Would It Be Useful To Have A "Spell Check" In the Reply Function?

One of my favorite signature quotes is:

"We've found by experience that people who are careless and sloppy writers are usually also careless and sloppy thinkers (often enough to bet on, anyway)."

I usually find this to be true.

OK....

I installed Forefix.

Im just typing & cheking my speling using forefox now.

Gee it worx reely wel

reply to post by Sam60


ya...maybe it wont make the ignoramous's..(s) (point in case) like me stand out so much...

especially for those of us who dont have those fancy dan office programs

or...

I could just edumacate myself....

But honestly, I do believe it might be helpful...

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
Actually most people will have spell check automatically if they have programs like Microsoft Office installed.

Mine acts just like that, underlining whatever is mispelled.

However an in house spell check would be something cool as well I suppose.

~Keeper

Apologies in advance for this but... "mispelled" is misspelled. LMAO!!!

Sorry.

Originally posted by Sam60
In view of many of the members who are:

Replying in English as their second language.....

People who are so used to e-mail & SMS they simply can't spell any more.....

People who didn't learn to spell in the first place.....

Kind regards
Sam60



[edit on 22-8-2009 by Sam60]

[edit on 22-8-2009 by Sam60]

Yes, a spell chequer,
(cheq·uer (ch k r) Chiefly British. n. Variant of checker. tr.v. Variant of checker. chequer or US checker. Noun. a piece used in Chinese chequers )

Found embedded in Mozilla Firefox, just slightly more difficult to get it to spell in Australian.

The ultimate spell-checker is memory. The requirement for that program to download into your brain is reading, lots of reading.

BTW... I tried Google Chrome for a while. It also contains a spellcheck program. I found it handy, but gave it up due to slow loads. It also clued me in to the fact that my in-head spell checker was in need of refreshing.

Now deep into Margeret MacMillan's 'Paris 1919', only to find 90 year old quotes full of 90 year old spelling, which is quite different than today's.

It's all so damn fluid.

Personally, I don't care about mis-spelled words as long as the message isn't destroyed in the process. Punctuation errors can make thngs difficult to read and understand at times and good grammar is da bomb.

What irks me most is a one paragraph post of a 1000 words and contained in one sentence. I simply can't read it without losing my place if I look away for a second.

As Shadoefax implied, I'm of the opinion that people should not be helped to express themselves. I find it helpful, in deciding how much credence to assign to a post, to see how carefully it is put together.
I think it's pretty obvious when English isn't someone's 1st language, so there's no danger of misconstruing their mistakes for the blunders of idiocy, & I'd like to take the opportunity to echo the afore-posted thanks, to people for whom English is a 2nd language, for bothering to post @all.
However, idiocy is rife & since we have no means to judge anonymous opinion other than by its content, I say that people should be given any rope necessary to hang themselves.
It's sort of Darwinian natural selection of ideas. A badly expressed good idea will attract attention anyway &, @some point, somebody will rephrase it for mass dissemination. Idiocy will simply sink under the vast & increasing bulk of info we are able to contemplate.
Thus those whom wantingly attempt to and I and make the point but do not because the point is mute should never be but criticised but instead left to there own divices to learn or not that is the question. Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings & arrows of outrageous gobbledegook or to take arms against a sea of misunderestimation, & by opposing end them?
Yeah, right.

reply to post by intrepid


Dude I use Firefox and the spell check is fine, howver could you enlighten me on something ?

When I log in to ATS I immediately get a page open behind the log in page, with some twat telling me how I cam make squillions with an online business.

I've gotten used to just closing the offending page but it does piss me off a lot.

I got a pop up blocker on and stuff but still get it, I don't get the problem with IE7 which doesn't have spell check.

Any ideas please ?

reply to post by masqua


Dude, people like me cannot cope without a spell check and I personally would appreciate a spell check function.

Would you have me not get involved because of my lack of education ?

Spell check helps me communicate, express and annoy the crap out of xtians, punctuation and grammar would be a godsend.

Needless to say the more people that are helped to communicate who perhaps otherwise wouldn't then the more clicks on ATS = revenue.

This entire post was speeled by me on me todd.

Originally posted by kiwifoot


I swear, once you try firefox, you'll never use IE!

O and as for the English part, I must confess, I just installed the English spell check!

I'm here to learn, but am sometimes lazy!

All the best, kiwifoot

Due to all the hype behind FireFox I decided to try it. I used it for several months on and off and I think it sucks big time, even more than IE. Since I hate Microsuck I won't go back to IE. I now use Google Chrome and it's better than both IE and FireFox combined!

Originally posted by moocowman

Would you have me not get involved because of my lack of education ?

I don't think anyone suggests such a thing ... after all we have members from around the world for whom English isn't their first language.

But surely you don't want to rest on that laurel.

reply to post by moocowman


There are things that are usefull to compensate for the lack of education. They can be found all over the world, they look like bricks, but they open up and reveal knowledge. These devices are known as books. One that would be particularly usefull in this situation has big bold letters on the front, and the edge that doesn't open up that says "Dictionary". Another similar set of devices that would be helpfull are titled something like 'self help' for those that aren't lazy, and don't wish to rely on others. There are several types for every language. There are even those that cross reference one language with the proper words for another language. There are shelves specially made to hold these devices. The more you have, the better off you are. There are even huge buildings full of these 'book' devices, and the special shelves made to hold them. They are called 'libraries', and they usually allow you to read any of those brick like devices for free. It just boggles the mind.

(Darn it, I forgot to space everything out, and use all caps. Perhaps next time.)

[edit on 23-8-2009 by SpacePunk]

Originally posted by moocowman
Dude, people like me cannot cope without a spell check and I personally would appreciate a spell check function.

Would you have me not get involved because of my lack of education ?

I'm glad you're involved and support your desire to be so.

I did mention books, it's true, but there are other venues for reading as well. There is, for instance, this post and over a million others right here on ATS. Reading posts will also help your memory on how a word is generally spelled.

Use spellcheck if you like, no-one's criticizing the practice at all. My spelling is hardly perfect and I know it, but I don't really care if it is or not.

That correct spelling should be encouraged is fine, but, if you were to write an innovative story into one of my contests, full of colouful visionary treats for our readership, I would certainly not hold spelling errors against you as a potential winner. As long as I can see the thought you've put into creating it, that is much more important to me.

reply to post by SpacePunk


Dude, perhaps I didn't represent myself correctly , I implied that I didn't have a good education not that I'm ignorant or stupid, if that is what you are trying to sarcastically imply.


I would imagine that spellchecker is a great boon for those unfortunate to suffer with dyslexia, and am curious as to how many members have it and would they agree with my assumption.

I almost asked this same question the other day, and then noticed a member saying they will have to download spellchercker which I found unuseable, I just have it up on my Googletool bar along with my ATS link.

It is still a good idea.

Originally posted by moocowman
I would imagine that spellchecker is a great boon for those unfortunate to suffer with dyslexia, and am curious as to how many members have it and would they agree with my assumption.

Now THAT is a good reason for spellcheck. I did a bit of Googling and found that somewhere between 10% and 20% of a population suffer from it to varying degrees. I never knew it was that widespread.

For those people, it must indeed be a trial to post.

Now, if it could be shown that adding a spellcheck button as an ATS function would not cause too much pressure on the servers, then I'd be for it if only to be of aid to a (likely) similar proportion of our membership.

That knowledge and decision resides with our dedicated SO and surely not with me. I may know how to spell, but coding is a language akin to the San people as far as I'm concerned.

Originally posted by masqua

Personally, I don't care about mis-spelled words as long as the message isn't destroyed in the process. Punctuation errors can make thngs difficult to read and understand at times and good grammar is da bomb.

What irks me most is a one paragraph post of a 1000 words and contained in one sentence. I simply can't read it without losing my place if I look away for a second.

I am Norwegian, so I guess I could use a built in spell check. I often mis-spell words. I just hope it doesn't bother the reader too much, and I very seldom get bothered by mis-spelling in other people's posts. I actually find it a little charming, especially when it shines through that the poster is not American or English. It reminds me that ATS truly is a multinational forum.

But a total lack of paragraphs... Someone should invent a paragraph check! I admit that I often just give up reading loooong posts without paragraphs. People who post like that all the time, often ends up on my "mental ignore"...

Since we're on the subject of enhancing the ATS reply window, I would like to add an additional request. When entering the text of the post, I would like to be able to add styles (e.g., bold, italic, underline, link, etc.) without having to enter the text in a popup dialog box.

Virtually every forum I've posted to allows me to just highlight the particular text and click a style button. The appropriate coding blocks are automatically entered at the beginning/end of the affected text.

Like spell checking, this functionality can be added using Firefox with a third-party extension (i.e., BBCodeXtra) but would more effectively serve the masses if it was built into ATS.

Originally posted by ziggystar60

Someone should invent a paragraph check!

lol, a common sense check wouldn't hurt either.

reply to post by schrodingers dog


Good idea. But it would probably automatically delete most of the threads in the Gray Area!

Not to mention some of the political threads...