Spell/Grammar Check?

Hello,

I notice that there are some posters who do not have English as their native language, hence spelling and grammar errors. Is it possible to have a function that will auto-correct their mistakes?

It's impossible for me to take someone seriously if they have sloppy spelling and grammar.

Interestingly, I noticed that after I posting here for some time, my spelling began to improve enormously. I believe that spell check, grammar check, auto-fill forms, etc. are actually damaging to our basic skills. "Use it or lose it." Thus, I would say the lack of a spell-check function here has been very helpful.

If somebody is a non-native speaker, on the other hand, it is simply good manners to forgive spelling and grammar errors. In fact, unless some punk is constantly using "l33t-sp33K" or 4chanisms in every other sentence, everybody -- native speaker or not -- should be forgiven for spelling and grammar errors to some extent.

Just my two cents...

reply to post by silent thunder


It's a good thing that nation flags aren't displayed. I'm pretty sure there would be some xenophobic, native-born Americans that wouldn't be able to write the same English that they want others to speak/write.

reply to post by The Sword


I can't stand forums that have nation flags. In addition to the fact it violates privacy, it also turns every discussion into a potential international brawl and always makes nation an issue in every discussion, consciously or subconsciously.

I stopped posting at a certain not-to-be-named board that some ATSers might or might not be aware not too long ago, as soon as they started adding nation flags.

reply to post by The Sword

The Sword,

Firefox has an add-on spellchecker.

I agree though that working without a spell checker is incredibly good for learning to write in the English language.

As for people giving me a hard time about my grammar, I kindly direct them to my signature...

Peace

Hi I am dyslexic so every now and then my posts will have the odd spelling mistake or grammatical error. I don’t really care if another posters grammar or spelling is sloppy, I only care about the content of what they have to say. I care more about what they have to say other than their use of the words “where” and “were”. In general I do get really annoyed about the lack of threads on ATS concerning events that impact on non-English speaking states and I don’t think that threads like this one help this problem.

Why should we always be expecting them to learn English, why don’t we try to learn their native tong?

Originally posted by kevinunknown
Why should we always be expecting them to learn English, why don’t we try to learn their native tong?

Well, this is worth asking, but how many languages can one reasonably be asked to learn?

Several points:

1) This board is owned, operated, and originally created in the UK. So it is to be expected that English would be the language spoken here. There are many fine messageboards in every major and most minor languages for those so inclined. If you are interested in chatting in Arabic or Russian or Spanish or Chinese, to pick a few examples, there are hundreds and hundreds of boards to choose from. And even if your interest is in a relatively unknown language like Latvian, you can usually find boards in a given language.

2) Like it or not, at least for now, English is the de-facto global business language. Similar to the way in the middle ages, European international affiars were conducted in Latin. And in Asia, Korea-China-Vietnam-Japan relations were all conducted (for the most part) in Classical Chinese.

And the trend is not necessaraly representative of some kind of English hegemony. Sometimes, English spoken between two non-native-English speakers is very useful "neutral ground." In Asia, for example, when Chinese and Japanese businessmen do business, it is common to prefer English to trying to speak each other's languages. This is because in that situation, choosing Chinese or Japanese could be seen by the other side as "losing face" in some way due to deferring to the other, for example. I generalize, but this attitude is very, very common in international business.

It may not stay this way forever, but this is the global trend at the moment...



[edit on 8/13/10 by silent thunder]

I can easily forgive people who have English as a second language having poor spelling and grammar. I can only speak English and some very basic French, so anyone who can master multiple languages impresses me.

Having said that, I do feel there is little excuse for poor spelling and grammar in your primary language, other than possibly dyslexia. It is simply a sign of a poor education. In First World countries, this shows either a failure in the education system, or a failure in the person, as reading and writing skills; the most basic of educational needs should have been mastered prior to high school.

Obviously everyone makes mistakes (I'm terrible for typos), but repeated errors shows a lack of literacy.

My pet hate on threads is when people confuse words such as:

To/Too
There/Their/They're
Where/Wear/Were/We're
Here/Hear

Also, people who try to make themselves appear more intelligent than they actually are by misusing the word "whom".

I may be sounding like a complete snob here, but how can I take someone's intelligence or knowledge seriously if they can't even grasp the most basic educational aspects of their own language?

An auto-correct system is not needed in my opinion, although a simple tick box indicating that the poster has English as their second language may be a good idea.

[edit for spelling (ironically)]

[edit on 13-8-2010 by nik1halo]

reply to post by The Sword


Would be good to know if you are suggesting utilising BRe (British English) or Ae (American English) as your baseline for spell/grammar checking

reply to post by nik1halo


Ah, but their is correctly spelt thier
(letter combos like ei and oi are transposed in the Sussex dialect )

reply to post by thoughtsfull


To be fair, in the Black Country dialect, 'There' would be spelt 'Theer' and 'Theirs' would be spelt 'Thairn', so I think we should stick to the Oxford English Dictionary for this thread.

reply to post by The Sword

Mine doesnt work?
2ND

I think faster than I type, so many times I have grammar and spelling errors because of this.

I do tend to use word for checking my spelling and it notices most of my grammar errors when I am at work and don’t have access to my other web browser that has spell check built in, though that one does not correct my grammar errors.

I do tend to sometimes not use my MS word while at work and it shows in my spelling and grammar. It is not because of my poor education, it is because I don’t type as fast as I think, it happens when I speak as well, my thoughts are normally ahead of what I am speaking and tend to leave out words, it drives people nuts, but this also shows in my writing and typing.

Because of my basic flaws I tend to give others a little more leeway as well. So what if the proper English and spellings aren’t used, you can usually still get the gist of what they are trying to convey.

reply to post by The Sword


Those who judge are most probably not in a position to be judging others is what I say. I am well aware there is a real person behind their posts on message boards and sometimes "looks" can be deceiving.

What I don't like is the enormous amount of plagiarism on these boards rather than spelling mistakes.

Originally posted by operation mindcrime
Firefox has an add-on spellchecker.

That's correct, Google chrome has one as well... And I can't remember installing it so I think it was bundled in.

There are 2 other options (maybe people posting from a work computer who can't pick their browser) - that is to use Google's search engine as a spell checker and/or type your posts in to a word processor and copy/paste them into the box.

Originally posted by nik1halo
reply to post by thoughtsfull

 

To be fair, in the Black Country dialect, 'There' would be spelt 'Theer' and 'Theirs' would be spelt 'Thairn', so I think we should stick to the Oxford English Dictionary for this thread.

well Sussex [South Saxons] is [are] the oldest Anglo-Saxon nation so I'm claiming the Sussex Dictionary has primacy over the Oxford English dictionary

edit to add if there is a dictionary to the Black Country Dialect I'd love to see it, I like how dialects have grown and changed.. here is a link to a Sussex one from 1875.. make me to read it..

Sussex Dictionary 1875

[edit on 13/8/10 by thoughtsfull]

IMO,

I belevie it is ptety to eevn metnoin splelnig how low can we go thsee dyas. We are not appylnig to be rckeot sceitnsit we are hree to rlaex and spned tmie wtih ohetrs.

For myslef I belevie it is "sad" you can not tkae a pesorn seiruosly becusae of thier splelnig.

reply to post by thoughtsfull


Here's one, but it's a mixture of old (17-1800's) and new (1900+) Black Country words.

Black Country Dictionary

Enjoy it for a loff (look it up in there)

ETA: Having just looked through that one myself, it's quite worrying to see how many words we have for fighting or beating someone up. Bloody violent lot, my ancestors! Not much has changed!

[edit on 13-8-2010 by nik1halo]

I vote a resounding YES on spell check!
Most of my posts are very hastily written, my stupid Firefox spell check doesn't work right. I DO try for proper spelling and grammar ( I'm probably hopeless), and it DOES make a difference in the quality of the site.

Up to about a week or two ago - spellchecker via Firefox advanced preferences (not add-on) worked fine here. Anyone have an idea why it no longer works?



[edit on 13-8-2010 by LadySkadi]

Yes indeed it would help BUT many internet browsers today do spellcheck automatically. See? I put "spellcheck" and the red line comes up so apparently "spell check" is the correct way to put it.