Spell Check

[The Aviator]

I say chaps, I believe that this mark of board incorporates 'SPELL CHECK'.
Any chance of having a look at that?
I've used it on other sites a couple of times. Sure is a neat addition.

[von Poop]

Very prescient of you.
I'd noted a week or two ago that there's a spell-checker from vbulletin and the big techno-man... he say yes.
Should be within the next couple of months.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Gnomey]

I just use the inbuilt one in Firefox. It wroks quiet well (spelling deliberate)

[von Poop]

Originally Posted by Gnomey

I just use the inbuilt one in Firefox. It wroks quiet well (spelling deliberate)

Yeah, I discovered the Google toolbar one recently & it's damned handy, along with that translate function.

I've been trawling through the other things that bulletin can do and there's a few little tweaks and extra buttons that look quite interesting.
Again, give us a bit of time to get everything tidied up backstage and we can crack on with making the site just a little slicker.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Christos]

Oh my God I need a spell checker.....It's embarrassing to have to post stuff and then notice all the speelling errors that make one look like a complete nork.....

[Christos]

Hey look, I even got a spelling error into a mesage about spelling errors....rididiculous!

[Gerry Chester]

Thi post reminded me of something I wrote some years ago, as even the most sophisticated spell checker cannot be totally relied upon. For what it's worth here it is:

By Gerry Chester


(June 20, 1999)

Spell Checkers are very useful tools, but they do have some limits.

As learning to speak the English language is comparatively easy, it has become the modern day lingua franca. There are three principal reasons. First, conjugation of most verbs is simple. Second, irregular verbs are relatively few. Three, unlike other languages, nouns do not have masculine or feminine genders.

Learning to read and write English is not at all easy. The principal reasons being spelling variations, homophones and silent letters. These reasons create problems for even the most sophisticated of Spell Checkers.

Spelling

Differences between English and American spellings are many. For example, Colour/Color and Centre/Center. A Spell Checker originating in Britain may not recognize the American spellings and vice versa.

Homophones

There are hundreds of homophones in the English Language and its American version, creating major problems for Spell Checkers, although some of the more sophisticated will recognize (recognise) a misspelled word that is out of context.

For an example, copy and paste the following into an e-mail then check its spelling.

Children, sit down to dinner. Mom has cooked you a nice young friar and fries using not two much greece.

Their are moor than fore spelling errors hear. Sea how many the spell checker will fined.

Spell Checkers will note a word that is phonetically misspelled provided it is not itself a homophone. For example, Ruff instead of Rough.

Silent Letters

There are thousands of words with silent letters which cause problems for a Spell Checker.

For Example: This perfume has a lovely sent.

Malapropisms

Malapropisms occur too often as was the subject of a recent newspaper article, despite (or in some cases, because of) the use of a Spell Checker.

Lauch Faircloth, while senator from North Carolina, took the floor saying: "When we drive the tobacco industry into bankruptcy as a piranha, what will we attack next? (Of course he meant pariah.) The writer of Miss Manners column on etiquette, Judith Martin, last January wrote: "That was seen as casting aspirations on other people's pleasure." (She of course intended to write aspersions.)

Contractions

While rare in scholarly and scientific writings, contractions are commonly employed elsewhere.

Spell Checkers will recognize a contraction as being incorrect when the required apostrophe is missing. For instance, shant.

Where the absence of the apostrophe creates a word of its own right the error will not be noted. For example, Can't/Cant and We'll/Well.

Typographical Errors

Spell Checkers are very useful in spotting these, provided the error does not create a recognizable word, for example:

• Missed letters: List/Lit
• Transposed letters: Pest/Pets
• Mistyped letters: Deer/Dear

Cheers, Gerry

[Christos]

I spend more bloody time checking for spelling , syntax, and just stuff that I've changed and then forgot to erase........did you see all the spelling errors in just the two messages that we exchanged....it's like a mental disease, and very time consuming, too...(sigh)

[Ron Goldstein]

Originally Posted by Christos

I spend more bloody time checking for spelling , syntax, and just stuff that I've changed and then forgot to erase........did you see all the spelling errors in just the two messages that we exchanged....it's like a mental disease, and very time consuming, too...(sigh)

Christos

I belong to a generation that still winces every time we spot examples of bad spelling.

Having said that and knowing full well the dangers that lie in relying on computerised spell-checkers, I thought you might be heartened to read the following. I can't remember where and when I first saw it (but I’m sure that others will point me to the original article), but it certainly explains why we are able to read almost every posting despite horrible errors

"Acrcndiog to resecarh at Cimdrgabe Unierivsty, it deson't meattr what oderr the lertets in a word are, the only ionramptt thnig is that the frist and last lttrees are at the right palce. The rset can be a toatl mess and you can sitll raed it wutihot a pboelrm. This is becsuae we do not raed every letetr by itself but the wrod as a whloe."
Just in case you weren’t able to read that it went as follows:


According to research Cambridge University, it doesn’t matter what order the letters in a word are, the only important thing is that the first and last letters are at the right place.
The rest can be a total mess and you can still read it without a problem.
This is because we do not read every letter by itself but the word as a whole.

Cheers

Ron

[James S]

Any form of spell checker is good news for me - God knows sometimes I think , did you really spell that.(Huge red face).