In many ways, this post is simply me acknowledging a glaring demerit.
When I’m writing a blog post, e-mail, or work document I often – OFTEN! – don’t consult the spellcheck. A phrase or word might have a red or blue underline and I’ll just breeze right on by.
Why do I do this? An incredible tool is at my fingertips and I forget/neglect to use it.
Some of this is desensitization; I’m so accustomed to spellcheck and grammar correction that I don’t pay as much attention to the warning signs as I would have in the past.
But this is a big – and preventable – oversight.
Hopefully writing about it here will inspire me to pay closer attention to the tools at my disposal, especially ones that help me write gooder*.
*Okay, I did THAT on purpose 🙂 *
Your turn. What tool/resource are you underutilizing?
Header photo by Foad Roshan on Unsplash
J
Do you have a Canadian option on your spellcheck? Seems like you would. My company has clients all over the world and we tailor our content to them as much as we can. So to an American, spelling the word ‘favour’ instead of ‘favor’ will put the line there for me. I tend to ignore it too often for this reason, assuming it is just a spelling difference, not incorrect. That has bitten me a few times.
Elisabeth
I do (and have it on Word), but not in things like WordPress and I think that IS part of my issue. So I get red lines for favourite…BUT THAT’S HOW WE WRITE THINGS IN CANADA. (I really do love the “u’s”).
My husband is great about spelling for the preference, but I tend to spell it the way I know it (again, things like favourite and neighbour).
Tobia | craftaliciousme
Oh my gosh. So guilty.
Sometimes I read through posted comments or old blogposts and I am so so embarrassed for all the typos and laziness. Even me telling myself it is a second language does not cover the amount of typos. But I am so lazy.
Definitely one of the downsides of AI that I don’t even try to type a word correctly because I know the system will pick it up or I can do the spell check later. Doe I do it?
Well, good reminder. I try to be more mindful but maybe I start that in December and not in November where I have a lot of writing to crank out.
Jenny
Well, I never notice any mistakes or misspelled words in your blog posts. But I know what you mean- I will also sometimes breeze right by an underlined word and not notice it- how is that possible? Sometimes I’ll read back on old posts and CRINGE- how did I not see that??? Okay, thanks for the reminder- onw of my goals for NaBloPoMo will be to USE THE SPELLCHECK.
Elisabeth
So I wrote that post a few days ago and definitely haven’t payed attention to the spellcheck since. Sigh. The lesson here is I learn nothing, apparently?!
Beckett @ Birchwood Pie
I had a boss once who was a stickler for spell check – for Excel. Yes us accountants do most of our work in Excel but we never think to use spell check there. It was a good lesson to learn. I have the spell check setup as a shortcut on all my Office apps so that the button is always at the top of my screen no matter what menu I’m in.
I’m a bit sloppier on the blog. I’d say it’s because my goal is just to write without slowing myself down, but yes I could use improvement. I do cringe when I read my old posts and find editing errors – repeated words, missing words beyond what spell check can catch.
sarah
Same same same same same.
Grateful Kae
Wait, you blow past the squiggly red underline?! I- the person who can perfectly ignore the little bubble that shows I have 125 new emails or 5 voicemails I never listened to- somehow CANNOT ignore the spellcheck underline! I think it may be because spelling is kind of a pet peeve of mine. I get like a visceral reaction to misspelled words. Haha! So if I hit a typo or misspell something, I definitely immediately correct.
Elisabeth
I blow RIGHT by it. But I CANNOT have an unread text or e-mail. *shrug*
We all have our thing, I guess 🙂
Kate
Ha! I have caught some glaring typos in printed materials sometimes and it makes me wonder how in the world that got past the publisher’s spellcheck. But it’s so interesting to me how our eyes skim and miss details like that in certain types of print or media, and other times we catch them easily. Whenever I proofread a blog post, I catch far more errors if I click to preview the post, rather than re-reading it on the editing page.
I don’t think I’ve actually run the spellcheck function manually on a document for years (mostly did that for school papers), but I do pay attention to the red line when it appears as I type.
San
I also proofread in preview mode – I catch errors much more easily there than in edit mode!
Elisabeth
Yes! I also find it easier to proofread in preview…sometimes I just get too lazy to take that extra step. Sigh.
I notice more and more typos in major news publications (including BBC, which I read daily). I think because we, in general, are producing a much higher volume of written material, we have a higher threshold for errors?
Lisa’s Yarns
Outlook at work sort of auto spellchecks out messages so that can really help. It also will tell you that you forgot an attachment if you mentioned attaching something in the body of the email!
Elisabeth
Yes, that “you may have forgotten to add an attachment” reminder is SO helpful.
Anne
I confess, I am a stickler for spelling and grammar. It leads to some fairly stilted emails, even with close colleagues. I also draft many emails without the recipient in the “To” field, because I spend so much (ahem, probably too much) time refining them. I blame my mother the English major for this tendency. 😉
Elisabeth
I draft e-mails without adding in the address as well; it prevents sending something too early by mistake!
Anne
I confess, I am a stickler for the spelling/grammar corrections. I spend an inordinate amount of time crafting documents, emails, etc. And for this, I blame my English major mother. 😉
San
I am with Kae, I always pay attention to the squiggly red lines… my problem is that I have a) spell check for two languages activated, and sometimes the computer needs to figure out in what language I am writing first (making false suggestions in the process, ha) and b) sometimes the computer makes suggestions that I know are wrong and then I spend time figuring out if I am, in fact, right. LOL
A tool I underutilize? Calculators. I first try to solve the math problem in my head. Is that good or bad?
Elisabeth
I’m so bad at math – last night I actually had a dream I was in a grade 2 class with L and I was failing a math exam! Those questions were HARD…haha! So I think you get gold stars for doing any math in your head; I have the opposite problem.
ccr in MA
Oh, as an editor I am baffled by how many people ignore spellcheck! Or, also baffling, they will “hide” spelling errors in a report. Like, I know your writing includes company names and drug names and things that spellcheck will flag (until you add them to your dictionary, ahem), but do you not want to know when you typed Chininese there? Spellcheck is trying to help you! Let it help!
Ahem. Off my soapbox. Of course I make mistakes too. I promise I’m much less judgy of typos in blog posts or emails. But I usually notice them–it’s how I’m wired.
Ernie
I cannot ignore spellcheck – that red line SPEAKS to me. My laptop no longer offers spellcheck. I have no idea what happened, but it drives me crazy. It’s embarrassing, because I sometimes comment from my laptop and I’m certainly making spelling errors. If I want to be sure things are spelled right, I have to use my desktop – but that’s farther from my daycare kids, who hang in the family room.
Kyria @ Travel Spot
I have spellcheck turned on for my Outlook so that it checks before sending and I definitely do NOT ignore the red line. However, I have been known to say there instead of their or they’re, not because I do not know the grammar, but because my fingers move faster than my brain sometimes, and then spellcheck does not catch that (although the grammar functions are getting much better now).
My company is Swiss and for some reason no matter how many times I change my spell check to English it keeps reverting to German, so I have to be very careful before sending out emails to clients as I may have all kinds of gobbledygook in there without even knowing!
Also YES to the Excel comment above. It does not automatically check spelling and I have definitely had some typos in charts and things that I have had to correct later on!
Meike
So guilty. I usually have the spellcheck on but I should double read more often to make sure I don’t double up. Time is so short these last couple of days that I am trying not to overthink it…
Elaine
I must admit I definitely underuse my microwave. 🙂
Elisabeth
Well I’ll gladly take your microwave and install one in the basement for my Magic Bags!