Should spell checkers be mandatory ?

[Odsox]

For the sake of my sanity.
I admit to being a bit anal about it, but misspelled words just jump off the screen and invade what little brain I have left.
And that doesn't include grammar that is guaranteed to give me a migraine.
But then I was educated a long long time ago when things like that were important, so I blame all my school masters for my "condition"

[Maykal]

*schoolmaster

[Odsox]

Sorry

[Maykal]

:)

That's the problem with spell checkers; they won't pick up on a lot of mistakes.

[Odsox]

You're right, but in my defence "school masters" doesn't jump off the screen quite like "skool marsters" does.

[boboff]

I wish IE would put one on, I used to use Mozilla as they had one, but it kept crashing the system.

Sorry.

[Rosendula]

I don't have a problem with people who know their spelling is bad and try to improve it (like Boboff). After all, nobody can be good at everything. It's the people who don't appear to be trying to do anything about it that drive me nuts, especially when their spelling is so bad it makes reading their posts difficult at best. Spell checkers don't pick up on everything, but they do pick up on a lot and I think many of us would feel much more relaxed if some certain people would use them. So, YES! Spell checkers should be mandatory, and the internet should be outlawed for anyone refusing to use them!

[oldfella]

Yus, I's age wif efer fing you's all says

oLdfilla

[Maykal]

You have to be a little careful before criticising. There are people who frequent forums who may suffer from dyslexia, be visually impaired, may not be native speakers of English, and so on. Also, some people may be offering a useful reply to a question but be typing on a 'phone or some other small fiddly little mobile device.

[boboff]

Indeed, I have been looking at the access to this forum, and the ramps are a bit steep also.

[Odsox]

You have to be a little careful before criticising. There are people who frequent forums who may suffer from dyslexia, be visually impaired, may not be native speakers of English, and so on. Also, some people may be offering a useful reply to a question but be typing on a 'phone or some other small fiddly little mobile device.

I accept that, but surely that's what spell checkers are for ... NOT for people who can speak and write perfect English.
As for phones, all the ones I've had recently have fairly good predictive text input which makes it extremely difficult to spell a word incorrectly, the wrong word yes but misspelled difficult.

[Green Aura]

I agree totally.

Academia must wince every time work is handed in with words like "untamate" cropping up fairly regularly.

I'm not sure how a spell checker would deal with that tasty morsel though.

[MKG]

OK, GA, I surrender.

What is "untamate" supposed to be?

Mike

[Green Aura]

No idea Mike but it has graced our pages quite a few times.

Actually I'm fibbing - the context in which it was used suggested that ultimate was the intended word.

[MKG]

Ah - a bit like "bestest", then.

Mike