# A red line does not mean I spelt it wrong. Reduced intelligence through technology. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 13, 2008, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-red-line-does-not-mean-i-spelt-it-wrong-reduced-intelligence-through-technology/449158 "2008-05-13T13:05:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-red-line-does-not-mean-i-spelt-it-wrong-reduced-intelligence-through-technology/449158/21 "2008-05-13T21:23:47Z")
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal] “Spelt” is a kind of wheat, right? Be sure and tell your kids. [/QUOTE] One of the laws of the SDMB is that in any spelling thread started by a Brit, a snarky American will pick up on the word “spelt”. Sorry, but that’s the way it’s always been spelt over here. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-red-line-does-not-mean-i-spelt-it-wrong-reduced-intelligence-through-technology/449158/22 "2008-05-13T21:28:27Z")
[QUOTE=tdn] “Right back at yaw.”{/QUOTE] My SO and I occasionally use “luv ya” at the end of an email. Not paying attention one day, my “Luv Ya” got turned into “Love Yak” by an over zealous spellchecker. Not the most romantic of nicknames. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-red-line-does-not-mean-i-spelt-it-wrong-reduced-intelligence-through-technology/449158/23 "2008-05-13T21:30:37Z")
[QUOTE=Colophon] One of the laws of the SDMB is that in any spelling thread started by a Brit, a snarky American will pick up on the word “spelt”. Sorry, but that’s the way it’s always been spelt over here. 🙂 [/QUOTE] Snarky? Damn. I thought I was just having a bit if fun. I totally let him slide on “programme,” dude. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-red-line-does-not-mean-i-spelt-it-wrong-reduced-intelligence-through-technology/449158/24 "2008-05-13T21:36:07Z")
[QUOTE=Tastes of Chocolate] [QUOTE=tdn] “Right back at yaw.”{/QUOTE] My SO and I occasionally use “luv ya” at the end of an email. Not paying attention one day, my “Luv Ya” got turned into “Love Yak” by an over zealous spellchecker. Not the most romantic of nicknames. [/QUOTE] Isn’t that a song by the B52s? ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-red-line-does-not-mean-i-spelt-it-wrong-reduced-intelligence-through-technology/449158/25 "2008-05-13T21:39:17Z")
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal] Snarky? Damn. I thought I was just having a bit if fun. I totally let him slide on “programme,” dude. [/QUOTE] Verrilie shalt we lette thee offe, juft thif once. ---
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-red-line-does-not-mean-i-spelt-it-wrong-reduced-intelligence-through-technology/449158/26 "2008-05-13T21:49:52Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] Sometimes it really does mean I’m wrong, other times, it means the computer just doesn’t know the word, but my kids trust the red line too much and will sometimes just right click and replace with the default suggestion (rendering the text nonsensical). [/QUOTE] And frequently, in my experience, it means that the default spell checker is using US English and complaining about British spellings… such as spelt (which just got underlined for me by Firefox). It makes me wonder how much of a pressure this is creating towards US spelling preferences outside of the US. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-red-line-does-not-mean-i-spelt-it-wrong-reduced-intelligence-through-technology/449158/27 "2008-05-13T21:51:30Z")
[QUOTE=Colophon] Verrilie shalt we lette thee offe, juft thif once. [/QUOTE] “Gette” is misspelt. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_Dirx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b77776/32.png) [@Sir\_Dirx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Dirx)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-red-line-does-not-mean-i-spelt-it-wrong-reduced-intelligence-through-technology/449158/28 "2008-05-13T21:58:50Z")
Spell checkers often turn my friend’s last name into “Diehard.” The best part is that her dad’s a judge, so it’s not uncommon for some documents and emails to bear the name “Judge Diehard.” 😃 My main gripe is about Word’s custom dictionary and capitalized words. I use a lot of technical and anatomical terms, and many times they come at the beginning of a sentence. When I add them to the dictionary, Word somehow thinks that they HAVE to be capitalized, and will autocorrect that the next time I type them. That’s an easy correction to miss, and even when I do catch it, it means I have to add the word _again_. It’s also fun when a custom-added word throws off Word’s grammar-checker, and it tells me my sentence has no verb, etc. It would be nice if I had the option of going through my custom dictionary and defining certain properties of the words in there. “This word is a Proper Noun.” “This word is a Verb, and is the Past Tense of [other verb already in custom dictionary].” ---
**Author:** ![emmaliminal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7bcc69/32.png) [@emmaliminal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emmaliminal)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-red-line-does-not-mean-i-spelt-it-wrong-reduced-intelligence-through-technology/449158/29 "2008-05-13T22:22:51Z")
You all do know how to turn off the Autocorrect/Autoformat and all their assorted options (squiggly lines included), right? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-red-line-does-not-mean-i-spelt-it-wrong-reduced-intelligence-through-technology/449158/30 "2008-05-13T22:32:35Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] Similarly, they’ve picked up the phrase “make a legal U-turn”, spoken by GPS units in an assortment of TV programmes and films, except that it has entered their consciousness as “make _ **illegal** _ U-turn”. Now, every time I perform a U-Turn in my car, they pipe up “Dad! U-Turns are illegal!” [/QUOTE] When I was a kid, I thought U-turns were illegal. Why? Because I always saw street signs say U-turns weren’t allowed, but I never saw any saying they _were_ allowed. ---
**Author:** ![kushiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kushiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kushiel)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-red-line-does-not-mean-i-spelt-it-wrong-reduced-intelligence-through-technology/449158/31 "2008-05-13T22:36:39Z")
An unfortunate incident has caused the office here to be much more careful about spellcheck. My coworker meant to send out an email to a client saying ‘Sorry for the inconvenience’ but spellcheck auto-corrected it to ‘Sorry for the incontinence’. Luckily the client was amused. 🙂 And then there’s the time another coworker accidentally included a male client in an email inviting all the girls out to karaoke! ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-red-line-does-not-mean-i-spelt-it-wrong-reduced-intelligence-through-technology/449158/32 "2008-05-13T22:54:27Z")
[QUOTE=Morelin] Not to nitpick, but wont is a real word and shouldn’t be setting off the spellcheck. Which of course is another problem with relying on the computer. [/QUOTE] On my PC, “wont” does not trigger spellcheck at all, but it will be flagged if the grammar checker thinks I left out an apostrophe. In other words, if I feed it “Jerry was wont to play dead. Wont you join us?” It will leave the first wont alone, and suggest “Won’t” for the second. So it is clever enough to tell the difference. [QUOTE=Contrapuntal] “Spelt” is a kind of wheat, right? Be sure and tell your kids. [/QUOTE] Word has no quibbles at all with “The label on one barrel of spelt was spelt incorrectly.” Perhaps those people that are having problems need to upgrade? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2008, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-red-line-does-not-mean-i-spelt-it-wrong-reduced-intelligence-through-technology/449158/33 "2008-05-13T22:59:36Z")
I am an awful speller. Spellcheck is my savior. I have actually become a better speller because of it. Yet, I know when I’m right and its wrong. When I was a TA, I remember many students discussing molecules that formed dimmers. The word is dimer. Funny though, Safari doesn’t seem to have a problem with it. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2008, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-red-line-does-not-mean-i-spelt-it-wrong-reduced-intelligence-through-technology/449158/34 "2008-05-14T15:01:23Z")
I’m naturally an extremely good speller (and typist) so when I hit F7 it’s very rare that there’s a mistake, however I always do because you never know. Typing in word at work however - oh my fucking god! It’s permanently stuck on US English as the default and any changes you make to the dictionary don’t seem to last past your next reboot so you’re forever having to ignore all the red squiggles on your screen. The best example I’ve come across of someone regretting relying on the spell checker was when I used to work for David Miliband (now Foreign Secretary, then Minister for Schools) and he was reading through a document in a meeting and said “‘David militant will…’ Hang on, why am I militant?” (the word the spellchecker always tried to turn his name to). The senior official in that meeting couldn’t have gone redder faster. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2008, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-red-line-does-not-mean-i-spelt-it-wrong-reduced-intelligence-through-technology/449158/35 "2008-05-14T15:16:35Z")
[QUOTE=Tastes of Chocolate] My SO and I occasionally use “luv ya” at the end of an email. Not paying attention one day, my “Luv Ya” got turned into “Love Yak” by an over zealous spellchecker. Not the most romantic of nicknames. [/QUOTE] I love ewe. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2008, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-red-line-does-not-mean-i-spelt-it-wrong-reduced-intelligence-through-technology/449158/36 "2008-05-14T15:18:30Z")
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal] “Spelt” is a kind of wheat, right? Be sure and tell your kids. [/QUOTE] Your post kind of smelt like fish. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2008, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-red-line-does-not-mean-i-spelt-it-wrong-reduced-intelligence-through-technology/449158/37 "2008-05-14T15:34:33Z")
[QUOTE=emilyforce] Fewer and fewer publishers think they can afford the time it takes, is my professional observation. There are plenty of frustrated but competent copyeditors and proofreaders out there who simply aren’t allowed the time to find all the mistakes.[/hijack] [/QUOTE] Or can’t find a position in the first place. They’re becoming buggy whips in the industry. [/hijack, for real this time] ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2008, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-red-line-does-not-mean-i-spelt-it-wrong-reduced-intelligence-through-technology/449158/38 "2008-05-14T15:59:56Z")
[QUOTE=myskepticsight] The red line is one of the reasons I hate taking notes on my laptop in class. Some words I need to write down are long names of brain regions, weird diseases, research terms, names, etc. that are not recognized and my word doc ends up all colorful. [/QUOTE] Yep. I do medical record reviews and summaries all the time at work and it’s a damn good thing I can spell because there’s no way I’d bother running a spellcheck when every fifth word is underlined. It’s more or less a given that any medical term more complicated than “cough” won’t be in any word processor’s dictionary. I also hate that WordPerfect thinks plural acronyms are correct if they’re wrongly apostrophed: “MRIs” gets underlined, but “MRI’s” doesn’t (I know MRIs isn’t really correct, since that would be magnetic resonance imagings, but you see what I mean.) ---
**Author:** ![masterofnone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@masterofnone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/masterofnone)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2008, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-red-line-does-not-mean-i-spelt-it-wrong-reduced-intelligence-through-technology/449158/39 "2008-05-14T16:10:02Z")
[QUOTE=tdn] I love ewe. [/QUOTE] Hal? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-red-line-does-not-mean-i-spelt-it-wrong-reduced-intelligence-through-technology/449158.md?page=1)