Why Spell Checkers Can't Always be Relied Upon.
These days a lot of written work is done on computers. Spelling, autocorrect and grammar checkers are convenient to turn to, but it wouldn't be good advice to rely solely upon them and neglect your proof reading. The reason for this is that you might have spelt a word incorrectly, but because that word is actually a word, the spell checker won't pick up on it. Confused? Let me explain a bit more.
Have you ever heard this poem?
Or whether the weather be not,
Whether the weather be cold
Or whether the weather be hot,
We'll weather the weather
Whatever the weather,
Whether we like it or not.
Hopefully this gives you an idea what I'm talking about. The spoken word sounds the same, but depending on how it's used, you should recognise which one is meant; at least most of the time. When it’s written down it should hopefully be even clearer which one is meant, as long as the correct spelling is used. However, just to confuse things a little more there is yet another correct spelling of this word and that is “wether”. So let's just get the meanings for each of these spellings:
Weather - noun this is what is happening outside; rainy, sunny, windy etc.
Whether - conjunction indicates indecision or choices
Wether – noun a castrated ram (male sheep) or billy (male goat)
I'd say the most commonly used ones will be the first two and they are often confused. We can use techniques to help us remember which spelling is correct though. I like to try and make connections with what they are about. For example you might remember “weather” by thinking that it starts with “we” just like “wet” giving us “wet weather”. Or maybe you could think of it as: the wEATher helps to grow the food we EAT. Once you are confident you can remember the spelling of one, then the other is just what is left over, but there's no harm in finding techniques for the other spellings too.
Can you think of a way to remember how to get the right spelling for “whether” or even “wether”?
Let's look at some more words that are commonly confused and a spell checker won't pick up on:
Accept and except
Despite sounding very similar, these words are practically opposite in their meanings. “Accept” means to take on or include, whereas “except” is more like excluding, disallowing or refusing. One way to remember how each word is used might be to think of “ex”. “Ex” means no longer, so it could be a way to highlight the negative in “except”.
Try thinking of a sentence which includes these words.
Affect and effect
Now, these words are actually similar in meaning. “Affect” is the action of influencing something, whereas “effect” tends to be the result of what has been done. So “affect” is the verb and “effect” is usually the noun. Just to confuse things a little more, there are some ways where “effect” can be used as a verb. I don't think I could explain in as well as this article, so I highly recommend it.
So how might you remember which word to use when? One way might be to think of Affect always being the Action word, whereas Effect is the Evil, tricky one!
One word or two?
Should it be written as “a part“, two words, or “apart”, one word? Well that depends on what you want it to mean.
Something I've seen confused a lot lately is the use of “apart” when someone is feeling like they are “a part” of something special. The word “apart” actually has a meaning that is the opposite of the inclusion that being “a part” of something makes us feel. “Apart” means to separate, to pull away from each other, to tear “apart”.
Again this is something a spell checker won't help you with, because they are both spelt correctly, so you have to decide for yourself if you are using them correctly.
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What an amazingly awesome article.
Why, thank you. 😊
Don't get me started. You're a person who has your head screwed on too. Is it too much to ask that people do not get the two confused?
And nothing is the exact same as something else. It might be exactly the same, but never the exact bloody same.
I would have gotten the cane for some of the grammar that is in common usage today.
And don't you dare try to help someone on their grammar today! It surprises me how many people get nasty when someone points out a grammatical error in their work.
You might appreciate this anecdote. I was filling in an application form to enter my daughters into a competition. Underneath the payment part it stated, "entries without payment will not be excepted." I could have had so much fun with that!
Hahahaha. You should have just submitted it and refused to pay ;)
It was tempting, but a long way to the comp, so I didn't want to risk them being disappointed.
Always the way. How did they do?
They both came second!
Really good article @life-relearnt. I hope you don't mind but I picked up on a typo and wanted to point it out as it's a good idea to not have any typos in a post about grammar. Oh no, here come the grammar police 😉
I think you need a 'to' between the second and third word in the paragraph highlighted above. Regardless of that this is a really great post about a subject which needs more attention in this social media, word shortening obsessed world of ours. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Thank you. I appreciate you picking that up. Sometimes when you proof read your own work you know what you meant it to say, so your brain puts it in for you! 😅 I usually try to get someone else to read it through before posting to pick up on those things.
Your turn now! 😉
PS: you've just highlighted another thing spell checkers don't pick up on! Although a grammar checker might have helped me with that one...
Ha ha, touché! I corrected that just before I left the comment thread. Hmnnn steemit must be playing up... either that or I'm a big fat liar 😉 I'm only joking, I just corrected it now.
I know what you mean about proofreading and I'm glad you took the comment in the constructive way it was meant. I have my work proofread a lot of the time also as I find that I get blind to my own work when I can proofread other peoples with certainty. It's a strange thing.
I'll even advice peoplenot to get too reliant on them, we may ultimately lose our unique ability to form beautiful sentences or phrases
Good advice. Write first, then use them for a quick check through. They can even mark correctly spelt words as wrong if it's not been programmed in.
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While spell checkers can be incredibly helpful tools in catching and correcting spelling errors, they can't always be relied upon to catch every mistake. Spell checkers are computer programs designed to flag potential spelling errors based on a database of correctly spelled words, but they can't always account for context, homophones, or commonly misspelled words. Additionally, 맞춤법 검사기 may not recognize proper nouns, technical terms, or words that are spelled correctly but used incorrectly in a given context. Therefore, it's important to use spell checkers as a helpful tool, but also to proofread and double-check all written work for accuracy and clarity.