as everyone knows is a dog from the Herbs along with Basil the lion et al. |
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04 Apr 02 - 07:14 PM (#683243) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Jim Dixon If this sort of thing amuses you, you might enjoy the thread I started called BS: The spell-checker name game. Only a few people found it interesting enough to post, and one was convinced I was nuts. I'm glad to see I'm not alone. |
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04 Apr 02 - 07:33 PM (#683267) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Amos Jim: Let's see -- you get amusement by asking a machine how to use your language and then cracking up over how stupid it is... and someone thinks you're nuts?? How bizarre!! :>) I know better, of course. A |
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04 Apr 02 - 07:58 PM (#683290) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Dicho (Frank Staplin) Mine rejects my street name, among other things. I played with the stupid thing for a while, but haven't used it in a couple of years. I need a lot of technical terms and started to build a dictionary, but that was tiresome. I find old-fashioned proofreading is much more efficient and can be accomplished in shorter time. A spell-checker may be of some use to borderline illiterates. |
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04 Apr 02 - 09:14 PM (#683338) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Bill D A spell checker is a tool...nothing more. You get out of it what you put in..(or what the author put in as 'default').....I find them very useful in my email program, as I am a two-finger dyslexic typist, and it highlights most mistakes immediately..... I 'can' spell & proofread pretty well, but some kittle (see!) things slip by when I'm looking at the keyboard....and with Mudcat, I usually see the misteak (see!) in the 2 second pause after I hit 'submit'...arrrgghhh!... now, if they'd just invent a context editor/checker that would warn me when I type 'tow' instead of 'two'...etc... or those embarrassing times when you misspell 'hard disk'...*grin* |
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04 Apr 02 - 10:17 PM (#683354) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Genie Amos, check out the previous spellchecked thread re what happens to your name, among others. Genie |
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05 Apr 02 - 04:36 AM (#683494) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Sandra in Sydney Mr Red - I can't see any reference to a session at the 3 Weeds tho there are other sessions around Sydney - if you are heading this way again, have a look at www.newsouthfolk.com or contact me directly. Sessions & clubs are alive & well in Sydney. further to proofreading & spellcheck - I do them both - but the stupid bloody spellchecker sometimes jumps. If I see it happen I interrupt, but an occasional jackass gets away. |
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05 Apr 02 - 06:43 AM (#683560) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: GUEST,DMcG at work Proof-reading assumes the document was sensible to start with! A collegue of mine whose surname was BURR found himself on some junk mail list as BUM, presumably because the double R in lower case looked too like an M. As these lists were passed between companies he found it almost impossible to stop and for while the majority of his mail came to Mr Bum |
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05 Apr 02 - 07:37 AM (#683591) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Trevor I remember writing something or other about the Ford Mondeo when it first came out and my spellchecker gave me the option of 'mundane'. Hmmmm....it obviously knew something. |
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05 Apr 02 - 07:57 AM (#683599) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: HuwG Bill D, "kittle" is a scottish word, meaning "awkward" in the sense of "contrary" or "refractory". There is an old scottish saying, that such-and-such people are "kittle cattle to drive".
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05 Apr 02 - 06:54 PM (#684065) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Joe_F A lady recently had to post an erratum to the effect that "onions" should read "opinions". She had written "oinions", and Microsoft had taken it from there. |
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05 Apr 02 - 07:30 PM (#684100) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Genie Then there's the [real] case of Mr. R. B. Jones*--a man with only initials, no first and middle name. The government bureaucracy, of course, -- computers or no -- could not accept this, nor could most corporate bureaucracies. He kept getting his applications and forms rejected because they "need the full name." Finally, in frustration, he wrote his name as R. (only) B. (only) Jones -- after which his name appeared on all checks, bills, and other documents as "Ronly Bonly Jones." Genie *I'm not sure the last name was Jones, but that is how I was told the tale. |
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05 Apr 02 - 07:45 PM (#684115) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Jim Dixon I don't see what anybody's got against spell-checkers. I use mine religiously. As I see it, there's no way a spell-checker could, on its own, cause an error. It may fail to recognize some of your errors, so it's a bad idea to rely on them instead of doing your own proofreading. I use the spell-checker first and THEN proofread. I figure my life is easier and my output better for it. And I consider myself far from being "borderline illiterate." Of course, if you click the Change button when you should click Ignore, or when you should type your own change, you can introduce errors or make them worse. But it seems silly to blame the spell-checker for that. It's just your own inattention—the same kind of inattention that causes errors WITHOUT spell-checkers. Now the AutoCorrect tool—you can cause some real damage with that. If you want to play a real nasty prank on someone, mess with their AutoCorrect table. By the way, I'm talking about Microsoft Word here. I don't know what the rest of you are using. Come on, doesn't ANYBODY think it's funny that my spell-checker will (if I click "Change") change Charlton Heston to Charlatan Festoon? |
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05 Apr 02 - 09:33 PM (#684202) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Amos I do, Jim!! I was just funnin' ya. A |
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06 Apr 02 - 03:47 AM (#684362) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: RoyH (Burl) My spellchecker has great difficulty with names. Once I was writing something about Maud Karpeles. Among the options it gave me was 'Mad Carpools'. |
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07 Apr 02 - 06:17 PM (#685147) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Nemesis The (nearly) most aggravating spell checker I ever had to contend with was working for UN poverty researchers and trying to type up this 10,000 word academic paper on Women and women in the 3rd world, and women, etc - and the spell checker kept saying that 'Women is a gender specific word - you prefer to change it to people, persons'. NO! No, 10,000 times no! :) My personal spell checker has recently thrown up suggestions of 'tomato' for Tomasjewski and 'urinate' for Ruinet |
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07 Apr 02 - 06:40 PM (#685160) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Joe_F Somebody, I forget who, typed "aslo" for "also" and was asked if he meant "asshole". I suspect malice on the part of the programmer. |
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07 Apr 02 - 09:48 PM (#685246) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Jim Dixon It seems to me that the people who complain so much about their spell-checkers have never really learned how to use them. Hille, I don't know what software you're using, but in Microsoft Word 97, you can click "Tools," then "Options," then "Spelling and Grammar," then "Settings," then scroll down until you see "Style – Gender Specific Words." Then UNCHECK this box, and click "OK" and it will never challenge your use of gender-specific words again. There are lots of other options that can be changed in the same way. |
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07 Apr 02 - 10:38 PM (#685272) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Melani A fun way for stay-at-home moms to waste time is to let the toddler pound on the keyboard for a while, and then put it through the spell checker. |
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10 Apr 02 - 12:09 AM (#686779) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: GUEST So WHAT DOES - MudCat spell? |
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10 Apr 02 - 03:01 PM (#687253) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: KathWestra My personal favorite spellchecker story comes from my brief fling as a marketing communications specialist at a computer software company, where my job was to write newsletters extolling the virtues of Version 3.72596 of the company's newest software product. (This is where I learned beyond doubt that I am an "issue" person and not a "product" person, and went back to work in the nonprofit advocacy world.) Anyhow, I had to write about the technical specifications for this software, and the company stylebook called for writing out words like "kilobytes" and "gigabytes" rather than abbreviating them to KB or GB. Well imagine my amusement when one of my articles came out the other end of the spellchecker with the note that the software required X "celibates of memory." Hmmmm... |
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30 Sep 02 - 01:23 AM (#793824) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Bee-dubya-ell |
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30 Sep 02 - 02:51 AM (#793850) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Kaleea Forchoonatlee fer me, ah kin uze mah speshul spaylchekkur whut iz fer theze here midwesturn noonitud statz & it duz uh rat fan job fer me. I troolee thank thet if it wuzn't fer mah spaylchekkur ah wud jist nevur bee abull tew sind a messuj whut utherz kud reed! |
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30 Sep 02 - 07:48 AM (#793935) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: GUEST,Martin Ryan Some years ago, I was drafting an article for students on environmental matters - where the word "watercourse" was used. The spellchecker I was using at the time suggested "whorehouse"! Regards |
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30 Sep 02 - 08:55 AM (#793962) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: HuwG Someone with the surname, "Travis", once attended a Computer Software conference. The form he had to fill out to obtain his name tag / security badge had a row of thirty or so boxes for the surname, and thinking that "Travis" looked a bit lonely on the left hand side of this array, he centred and spaced his name (as 'T', space, 'R', space, etc). He was issued with a name tag that identified him as "Mr. 0T0r0a0v0i0s0". The character recognition software had put zeroes in the blank spaces. It might be worse. Someone was once asked on an insurance form, the cause of an accident. He wrote, "Act of God". In due course a letter was dispatched to Mr. Act of God ... Another version of that story is that the form was for a marine insurance claim, and hordes of clerks were searching Lloyd's Register for a ship of that name.
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30 Sep 02 - 10:18 AM (#793982) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Sandra in Sydney I just ran spellcheck over an e-mail (& also proofread it!!) However, proofreading is not so entertaining - singer/songwriter John Broomhall's surname got Brothel as first choice, then Broom Hall (I must tell him when I see him next!), trio Jigzag logically got Zigzag & Jigsaw. Some words stumped it tho. - "Asturian supergroup Llan de Cubel" left it speechless. And naturally it doesn't like Snalbans (the local abbreviation of Alison's favourite festival St Albans) I love spellcheck Sandra |
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23 May 06 - 03:40 PM (#1746183) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: wysiwyg It didn't actually MAKE it into the printed service leaflet for the recently departed nun's funeral.... but.... .... for a long, mind-blowing moment, the soloist was said to be all set to sing "Penis Angelicus." And to be perfectly honest? Well, I'm just not sure I'll be able to sit still when she sings, instead, the lovely and spiritual "Panis Angelicus." I sure hope the Communion of Saints isn't paying attention TOO closely to earthly details! If they are, they must be thinking, "Too much information!" ~Susan |
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23 May 06 - 09:11 PM (#1746342) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: robomatic I used the term "cathodic protection" and Word wanted to change it to "catholic protection" not a bad idea, sometimes! |
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24 May 06 - 12:04 AM (#1746383) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: JennyO When eye changed from Windows two Linux a few months ago, I started yew sing Thunderbird four my email instead of Outlook Express. Imagine my sir prize when a spelling chequer popped up to tell me how two right my emails! Aye don't knead know spelling chequer! Eye was all sew sir prized two find that know body had posted this little pome on this thread yet: Eye halve a spelling chequer It came with my pea sea It plainly marques four my revue Miss steaks eye kin knot sea. Eye strike a key and type a word And weight four it two say Weather eye am wrong oar write It shows me strait a weigh As soon as a mist ache is maid It nose bee fore two long And eye can put the error write It's rare lea ever wrong. Eye have run this poem threw it I'm shore your pleased two no It's letter perfect awl the weigh my chequer tolled me sew. |
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24 May 06 - 01:36 AM (#1746401) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: JohnInKansas Back in the olden days when I was gainfully (I almost wrote usefully) employed, I had a young fellow working for me whose name was consistently corrected by the spell checker to "village idiot." I sincerely hope none of my messages to him got through before I made adjustements, but if they did he never commented. The word processor, Word Perfect, actually got it's biggest promo success when it first came out by producint a "Legal Spell Checker" that allowed you to replace the standard spell check dictionary with the "Legal Dictionary." So far as we were able to find, the only difference was the omission of the single word "trail." In modern wp programs, such as Word, one can generally allow the spell and grammar checker to "correct as you type" IF you enter the incorrect words that it inserts in the "autoreplace as you type" and the word you usually want in the "replace with" column. Spell and grammar, when checked "on the fly" operates before autoreplace, so even though the spellcheck changes it, autoreplace puts it back; and it works - usually - even if you mistype the original word. This is especially helpful for company names that have odd and mixed capitalizations, like eWeek (magazine) etc. To make the adjustment, of course you have to catch the first time it happens (or whenever you get tired of hitting Ctl-Z) and enter the appropriate fix. John |
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24 May 06 - 10:29 AM (#1746507) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Flash Company in an earlier existence I was responsible for overseeing the computerisation of accounting systems that had previously been manual or NCR operations. The first one I did highlighted the need to ensure that what you put on the input document was what you wanted to see on the finished product. One of my team left a space where there wasn't one and we suddenly had a company called The Water Loo Battery Company Ltd. After that you become paranoid, and at the next company where I did this exercise I threw something back at someone saying 'I think his name should be T Watt'. The other guy said 'No, it isn't.' And it wasn't. As one of my team said 'God, there must be Mrs and all the little T......' FC |
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24 May 06 - 11:15 AM (#1746545) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Chief Chaos We work with a data system called MISLE (an acronym for Marine Information, Safety and Law Enforcement). The speel checker constantly redlines it because, after all, it's not a real word. It keeps suggesting "misled" as a replacement which is amazingly appropriate as we were told that the system would ease our work load. It has instead doubled or trippled it. |
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24 May 06 - 11:43 AM (#1746564) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: JohnInKansas Chief Chaos - Yours sounds like a mainframe system, but in most chelspeckers used by us poor folk it's very easy to add words to a personal dictionary, and once added there the program generally will accept the word as correct. Maybe someone just needs to tell your system that MISLE is a word. On the other hand it's usually quite difficult to remove a word from the built in dictionary that comes with the program - hence the need for the lawyers to have a special dictionary to not go to trail all the time. John |
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24 May 06 - 12:08 PM (#1746580) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Uncle_DaveO Four years after posting it on April 4, 2002, to my chagrin I found the following post in this thread, signed by me: Spell checkers have their place, but I would DREAM of allowing a spell checker to make changes on its own! Or using one that couldn't be kept from doing so. I assure you that there emphatically should be the word "not" after "would" and before "DREAM", so that it would read: Spell checkers have their place, but I would not DREAM of allowing a spell checker to make changes on its own! Or using one that couldn't be kept from doing so. In the course of creating computerized documents since 1982, I have never had a spell checker that insisted on making changes without my instruction to do so, nor one that wouldn't allow me to add an unrecognized word (or name) to the checker's dictionary. Of course, with proper nouns one must be careful what gets added to the dictionary. I remember particularly the name of a lawyer, Jahn (not John) Schmith (not Smith, not Smyth, not Smythe, not Schmidt, not Schmitt). Dave Oesterreich |
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24 May 06 - 12:49 PM (#1746617) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Scoville "From: Trevor - PM I remember writing something or other about the Ford Mondeo when it first came out and my spellchecker gave me the option of 'mundane'. Hmmmm....it obviously knew something." Ha ha! I'll say. We just sold ours (well, it's a Contour over here, but the same car) and I'll vouch for "mundane". I took some anthropology classes in college and spent a long time wrestling with all the variations of "Australopithecus" and its accompanying species names. There were NO scientific or anthropological terms in my spell-checker at all when I started and I did a lot of meticulous self-checking and adding to finally get the thing the "education" I needed it to have (luckily, I'm a good speller by nature, most of the time, so I don't have to depend on it much). |
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24 May 06 - 02:00 PM (#1746681) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Becca72 every spell checker I've ever used has spelled my first name incorrectly...Rebbecca instead of Rebecca...I have never ever in my 34 years met someone who spells it that way. Anyone seen it with two B's? |
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24 May 06 - 02:23 PM (#1746696) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Nigel Parsons Becca72: A quick "Google" of "Rebbecca" gets the message: "Did you mean: Rebecca" But still gets 118,000 'Hits'. Although the first hit on there is because of a mis-spelling in a write up of Daphne DuMaurier's book CHEERS Nigel |
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24 May 06 - 03:00 PM (#1746730) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Jim Dixon Yesterday my computer at work (the one I'm using now) was upgraded to Windows XP so I have a fresh copy of everything. I just tried typing "Rebbecca" into Microsoft Word 2003. It flags it as an error and suggests "Rebecca". |
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25 May 06 - 12:15 AM (#1747048) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: JohnInKansas Recent Word versions do allow you, at Tools|Options, Spelling and Grammar tab, to put a check mark at "Ignore words in UPPERCASE." A check in this box will let the spellcheck pass on most acronyms. Of course if you have the option to "Correct two Init Caps" set in Tools|Autocorrect Options, (which is handy if you have a tendency to not notice when CapsLock gets left on) an acronym at the beginning of a sentence will probably get changed to not all uppercase and could still get spellchecked. John |
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25 May 06 - 12:01 PM (#1747348) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Chief Chaos We can indeed add words to the spell checker, however in this case we didn't. It's more fun to laugh at it. It's also a pain in the ass because it always rejects military ratings abbreviations whether you add them or not. |
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25 May 06 - 02:45 PM (#1747416) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: GUEST,leeneia Since I have a large vocabulary and deal with early music and old literature a lot, I have seen some spellcheck suggestions that were real doozies. I smile, but I then forget them. My spellchecker has the weakness of not recognizing things like 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. Finally I sent my sweetie an e-mail with the subject "ignore this e-mail" and I sent and spellchecked expressions from 1 - 31 plus a few more (50th, 75th, umpteenth) so that I would never have to okay them again. |
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25 May 06 - 02:57 PM (#1747421) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: John MacKenzie Well just to cheer you transponders up, I am bloody fed up with spell check trying to 'correct' my proper English spellings to incorrect American spellings. Like using a Z instead of and S in words like standardise. Sheesh!! Giok |
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25 May 06 - 05:28 PM (#1747531) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: JohnInKansas Giok - I haven't checked to actually observe how it affects the spellchecker, but WinXP does offer up to 18 different choices for "English." The problem is that the setting made in Word and applies to all Office programs. The setting, according to what I've seen in print, does not appear in any other programs, so if you don't have Word, there's no way to change it in the others. Word 2000 offers 13 English variants, and Word 2002 offers 18, at Tools|Language, click "Set Language." The spellcheck dictionary is the main thing that changes when you switch from one English to a different English. John |
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26 May 06 - 06:16 AM (#1747741) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: GUEST,Diva And it can't cope with Scots/doric......when will someone invent a "macspell"??? |
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26 May 06 - 07:10 AM (#1747757) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Paul Burke Try a Mr. Happy style song "correction".. what;s this one? Cantankerously piragua Cantankerously Cantankerously piragua Cantankerously! Yo soy nu sombre sincere de done creme la palm Yo soy nu sombre sincere de done creme la palm Yates de memoriam me cliquier char miss versos duel lama. |
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02 Jun 06 - 08:26 AM (#1751613) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: Mr Happy Hugh want an emetic?? |
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02 Jun 06 - 08:29 AM (#1751615) Subject: RE: BS: Well, it means well...spellchecker grins From: John MacKenzie I have just creamed over Paula Yates' Lama? G. |