Useless Ideas About Spelling

Useless Idea 1: The Spellcheck on the Computer will do it for you.

The simple answer is that it won't. More precisely, it will do a lot for you, but it will foul up often enough to make you look stupid when it matters. Here's a demonstration.

'Patients refered to the Middlesborough antinatal clinic (next to the Libary) have no garantee that staff who are haurty in manner posses useable skills and good spacial awareness.'

Nine spelling mistakes, but it's just about clear what it means. After the Spellcheck has done its worst, we have:

''Patients referred to the Middlesbrough antenatal clinic (next to the Library) have no guarantee that staff who are hearty in manner posses useable skills and good special awareness.'

That is what the computer gave me. Try it yourself and see.

Why are Spellchecks so bad?

A Spellcheck has no sense of what kind of word might be appropriate in a situation - it just gives you the nearest available collection of letters. It doesn't see 'spacial' as a common mistake for 'spatial', but as something quite different. Also, a Spellcheck doesn't recognise a mistake if you spell word x wrong in a way that spells word z correctly. 'Posses' is a mistake for 'possess', but the Spellcheck recognises the word 'posses' as the word for groups of cowboys, and doesn't correct it.

Spellchecks are good at catching a lot of common mistakes. They correct 'dessicated' to 'desiccated' and lots of other things. But you can't rely on a Spellcheck to do your spelling for you. It's a help, yes, but don't rely on it.