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Subject:Re: MS will help us find the right words? From:Peter Neilson <neilson -at- windstream -dot- net> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Sun, 22 Feb 2009 19:31:52 -0500
Mike, I've noticed exactly the same thing that Edgar has. It appears to
me that some people who cannot spell well, and who in earlier times
might have employed the services of a good speller or perhaps used a
dictionary instead rely wholly on spell-checking software. If their
compositions show no spell checking errors, then there are no errors!
It is a cultural situation, where an incomplete understanding or a
complete laziness take over from actual grammar and spelling, and it
accounts, as we all know, for those documents with crazy substitions of
wrong words that even Mrs. Malaprop could never make.
Yes, Geoff, we will likely be employed forever making the needed
corrections. I worry, though, that the output of MS Wrod's spill checker
will become a new standard. For example, the word "insolation" (in the
past improperly corrected to "insulation" or "isolation" only by the
ignorant) will vanish, and only the other two words--pre-approved by
MS--will remain, occasionally taking on the meaning previously held by
insolation.
On the other hand, Wikipedia, bless its collaborative little soul,
correctly defines the term:
<wikipedia quote>
:: Insolation
::
:: Not to be confused with insulation.
::
:: Insolation is a measure of solar radiation energy received on a
:: given surface area in a given time. ...
</wikipedia quote>
Hope Springs Eternal.
Michael West wrote:
> Edgar D' Souza wrote:
>
>> You mean like spell-checkers taking away people's ability to spell
>> correctly? :-)
>
>
> I don't know how to interpret that smiley. (I never do, it seems.)
>
> Do you mean that people who know how to spell are somehow tragically and
> horribly stripped of that knowledge by using a spelling checker?
>
> How can this be?
>
> I spell just well enough to know when I need to look something up. A
> spelling check has never done any more for me than call my attention to a
> typing error (and those I make frequently).
>
> Can a spelling check take away my "ability to spell correctly"? If a person
> is able to spell correctly, how can a spelling check suddenly render them
> unable?
>
> Or is this irony the point you meant to make with that smiley?
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