# Why do you hate spellcheck? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 19, 2006, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-hate-spellcheck/365101 "2006-07-19T01:17:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-hate-spellcheck/365101/21 "2006-07-19T05:06:01Z")
I say “le screw” to the spellchecker. I spell pretty damned well in the first place, and in the second place much of my writing is done in such a way as to convey a flavor of my spoken speech, and therefore can be idiosyncratically spelled intentionally. Spellcheckers don’t understand this, and give me fits of annoyance which tend to result in cracked LCDs… If it’s a Microsoft spellchecker, then fuck it in the neck with a barbed wire wrapped dildo which has been dragged backwards through and over-beshat cat box. I’m just sayin’… ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-hate-spellcheck/365101/22 "2006-07-19T05:39:54Z")
Spellcheck is America Writ Smell! All the individual words are spelled right but the sentence makes no sense. All the arcane, tradition-bound rules are enforced, but it doesn’t matter at all if the result is chaos. Remember the first family dinner scene in _American Beauty_? THAT was Spellcheck. ---
**Author:** ![gabriela](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/db5fbb/32.png) [@gabriela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gabriela)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-hate-spellcheck/365101/23 "2006-07-19T09:04:46Z")
[QUOTE=iampunha] Have you tried sacrificing a goat to the relevant deity of the Arcana and trying to disable various “auto-correct” and “auto-format” options? And don’t get me started on the code designed to help with outlines and indentation. ::burns with rage:: [/QUOTE] I would sooner end a helpless goat’s itty bitty life than mess with disabling auto-format options. The only thing I did with auto-correct is turn it off. If that’s disabling, then call me a differently abled, disabling enabler. ---
**Author:** ![gabriela](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/db5fbb/32.png) [@gabriela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gabriela)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-hate-spellcheck/365101/24 "2006-07-19T09:06:19Z")
[QUOTE=Misnomer] I don’t know if this will work for you (as everyone’s process is different), but I’ve been using MS Word for many, many years and learned long ago to simply get all the words out, _then_ worry about things like formatting and en-dashes. 🙂 [/QUOTE] Wouldn’t work for me. I’m a self-grammar nazi. Thanks for askin’, though. ---
**Author:** ![gabriela](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/db5fbb/32.png) [@gabriela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gabriela)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-hate-spellcheck/365101/25 "2006-07-19T09:07:46Z")
[QUOTE=mangeorge] Sounds to me like a bunch of you people could get together and develop a good system. People who actually use the thing. One good thing would be the ability to “train” it. That way, it would learn that **gabriela** ’s way of having a “good rollicking write-on” is the right way, and leave her alone. Then she could, as **Misnomer** suggests, take care of the details after she gets it all out. I get 10% of gross sales, okay? mangeorge [/QUOTE] What are you, nuts? 10% of net. ---
**Author:** ![iampunha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/74df32/32.png) [@iampunha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iampunha)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-hate-spellcheck/365101/26 "2006-07-19T09:41:02Z")
[QUOTE=mangeorge] Sounds to me like a bunch of you people could get together and develop a good system. People who actually use the thing. [/quote] Only when we can capably raise most people, who are born with language abilities programmed into their brains, to be able to use the language competently will we be even in the remotest vicinity of being able to teach AI how to approach English grammar with the accuracy required to substitute for even a decent copy editor. Of course, teaching it one person’s specific stylistic nuances is a less daunting task, because that’s a matter of simply telling it to ignore certain words, phrases and constructions. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-hate-spellcheck/365101/27 "2006-07-19T12:08:28Z")
[QUOTE=mangeorge] So what’s the problem if the uneducated masses cheat a little? [/QUOTE] Because spelling is the only thing I’m really good at! No fair if _everyone_ can do it! :mad: _stamp_ ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-hate-spellcheck/365101/28 "2006-07-19T12:15:10Z")
[QUOTE=gabriela] Hear, hear, hear! Crappy Microsoft dictionaries! I disimpact on thy virtual pages! Tangentially: Am I the only person who thinks Word was written with no intent of being helpful to a writer? How often during dialogue does one person break off a remark, ending in the following sequence: {word} {space} {en dash} {close quote}, or something like "But - ". Try that in Word, you get a hyphen that does not convert to an en dash, followed by an open quote. Perfectly maddening. There is no way to do this in Word short of writing {“But” - }, and then going back to cut and paste the en dash and the spaces inside the close quote, otherwise you get a hyphen and an open quote. And that is just destructive to a good rollicking write-on. Creatus interruptus. I hate Microsoft products. [/QUOTE] Turn off the auto-format or auto-correct option in the TOOLS menu, or rather turn off the specific option you don’t want to use. I don’t have it fill in hyphens and such, but I do have it set up to, for instance, correct common (for me) typos. For instance, in my novel I have a character who was originally named “JayJay” but is now called “Rosemary.” With autoformat I can have the computer automatically correct me if I accidentally use the old name, or forget to capitalize the first R in Rosemary, or accidentally put a space between the e and the m, and so forth. The key to using Word is to figure out which features you want, and turnoff the rest. ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-hate-spellcheck/365101/29 "2006-07-19T14:16:36Z")
[QUOTE=Misnomer] I don’t _hate_ spell-check (or its bastard cousin, grammar-check), but I do believe that it encourages people to think that they don’t need a proofreader/copyeditor. And that is a bad thing. [/QUOTE] Yup. It’s a major grrr for me when I tell people I’m a copyeditor and they say, “Can’t they just use spell-check?” Gosh, you’re right, the hours and hours I spend on a manuscript can be replaced by a button in Word! Why didn’t anyone think of that! I’ll notify my clients about this handy shortcut and close up shop immediately! :rolleyes: I do use spell-check as PART of my electronic editing toolkit. But I don’t use it in real time, and I run it only to check for typos AFTER I’ve finished the substantive pass through the text. Some editors I know use exclusion dictionaries to flag troublemaker words (for instance, to always stop on “pubic”), but I haven’t gotten that fancy yet. All “grammar check” programs are worse than useless. ---
**Author:** ![Renee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/renee/32/287_2.png) [@Renee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renee)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-hate-spellcheck/365101/30 "2006-07-19T14:28:27Z")
I despise grammar check, but spelling is something that just doesn’t come naturally to me. I would rather just get my ideas on paper than worry about spelling details. I love spell check. I also love the[Google tool bar](http://toolbar.google.com/index_xp.html). Not only does it have a good spellchecker, it also has a google search bar, and an auto-fill option that will fill in your address, etc., on online forms. I use it all the time. ---
**Author:** ![Misnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misnomer/32/14897_2.png) [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2006, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-hate-spellcheck/365101/31 "2006-07-19T15:35:27Z")
[QUOTE=gabriela] Wouldn’t work for me. I’m a self-grammar nazi. [/QUOTE] Well, I don’t see it as having to do with whether you’re a nazi about your own spelling/grammar or not – it’s about _when_ you go all Hitler on your text. 😉 I definitely correct my spelling and grammar as I write, too, but I’m not going to stop my flow just to correct Word when it thinks that an en-dash is a hyphen. But, like I said, different writing processes for different folks. Another example coming up… [QUOTE=Scarlett67] I do use spell-check as PART of my electronic editing toolkit. But I don’t use it in real time, and I run it only to check for typos AFTER I’ve finished the substantive pass through the text. [/QUOTE] Yes, I agree that I use it as one part of my editing process – I tend to run it first, though. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-hate-spellcheck/365101.md?page=1)