On Mon, 10 Apr 2000 05:13:59 -0400 (EDT), Thomas Mueller wrote in response
to what I had written:
>> 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.
> What about when the spelling mistake is a different word, like "loose" for
> "lose", "thief" for "their", "indent" for "intend", "inflationary" for
> "inflammatory", "dis" for "did"? All except the first of these are actual
> examples from one person in newsgroup alt.support.asthma who uses a spell
> checker. Maybe a Freudian slip? No doubt a lot of us would wish an
> anti-inflationary medication for the real eatate business.
Spell-checkers are designed to determine whether a word is in its
dictionary. As such, they perform that function most excellently.
Spell-checkers are not programmed to determine whether a word is
correctly used. We cannot program a computer to be accurate in all
cases to decide whether a word is correctly used. There aren't any
computer programmers who always use words correctly. Furthermore,
there aren't even any professors of linguistics who always use words
correctly. If we should expect a mere computer to make decisions
that we ourselves are incapable of making, then we cease to be known
to the computer as intelligent beings.
Regards,
Sam Heywood
-- This mail was written by user of Arachne, the Ultimate Internet Client
