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Subject:Re: general topic of spelling From:Kate Salm <kate_salm -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Thu, 16 Jun 2005 06:04:14 -0700 (PDT)
--- James Jones <doc-x -at- earthlink -dot- net> wrote:
>
> TECHWR-Lers:
> What your thoughts on the general topic of
> spelling difficulties in
> written English and the preparing of technical
> documents?
>
> Specifically,
> 1 What specific spelling errors have you found
> to be common to
> technical documentation
most of the errors I find are related to inserting
words that are spelled correctly, but are the wrong
word. That or numbers inserted into words.
> 2 What do you think of spell-checking
> technology and how do you use
> it
I generally use Word's spell check, along with another
specialized spell check for scientific terminology, I
avoid grammer checks at all costs as I have yet to
find one that gives accurate errors or improvements.
> 3 How does current search technology perform
> vis a vis spelling
> errors
If I could find a spell check that finds misused words
I would love it. But that has yet to happen, so
mostly I just get annoyed.
> 4 Your opinion on the topic of spelling
> difficulties
Like many people, when in doubt- spell it
phonetically. Which usually doesn't work because so
many words are spelled nothing like they sound. This
also has the added joy of spell check either not
finding a correction for a misspelled word or coming
up with a word that has nothing to do with what you
were trying to spell. Spelling, for me, is mostly
memorization (at least for me), and since I have a
horrible memory, well, it doesn't work so great. And
I've gotten worse because of spell check. I rely on
it because my memory, particularly for spelling, is so
horrendous.
Personally, I think spelling is a pain in the glueteus
maximus. Thank god for proofreaders!
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