Jose Carillo's English Forum
English Grammar and Usage Problems => Badly Written, Badly Spoken => Topic started by: Joe Carillo on July 24, 2010, 11:12:04 AM
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How dependent are you on your PC’s spell-checker? If your dependency is anything near 99 per cent plus, then your final drafts would definitely be far from spelling-error-free and grammar-error-free. As “10 Common Errors ‘Spell Check’ Won’t Catch,” an article by Kaboodle.com on Yahoo! points out, this is because the English language is chockfull of homonyms—words that have different meanings but sound and look similar—that spell-checkers simply couldn’t distinguish from one another. So to catch them, you need to make a final mechanical proofreading pass on your writing before sending it out to the printers or to its addressee. Even hardy digital spell-checkers can use some human help!
Read Yahoo!’s “10 Common Errors ‘Spell Check’ Won’t Catch” now! (http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/life/10-common-errors-spell-check-won-t-catch-2039083/#poll-86A687227A3211DF922CE2CA55AE989C)
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The dictionary is still the most reliable reference for spelling. :)
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I agree absolutely! We need to make sure, though, that the dictionary we are using is of the English standard that our respective countries are using. There are dictionaries using the American English standard and there are those that use the British English standard. They spell certain kinds of words differently. For instance, American English dictionaries spell "center" and other words ending in "-er" with the "r" after "e," but British English dictionaries spell such words with the "e" after the "r," as in "centre." American English Dictionaries typically spell words like "standardize" with an "-ize" ending, but British English spell them with an "-ise" ending, as in "standardise." There are several more spelling variations between these two English standards, so when choosing dictionaries, just make sure that you get one in the English standard that you need.