Spell checkers, boon or bane?

[MyOwnBestCritic]

Spellcheckers are good for a preliminary edit, but when it comes right down to the point, any good author will still read through and edit what they have anyway.

Another nuance: AutoCorrect. What if one is trying to spell a word wrong(for whatever reason)? AutoCorrect will not let you spell it incorrectly (unless, of course, you turn it off).  

[splashseal]

O man, that auto-correct function pisses me off sometimes. Like I said before, spell-check doesn't bother me so much because sometimes when I am on a roll, I don't have to worry about fixing stuff right away and can easily find it (but I still read my work anyways, and I work in Wordpad rather than Word typically anyways, so I have to reread everything carefully anyways multiple times). But I have to always make sure auto-correct is turned off because I can change it myself, thank you, and also, if I am typing fast, I might not see that it changed something, and many times it wants to change it to something wrong. XD  

[Matsuoka]

I honestly think that spellcheck is one of the worst computer devices ever to have been born unto this world. I honestly believe that it encourages laziness, kind of a 'Awww, poor baby can't spell. Let's have him hit a button instead of making him learn to proofread'.

I was once sitting next to this girl in the Computer Lab whilst I was in study hall. She honestly spelled history 'hestry' and asked me if she spelled it right.

I told her no,(After, of course, a brief, unbelieving pause) so she just spellchecked. I'm sure that she has made the same mistake on paper again and again.

My opinion is that intelligence is a far greater weapon than spellcheck in the war against typos. (No, if you use spellcheck, I'm not calling you stupid.)  

[Angel80272]

I type all of my important posts (roleplaying and the like) in Word because I know that I am not perfect. Spellcheck is useful because it shows me what I typed wrong (boo for autocorrect! I can change my words myself.) and rather than going through the list of corrections, I manually correct the word.

As it was stated by Critic, spellcheckers are nice, but a human proofreader/editor is always necessary.  

[Momoko Wakaba]

Both are necessary. I can't decide, I basically am a spell-checker.  

[xAvenirYuinax]

Spell-checkers aren't bad but they're not the best. Yes they do promote laziness but that doesn't really bother me since I'm somewhat lazy myself. -slightly ashamed- For my friends however, they don't use the computer, they use me.

Regardless, for any writing, I myself read it over myself several times. Chapters for fanfics and original stories go through the strainer at least five times.

Spell-checkers can indeed be helpful but human intellect is needed for proof-reading. Although like many others, AutoCorrect drives me positively nuts.  

[MesmericVisions]

I. Hate. Them. They encourage lazyness - they do not take into account speech paterns or peom paterns (what pisses me off the most), and their grammar is possibly worse then my eight-year-old sisters!
OK, I shall calm down- but they're useless.
My dad loves it... I decided to make up my own words and add it to Words dictionary - Oh, THAT made me laugh!  

[Cheerfulhope]

I like spell-checkers occasionally, but only on the days that I can't type or maybe when I'm in a hurry and don't want to check it over myself. However, I'm also a fanfic authoress and I prefer to proofread my stories personally because of the many words that can slip by with spell-check. It really bugs me when I look over my stories and find one little error that I have to change. It's just annoying to have to click and click, over and over again, constantly being paranoid about the possible homophones and various other loop holes that escape. neutral I wonder why they invented spell-check, other than convenience.  

[Seferius Slyferin]

I have to support spellcheck, without it my spelling would be as horrid as a tyke.
So when you really have no clue how to spell the word in the first place, how to you proof read it and correct the error?

Basicly, my spelling is naturally at a grade 9 level, while the rest of my english sits at college... A gift from my father I suppopse.  

[Azraelalpha]

I prefer to use spellcheckers to make sure I didn't leave any typos here and there, specially when working on a rush.

I work as assistant translator with my dad (we do Spanish/English and English/Spanish translations), so spelling and grammar are critical in our success. Although my first language is Spanish, I do enjoy learning as much as possible while I work with my dad. Spellcheckers do not work very well on grammar or complex wording, so we do have to proofread all of our work, and even if it is extenuating, we can also review what he have done and even improve it on-the-fly.  

[The Love Turtle]

Spell checkers, I think, encourage laziness and they dont even have some words in the dictonary. How silly is that? Like, I'm Australian, but I spell mum, mom and I also spell colour, color. When I'm spell checking on word, and I type in color the Australian way, it comes up with a red line, even though there is no correct way of spelling color.  

[emd0tx]

I don't like spellcheckers because they always tell me I've spelled my name wrong. domokun  

[Baka Gothic Kitsune]

Spell checkers are next to useless. They are always underlining names because they look like they're spelled wrong. They're only the tiniest bit helpful because they occasionally let me know I've made a type-o.  

[Queen of the Blue Twins]

I have to say that honestly I haven't used a spell check program in probably 2 years. Seriously. I hate the fact that they have even created them. My oldest son was in the 9th grade before I realized he was using them because he was a bad speller and had forgotten how to use the dictionary properly. Since then, my husband has actually removed the program from the Windows version (or disabled I'm not sure which) on the kids computer so they have to use the dictionary.

For those wondering why I used it 2 years ago if I hate them so much.... it was a 65 page thesis paper and after reading it 15 times the words blended and I used it as a fail safe. Missed 2 words.

Total bane in my opinion. My husband on the other hand is such a horrible speller (and grammer idiot - his words) that anything he writes looks like a six year old did it. So, I'm his spell check at home and he uses the programs at work.  

[[.i_like_pi.]]

I am totally against spell check because people rely on it way too much. What I really don't like is that in school we learn how to use spell check. Also everyone seems to blame their poor spelling on spell checker. I hear "I can't spell, and that's why I use spell check," a lot, and I get really annoyed when I hear that. Look it up in the dictionary. It's what people did before spell check, and it still works. And maybe you will learn more words as a result by looking at other words on the same page.

It does underline my name and a lot of things that I type so usually I just ignore it.

If people wouldn't be so lazy and actually proofread... they wouldn't depend on spell check.