MS Word Spell Check - How It Can Sometimes Fail You

chillibreeze writer — Vidya Rengaswami

“Eye have a spelling chequer,
It came with my Pea Sea.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss Steaks I can knot sea.
Eye strike the quays and type a whirred
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am write oar wrong
It tells me straight a weigh.”

And so go the famous verses by Mr. Jarolld H. Zar. As we can see from the poem above, the MS Spell checker has detected only three possible errors, one of which is shown as an error only because the spelling is not “American”!

Spell checker or “spell check” as it is sometimes called, basically consists of a set of commands for scanning texts and words and an in-built dictionary, so to say, for comparing the scanned words/texts. They date back to early 1957 when the first spell checks were written for correcting & editing mainframe databases, while the actual spell check database containing a word list for plausible correct spellings came in 1971. Initial spell check programs came in as stand-alone programs that needed to be incorporated into PCs.

Most modern word processors, however, have built-in spell-checking tools for spelling checks, grammar checks and even a built-in thesaurus. Recently, spell checking has moved beyond word processors since Mozilla Firefox 2.0, and a couple of other web browsers like the Google Chrome have spell check support for user-written content, like blogs, social networking sites, Wikitext, etc.

Spell checkers definitely save us huge amounts of time that we usually spend proofreading what we have written. Modern word processors like MS Word, with instant highlighting of spelling mistakes, help us in quickly going through and correct obvious errors before the actual proofreading. However, we need to understand here that, a spell-checker is supposed to identify/correct spelling errors and it does just that. It cannot be a substitute for proof-reading!

In general terms, a spell checker only confirms that the words we have written in our text are present in the built-in dictionary of the word processor, but not whether we have used them in the right place or context. For example, let us take the example of the words “there” and “their”. MS Spell check may not highlight where we have used the wrong one. Actual proof reading is what will help us identify such errors.

While we do understand and appreciate the value of MS Spell check and use them every time we write to ensure quality of writing, we must not, however, be fooled into believing them to cure our writing ills. A classic example is the poem by Mr. Jarolld Zar (mentioned at the beginning of this essay). It clearly shows us how, despite the fact that every word has been misspelled, the spell check fails to highlight most of them.

One other disadvantage is that spell checkers will not help in consistency of text….one can easily use different, but correct spellings of the same word within a single document without the spell checker highlighting the inconsistency of spelling. For example, one can use both ‘authorize’ and ‘authorise’ (which, ironically, is highlighted here) in the same document without attracting spell-check error, but which is definitely seen as an inconsistency in our work.

Another common criticism is something called as the ‘Cupertino Effect’. This is, basically, the tendency of the spell checker to suggest inappropriate words for misspelled words. For example, the word ‘definitely’ may have been misspelled as ‘definately’ but the spell checker may suggest ‘defiantly’ instead of ‘definitely’. Mr. Benjamin Zimmer of Thinkmap, Inc. and University of Pennsylvania has collected many examples of similar errors, including “Voldemort” as “Voltmeter” (in the Denver Post), “Muttahida Quami Movement” as “Muttonhead Quail” and a name “DeMeco Ryans” being misspelled as “Demerol” (in the New York Times) (Source : Wikipedia)

Critics have attempted to link spell checkers to loss of reading, writing and oral communication skills….more often than not, people skip traditional proof reading and substitute it by the passing of a simple spell checker.

A unique study on the spell checker has suggested that, to use a spell checker effectively, higher verbal skills are required and only people with higher verbal skills can successfully recognize incorrect suggestions. However, it was found that, once the spell checker was turned on, even people with higher skills performed as poorly as their low skilled counterparts. This only proves the loss of skill that we are talking about here.

While we understand that the Spell Checker is not an editing/proof-reading tool, we must understand what it is able to provide us by way of assistance and improvement of language skills. We must also, always keep in mind the Spell checker’s limitations with regard to the same. We must also understand that spell checkers can complement our writing and editing skills, but can never replace them.

 

Editor's note: Most articles submitted to Chillibreeze go through a selection process. Only 30 percent of submitted articles are accepted for publication on the Chillibreeze.com featured article list. All accepted articles are edited and proofread for glaring errors of punctuation and grammar. Sentence structure is changed in certain cases and sometimes, entire sections are rewritten. If you notice any errors that have slipped through the cracks, do let us know! (Email us at info at chillibreeze dot com).

Chillibreeze's disclaimer: This is a contributed article and was published on Chillibreeze in June, 2011. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of Chillibreeze as a company. Chillibreeze has a strict anti-plagiarism policy. Please contact us to report any copyright issues related to this article. The relevance of the facts and figures cited (if any) could change after a period of time.

 

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—About our writer: I am a client management professional with over 16 years experience in the computer industry. I have worked as the project leader for network infrastructure projects at many multinational client sites like WNS Global Services, Tech Mahindra, Hewitt Associates and many more. Being creatively inclined, I also handled the additional responsibility of creating the content for the company brochure. I have initiated the internal employee newsletter of the company and have continued to function as its editor during my tenure there. Currently working as a Client Service and Operations Head in-charge of the Western Region (based out of Mumbai) for an upcoming software company, I continue to work in my skill areas along with creating and managing the marketing communication of the company.

 

 

 

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