Comments on: Spell Checking Is No Replacement for a Good Proofer

By: gabriel

gabriel — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 19:09:59 +0000

I find that Indesign often flags words that are definitely spelled properly, most recently it was the word “conflate” which for some reason it couldn’t id as a real word. Does anyone know of a more rigorous spell checking plug-in?

By: David Blatner

David Blatner — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:31:47 +0000

Contextual spelling (and grammar) would be great to have in InDesign! Thanks for sharing that info.

By: Adam Twardoch

Adam Twardoch — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 13:42:07 +0000

Microsoft Word 2007 includes a contextual speller for English, Spanish and German. It’s not perfect but it will catch situations such as “Can I fine a good example to show you?”

http://tinyurl.com/ct38mt

By: Jennie

Jennie — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 18:21:02 +0000

It’s ok Kriss. If it hadn’t been for someone glancing at a job, I would have been the typesetter for Frederick County Pubic Schools. It would have been ugly, very, very ugly!

By: Kriss Laber

Kriss Laber — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:30:37 +0000

I once misspelled Virginia in a return address. Pagemaker’s spell check capitalized vagina, so I chose the only capitalized word in the list. The realtor I was working for mailed out 300 postcards with Vagina Beach, VA.

By: Jennie

Jennie — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:34:33 +0000

This has been one of my soapbox topics for many years. I dug through my files (I don’t throw anything away) and came up with the following two gems.

OUTFOXING
THE
SPELLING CHECKER

They’re know miss steaks inn this bull eaten bee cause wee used special soft wear witch checks yore spelling. It is mower or lass a weigh too verify. How ever it can knot correct arrows in punctuation ore usage: an it will not fine words witch are miss used butt spelled rite. Four example; a paragraph could have mini flaws but wood bee past buy the spell checker. And it wont catch the sentence fragment that you. Their fore, the massage is that proofreading is knot eliminated, it is still berry much reek wired.

ODE TO A SPELL CHECKER

I have a spelling checker
I disk covered four my PC.
It plan lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot see.

Eye ran this poem threw it.
Your sure real glad two no.
Its very polished in its weigh,
My checker tolled me sew.

A checker is a blessing.
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when aye rime.

Each frays comes posed up on my screen
Eye trussed too bee a joule.
The checker pours o’er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.

Bee fore wee rote with checkers
Hour spelling was inn deck line,
Butt now when wee dew have a laps,
Wee are not maid too wine.

And now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flare,
There are know faults in awl this peace,
Of nun eye am a wear.

To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should be proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaws are knot aloud.

That’s why eye brake in two averse
Caws Eye dew want too please.
Sow glad eye yam that aye did bye
This soft wear four pea seas.

*******

I think these prove the point rather well!

By: David Blatner

David Blatner — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:29:35 +0000

@Darren: I don’t get it. Does “Balti” mean something? Oh, one quick search means a Pakistani food. I’ve not heard that term before.

By: Eugene

Eugene — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:14:22 +0000

@Darren

I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. That is hilariously embarrassing mistake.

By: Darren Ketteringham

Darren Ketteringham — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 12:46:12 +0000

This story is one of those examples where the stars all align and everything comes together to produce not just a simple mistake, but a ‘howler’. Almost the worst possible word substitution.

I worked on a magazine called ‘The Baltic’ (Shipping Trade Mag for the Baltic Exchange). One month there was an ‘Indian Shipping Special’, the designer placed an image with a clipping path on the front cover and the runaround knocked the ‘c’ off of the end of the masthead. This resulted in an Indian Shipping special edition of ‘The Balti’. No amount of persuasion would convince management that this was not deliberate. Red faces all around that day.

By: Roland

Roland — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 06:52:41 +0000

Editing, proof-reading by only the writers and tight deadlines are the main reasons I occasionally end up with errors in my files. It bugs the sh.. out of me when there’s a typo in the final print that the client put in their Word file, and they then try to blame me for it while they got two or more proofs, got told to let someone “fresh” do the proof-reading, and signed off on it.