Spell checkers, boon or bane?

[L.una]

They annoy me...

 

[Lady Pemberly]

A lot of the time I don't proofread because...I just don't and I want to get my chapter up on fanfiction right away. But spell checkers don't catch a lot of the common mistakes I make like if I want to type "he" and I type "her" instead.

 

[SilverBellsAbove]

Ugh. I hate this issue.

Spell checkers are great in my opinion. They help me catch the dumb mistakes that you make when you end up typing at some god-awful hour in the morning.

However, as I often lament as I read Fanfiction, they are not panaceas. Here's an example:

I mistype 'though' as 'tough'. The spellchecker is none the wiser.

Also, concerning names, the spellchecker is comparable to a braindead hippopotamus. Example:

A certain video game character happens to be extremely good-looking. His name is Albel.

The spellchecker doesn't like this very much. So it tells me to name him...

Label.

gonk  

[[ToXiC][ToOtHpAsTe]]

I think Gaia should have its own spell checker for all those n00bs. D:  

[CristoVII]

Spellcheckers aren't bad, as they catch words you miss, but god forbid never, never use auto correct. Take my word for it. Don't.  

[Lady Dracor]

The trouble with spell checkers is how people use them. So many people turn on the grammar and spell check on MS Word and call that perfect if there are not any squiggly lines. The thing is, spell checkers can be wrong almost as often as they are right, especially if one has a good vocabulary.

The truth is, a program can only be trained to do so much. People know so much more.  

[little cherry blossom]

I had someone send me a fanfic they had written which had already been sent through spell check. I think it took me two hours to clean it up. Spell check is fine, but since many words are used in a different context or may be a correct spelling BUT THE WRONG WORD it can be very vexing to deal with. Personally I find it easier to just check it myself! Plus it never seems to like names of any kind, as others before me has mentioned. You get tired of telling it Julie is okay and you don't want jewels.  

[Silverkleptofox]

Personally I like the old Word Perfect spellchecker. It underlines incorrect words as you write them, and then the spellchecker goes through the document with you, word by underlined word, and you can choose to replace the word with a word on the suggestions list of words that you probably meant when you typed it, or you can ignore it, ignore all the words spelled that way, (which is helpful in an essay on say, Czeckoslavakian dictators) add it to the dictionary, or fix it yourself. Plus it automatically fixes words that are completely obvious. (like 'teh' to 'the') It actually discourages laziness.

I had a habit of typing 'teh' instead of 'the', and in my dictionary 'teh' was a word, so it never caught it. In Word Perfect, you can also subtract words from your dictionary, which really helped in my case.  

[Deyvon]

I also can not spell for the life of me, in fact when ever I am posting a lot, I keep M-W open to help me out, since the firefox extension is really sad.  

[duello]

I use a spell checker quite often because my own spelling is atrocious, however I agree that it’s no substitute for proofreading. Because of the style of writing I do, the words I use often aren’t recognized by the computer’s dictionary. As a general rule, if it’s a real word, such as the proper name for a style of weapon, like the falchion, I’ll add it. If it’s a character’s name, which probably wont show up again in my writing, then I don’t and just ignore it.  

[Reykjavik Bern]

I often have to use a spell checker, as my spelling is way below par, since I only just learned English. I do proofred rather extensively however, since I know they aren't perfect.  

[bakuretsuai]

Wow, I do enjoy having certain words corrected for me. But as soon as I started typing certain names and such spell check just got tiresome. And when I'm really going on a writing spree, I know full well I better proof and get someone else to re-proof before submitting it. I've been humiliated by word before. evil  

[Chasmothyst]

I always proof read before and after spell checking- just in case. ^_^  

[Praxling]

I only use the spell check in my WordPerfect program for words that I'm unsure of (which isn't often, anyway).
Personally, I think I'm too lazy to use spell check. I'd rather go to my handy pocket dictionary. xD

 

[l3viathan]

I use spell checkers since since it helps catch typos sometimes. However, spell checkers should not be used by its self; especially for grammatical errors. People should only use spell checkers for checking for typos, and not as a replacement for proof-reading. Nothing should be used as a replacement for proof-reading.