Since I’ve been running this blog, I have been puzzled by bad spelling in the comments, and I don’t mean comments from illiterate birther mouth breathers, but from professional folks. I know that they know better. I sometimes notice misspelled words in comments and correct them, but you certainly cannot rely on that happening.
So today I found that Ms. Conspiracy had misspelled a word on her Facebook page, and I asked her why the spell checker didn’t catch it.
“What spell checker?”
And thereby I learned something: Microsoft Internet Explorer doesn’t have a spell checker. I use Firefox for almost everything and of course it has a real-time spell checker so that anytime I misspell a word it’s underlined in red and a right-click menu offers suggestions that can be selected to replace the misspelled word. Google Chrome has a spell checker too.
A little searching found add-ins for Internet Explorer that check spelling. One example is Speckie, free for personal use (I’ve not used this myself and this is not an endorsement). So, save yourself some “embarrassment” (the word Ms. Conspiracy misspelled) and consider a spell checker for your browser.
Unofortunately some poor souls (nod to earlier article, heh) are forced to use IE plug-in free at the office. It’s a cruel world.
At home I won’t allow IE to exist on any device. The lag in performance, hard- and soft-compatibility, and user-friendliness between IE and any other browser is ludicrous.
I presume my errs spike in these fluorescent hours.
Hi Doc,
I’m enjoying the first debate.
How is it that is that you have no response yet to to U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan Ruling that the Natural Born Citizen Requirement is Not Repealed By The 14th Amendment Or The 5th Amendment (excuse the cut and paste).
It, at least,, by my birther conspiracy theory, explains no FEC funding for this and the last campaign .
BTW your soul weighs 21 grams:) as does mine.
Because nobody here has argued that the 14th Amendment or the 5th Amendment repealed the natural-born citizen requirement.
egh, are you new here? This ruling is not relevant to Mr. Obama’s position vis-a-vis his eligibility to run for re-election. If you ever took a course in formal logic, or even a logic unit in another course, you should know that what you’re doing here is setting up the classical straw man argument.
If someone were to come here cold, with no knowledge of the birther issue, they might assume from your post that the Obama camp is contending that the president is eligible for his office even if he is not a natural-born citizen. I defy you to show me a single instance that anyone connected to the president has so asserted.
The real bone of contention all along has been whether Mr. Obama is an NBC, and here the courts have been unanimously on the president’s side.
So enlighten us: what will be the the upshot of the judge’s ruling? Will this ruling result in Mr. Obama’s being stricken from the ballot — in any jurisdiction? Or a post-election disqualification if he should win?
As others have said before me, no one I know of has argued on this forum, or in the anti-birther community at large that the 14th Amendment repealed the Natural Born Citizen qualification for the President.
I have written about Hassan’s case:
While I don’t think I have discussed it here before, birthers have made the assertion that the 14th Amendment did not appeal the natural born citizen requirement. I didn’t comment because it’s fairly obvious, and I certainly agreed. If a birther said that the sun rises in the East, I wouldn’t have anything to say about that either.
Mr. Hassan says that the 14th and 5th Amendments overrule the natural born citizen requirement. I say that Barack Obama is a natural born citizen. Really two unrelated things.
Is there any chance you could recommend a proper grammar checker, Doc?
Nor is it repealed by the twenty-first amendment. Just for one more example.
Does spambot egh have any thoughts re: spellcheck and browsers?
No slam to Doc for his fine blog, but while he doesn’t make many spelling errors himself, several times I’ve noticed grammatical or structure errors to his posts.
I just didn’t say anything.
But as long as we’re nit-picking: half of you are off-topic!! 😉
I’m personally mystified by the prevalence among bloggers and other writers of late making “too/to” errors. Ain’t no spell checker gonna hep you there, although it doesn’t seem all that tough a thing to get right.
Could some of it be that people are commenting from their phones? Mine isn’t checking right now or I wouldn’t have gotten away with “hep.” Folks might have trouble spotting errors among the little bitty letters also. Too.
I do that, and I also use the wrong word from time to time (its/it’s, not/now). Often when answering something I post a link to one of my old articles, and when reading back over them I frequently find and correct things.
Feel free to comment on errors in the articles. I can fix them and delete the comment.
I used to use a very nice one called “Proper Grammar.” 😉
On rare occasions I use Microsoft Word to check an article.
I think most of you will have seen this before:
A Little Poem Regarding Computer Spell Checkers…
Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.
Keep in mind autocorrect on iPad and iPhone, and perhaps other smart phones, sometimes is the thing making the mistakes. Which means we then don’t catch the autocorrect’s mistakes, and sometimes aggressive and incorrect changes. This has caught me a few times. Just now, for instance, for some reason I did not catch, as I was typing that last sentence, autocorrect deleted the already typed word “aggressive.” I’m sure, however, it dud so politely, shyly, and tentatively.
(I’m leaving the more obviously explainable typo “dud” On purpose. Ditto the capital “On.” I did, however, go back and add an “e” to “instance” and removed an extra “e” from “already,” which now autocorrect refused to let me type as “alreeady.”. But as you can see autocorrect is not the only obe who can be aggressive about insisting on changes! However, vvery correction leads to a new mistake, as my master Obe-One Obo likes to say.)
Oh fudge it. Fun times!
And yes, the name should be Pepper. Or something like that. 😉
A Liitle Poem Regarding Autoirrect
Eye like spelling chequers but use an autocorrect bit
It came with my eye foam, sea
It plainly marques in my rear view mirror
What it thinks I should have dreamed
Eye strike the glass and type a order
And glance at it as it goes ash tray
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It flakes me go it’s weigh
As soon as it itself must aches my mined
It dots my tease and creases my ties
And I dare not put the air oar rite
Bee cuss it takes way too long to try
I have let this poem be (I’ve had it!)
I am hore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
And makes perfect dents, we’re it only sew!
I once misspelled thread for threat in a forum – that gave a fuss …
You need an intelligent spellchecker for that.
It sometimes can be difficult to differentiate between spelling errors and typos. Back in the day I was a very proficient typist (while in the Navy I could knock out 70 WPM on a teletype) and rarely made an error. However, I have found that it is much easier to make typographical errors when I am typing my own thoughts rather than typing something which is already written down. I ascribe this to the mind getting ahead of the fingers. Of course, it may also have something to do with the fact that I’m 40 years older now.
I use Firefox, which has a fine spell checker and catches most of my errors.
As in:
Stop threadening me you sew and sew!
?
I use Firefox and the spelling checker does help very often.
That being said, proofreading before hitting send has caught more errors than anything.
Always double-check your work.
Butt aye no ewe new this.
For some reason, my checking works much better immediately AFTER I publish an article than before. That’s why it’s not unusual for there to be 3-4 versions in the first few minutes of an article’s life.
The tendency for spell checkers to suggest or substitute an inappropriate word hs been called the Cupertino Effect.
Wikipedia says:
Oh, and egh, that chestnut about the soul weighing 21g is debunked by Snopes.