On 08/04/00 Sam Heywood wrote:
>Spell checkers are nice-to-have features. Looking up words in dictionaries
>can be slow. Another nice thing about spell-checkers is that they will
>usually catch a typo error. It is very important in a mailing list like
>this to pay very close attention to your spelling because there are many
>list members whose primary language is not English. When they should
>encounter a word that they can't find in a dictionary, they will write back
>to inquire about it's meaning. Of course it is most embarrassing to have
>to explain to everybody that you have made a spelling mistake that you could
>have easily avoided if you had used a spell-checker.
-- Sorry Sam, time to pounce. Please grab the nearest teacher of English
and get him/her to tell you what's wrong with >to inquire about it's meaning.
Clue: the apostrophe has been included incorrectly.
-- This error seems very common among American non-professional writers.
My first acquaintances with the shareware concept left me wondering how
good the software could possibly be when its documentation was filled with
such elementary errors.
-- Of course, email has laid me open to a deluge of this pollution, and you'll
be glad to hear I'm far more tolerant these days, though still appalled at
the atrocious spelling emanating from senior employees of major British
companies. Common errors are "loose" for "lose" and "there" for "their".
-- I'm not too much of a pompous old git (eh, YoYo?) to use Americanized
spellings in the appropriate context. Gawdelpme, you'll be looking for my
slip-ups now!
All the best,
Jake
