The spell checker on Word is far too kind. It fixes most common spelling bloopers for you - you don't even realise what you are doing.
How I wish I could have been spared the embarrassment of public wrong spellings by being taught a lesson earlier. But nobody I know would want to be so cruel as to snark at me and such, so why not build cruelty into the spellchecker on Word so I can learn something as I type other things.
There would be subtle hints. “Sure, and whirled peas would surely result”
Snide remarks. “Your complete grammatical ineptitude makes me dis custard”
Angry respelling of words you should know. “F-O-C-A-C-C-I-A!”
And bulk correction. “sp. Environment, palatial, woodchuck, existentialism, …”
This wouldn’t be hard to produce as a software add-on to Word or Sun’s StarOffice. Research and development would pay for themselves if this were recommended as a grade-enhancing tool for susceptible school children with a low enough self-esteem.-- sdm, Oct 09 2001 (?) Would it check things like this? http://legends.atfa...m/spells/curse.html [angel, Oct 09 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004] Bob the Angry Flower Aggressive Literacy Checker http://angryflower.com/softwa.gif [Mharr, Oct 09 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004] Here is the program! http://history.dcs..../word/word.imp.html1985 spelling/grammar checker which does what you're asking for [gtoal, Jan 11 2006] I appreciate being abused for my spelling by a fellow human, but if you made this into software I think I might suffer the same reaction to the Microsoft grammar checker which brings me out in a rage for no reason... Having said that it would work (I think) and the picture of me raging at the computer because it caustically re-spelled my mis-spelling brings me out in a big grin! Have a tasty breakfast croissant sir!-- The_Englishman_Abroad, Oct 09 2001 Is that so? Good. I've got a whole lot of papers I need proof read. I'll leave a big margin down the side so you can go nuts. So that's Una Bubba @ hotmail . com?-- sdm, Oct 09 2001 What, all this time I thought Bubba was a human and it turns out he's just a piece of software? (a lowly spellchecker no less, although obviously branching out into a lyric writing programme)
I could understand if Mephista actually turned out to be Microsoft's grammar checker, because, like t_e_a, that gets me worked up beyond all reason too.-- CoolerKing, Oct 09 2001 :P, waugs. That's gotta be the mostest estupidiest band name ever.-- absterge, Oct 09 2001 Damn, I was so set for a grand, self-righteous Word 2000 sucks type rant, then I found out how to use custom dictionaries in Word. If you right-click on a word underlined in red, you can add it to a custom dictionary file, so that it'll never show up as a spelling error again. From Options, Spelling & Grammar tab, Dictionaries button you can select a custom dictionary other than the standard custom dictionary CUSTOM.DIC and view or edit your current one (to make sure it's all real words in there). This allows you to easily add words like "wank" and "snog", which unbelievably were left out of the standard dictionary, and your friends' names (or friend's names).
Now I just need to sort that *&$£ing grammar checker.
“Yes,” Andy said, and found himself hurtling downwards through the air.
should not be "found he hurtling" whether or not you have a comma after said. In:
Dear reader, let me tell you what being dead is like.
"dear reader" is *not* the subject, and there *should* be a comma after "reader".
Also I don't like the way it wants me to write "blowjob" instead of "blow-job" - surely some things should be private.-- pottedstu, Oct 09 2001 pottedstu - I just disable it before I start to twitch violently.. its either that or constantly click ignore all the nice colourful green squiggles it produces.-- The_Englishman_Abroad, Oct 09 2001 call me paranoid but I just thought it was Microsoft trying to mess with its customers....-- The_Englishman_Abroad, Oct 10 2001 I think there's a level of education that makes for more complex gramatical constructs than Word can handle.
This would work great, though, since the market that would be most interested in it is below said threshold.-- Deity, Oct 10 2001 Sspellcheckerss! We hates them, Precious, we hates them forever! Them and their nassty green squiggleses, yess, curse them and crush them, nassty programses from Bill telling us what to do. We likes to leg-wrestle Miss Spelling two falls out of three our own selves, yess, Precious. We hates them forever!-- Dog Ed, Oct 10 2001 «The spell checker on Word is far too kind.» The term 'incompetent' seems more appropriate here than 'kind', sdm. It doesn't pick up mistakes when it should (from memory, it refuses to spell-check things beginning with a capital letter) and insists on adding squiggly red underlines on correctly spelled words like colour and programme, not to mention metre. This is despite having it set to Australian English. I would rather an opportunity for me to abuse my spell checker...-- cp, Oct 10 2001 UB: You mean you didn't use the language = Middle English setting? You say your edition doesn't have it?-- pottedstu, Oct 10 2001 UnaBubba, is it just me, or is that a verse begging for some plagiarism? Then, retribution for plagiarism may negate argument.-- jabbers, Oct 11 2001 HELP! I can't even find "Word" on my PC. Does this mean I can type crap all the time, without being told off by a mechanical object? I hate it when that happens.........-- PotatoPete, Oct 11 2001 Pottedstu: Word has had the ability to use custom dictionaries since version 1. To cut the grammar checker's throat, go to tools/options/'spelling & grammar', and uncheck the four options listed beneath the line 'Grammar'. No more green squigglies.
Cp: Word will check words with Capitals. It has a setting to not check words in ALL CAPITALS.
How did you set it to Australian English? Try setting it to British English instead.
StarChaser the Tech-Support Tyger.-- StarChaser, Oct 11 2001 StarChaser: «How did you set it to Australian English?» I'm Australian, and therefore have a (presumably) Australian version of Word, which likes to spell-check in Aussie "English". I think it asked me when I first installed it, although I can't really remember. I'd assumed that a spell checker would involve being able to spell things correctly for where I live. This is unfortunately not the case, though.-- cp, Oct 12 2001 You just unplagiarised it.-- jabbers, Oct 12 2001 ExcusE thE issing oR capitalizED lEttErs, but y coputE is giving E tRoublE. Is anyonE ElsE having this pRoblE??????-- Galileo, Oct 13 2001 Cp: I found an option to set specific parts of text as certain languages...Tools->Language->Set language. Unfortunately, that only works for the specifically highlighted text. <I can type 'Honour' in, it's flagged, highlight and set as Aussie, unflagged.>
<finds 'Entering Hanja by using boosoo' and is amused...>
According to Technet, it kind of looks like you need to first set your regional settings in the control panel to 'English (Australian)', then install the multilanguage pack (from the Microsoft Office 2000 Resource Kit CD), and possibly reinstall Word. Supposedly, it will detect the regional setting, and use the correct dictionary. If you want, email me <in my profile> and I can send you the Technet entry.
StarChaser the Tech-Support Tyger, using his powers for good instead of dimwits.-- StarChaser, Oct 13 2001 [StarChaser]: Thanks. I'm not up-to-date enough to use Office 2K, but reinstalling Word after fiddling with stuff seemed to work. Sorry for the anti-US chauvinism, but it seems like it's only a matter of time before I start to see "American (AU)" and "American (UK)" as language choices...-- cp, Oct 14 2001 Thought you'd mentioned 2000 somewhere, sorry.
I didn't see it as chauvinism <which does irritate me>, it seemed a reasonable request.-- StarChaser, Oct 14 2001 UnaBubba, that "s" is a thing of beauty.-- jabbers, Oct 26 2001 ...and watch the pedants froth at the brain and, in extreme cases, fall over. El Pedanto would go up in flames...-- StarChaser, Oct 27 2001 Mephista: Actually, not recently. Maybe it's just because I haven't read any of your annotations recently. It's not a bad thing, though, without anything worthwhile to get angry about I'd take a very large baseball bat to any computer using MS Word's grammar checker. And correct spelling mistakes that are blatantly just typing errors in true pedantic fashion (PeterSealy's trhink). And pedantically use the word pedant as much as possible to irritate seal10.-- CoolerKing, Oct 27 2001 UB: Tried that, didn't work. That only put the spellchecker into the recycle bin. I managed to fix the keyboard by unchecking "Virus." Of course, it also sent Microsoft Windows to the recycle bin, so I restarted...-- Galileo, Nov 05 2001 [gtoal link]What language is it written in/what's it supposed to run on? - It's got bits of ARM assembler in it and everything!-- Dub, Jan 11 2006 > What language is it written in/what's it supposed to run on? - It's got bits of ARM assembler in it and everything!
It's a language called IMP which was used as the main systems language at Edinburgh for many years; it predates C. It is actually a derivative of the now extinct Atlas Autocode which itself was in the Algol60 family. Look up "Edinburgh IMP" in Wikipedia for more info.
The ARM assembler is because the original program was ported to the ARM some time in the late 80's, and the ARM library did not have some of the standard IMP functions such as the one which passes the command-line parameters to the program, so I hacked up a quick interface to the ARM OS using a SWI call, which could only be done using embedded assembler.-- gtoal, Jan 12 2006 random, halfbakery