What's wrong with a spell checker?
By DARSHANIE PREMATILAKE
Nothing, as long as you know your spellings!
When we start writing in English, sometimes we come across words that pronounce same but have different spellings. They give a different meaning too. These words are called as heterographs.
For example, look at these words: ‘weather’ and ‘whether’.
Weather describes the 'climate' while whether is ‘expressing a doubt’. They are entirely different words though their pronunciation is same. Yet how many people make the mistake of confusing these two words in their writing!
Now, look at these words. Do you know how to apply them correctly in your writing?
Dessert / Desert
Dessert: pudding, sweet course
Desert: arid region, abandon
Stationery / Stationary
Stationery: writing material
Stationary: immobile, standing in one place
Advise / Advice
Advise: instruct, guide
Advice: instructions, guidance
Compliment / Complement
Compliment: praise, approve
Complement: match, supplement
Elicit / Illicit
Elicit: stimulate, produce
Illicit: illegal, forbidden
Site / Cite
Site: place, location
Cite: quote, reference
And many more; too / two, male / mail, hear / here, genes / jeans, there / their,
no / know, rice / rise, right / write, plain / plane, form / foam, course / coarse …
As you can see, the difference of a letter or two gives an entirely different meaning to a word.
A spell checker is a great asset to a writer. It helps to identify misspelt words in a document easily and quickly. But a writer should NOT wholly depend on a spell checker as the spell checker is programmed to identify the misspelt words and the above words are not misspelt!
So when you write, ‘all the guests complemented Amanda for her pineapple desert’, spell checker keeps silent! But check each word with a dictionary and see how wrong and meaningless the entire sentence is!
It should be ‘all the guests complimented Amanda for her pineapple dessert’.
So when you write in English, pay particular attention to spellings in your document. Don’t be lazy; use a dictionary to check the tricky words to make your writing perfect.
Or, get a freelance copy editor to do it for you!
Links: http://dictionary.cambridge.org
“What a comfort a Dictionary is …!”
Lewis Carroll (1832 – 1898)
When we start writing in English, sometimes we come across words that pronounce same but have different spellings. They give a different meaning too. These words are called as heterographs.
For example, look at these words: ‘weather’ and ‘whether’.
Weather describes the 'climate' while whether is ‘expressing a doubt’. They are entirely different words though their pronunciation is same. Yet how many people make the mistake of confusing these two words in their writing!
Now, look at these words. Do you know how to apply them correctly in your writing?
Dessert / Desert
Dessert: pudding, sweet course
Desert: arid region, abandon
Stationery / Stationary
Stationery: writing material
Stationary: immobile, standing in one place
Advise / Advice
Advise: instruct, guide
Advice: instructions, guidance
Compliment / Complement
Compliment: praise, approve
Complement: match, supplement
Elicit / Illicit
Elicit: stimulate, produce
Illicit: illegal, forbidden
Site / Cite
Site: place, location
Cite: quote, reference
And many more; too / two, male / mail, hear / here, genes / jeans, there / their,
no / know, rice / rise, right / write, plain / plane, form / foam, course / coarse …
As you can see, the difference of a letter or two gives an entirely different meaning to a word.
A spell checker is a great asset to a writer. It helps to identify misspelt words in a document easily and quickly. But a writer should NOT wholly depend on a spell checker as the spell checker is programmed to identify the misspelt words and the above words are not misspelt!
So when you write, ‘all the guests complemented Amanda for her pineapple desert’, spell checker keeps silent! But check each word with a dictionary and see how wrong and meaningless the entire sentence is!
It should be ‘all the guests complimented Amanda for her pineapple dessert’.
So when you write in English, pay particular attention to spellings in your document. Don’t be lazy; use a dictionary to check the tricky words to make your writing perfect.
Or, get a freelance copy editor to do it for you!
Links: http://dictionary.cambridge.org
“What a comfort a Dictionary is …!”
Lewis Carroll (1832 – 1898)
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